China's new top paid app doesn't help you find a ride, order food, or socialize with friends. It just asks you whether you're alive.
The app, which translates to "Are You Dead Yet?" the presence of the "yet" suggests the developer probably isn't on the Bryan Johnson "don't die" train...yet) requires you to log in daily and click a button to show you're alive. Miss two days in a row and the app will notify your emergency contact. That's it. That's the app.
Apple today said it is putting six tools together under a single subscription called Apple Creator Studio. For $12.99 per month (or $129 annually), subscribers get:
Final Cut Pro (Mac and iPad) for editing video
Logic Pro (Mac and iPad), a digital audio workstation
Pixelmator Pro (Mac and iPad) to edit images
MainStage (Mac) to turn your computer into a musical instrument
Motion (Mac) to create video animation
Compressor (Mac) to transcode media files into other formats
Extra features on Keynote, Pages, Numbers and (soon) Freeform
Considering tools like Final Cut Pro only used to sell for a one-time purchase of $300 and then later on just iPad for $4.99/month, how does this deal look for consumers? Do the bundled items some of them video, some of them audio make sense together? And since Apple can offer it through its own App Store without charging itself commission, where can competitor products compete?
Disney just announced a licensing deal with OpenAI that will allow users of OpenAI s Sora to generate short videos of its characters.
Just in case you ve forgotten what s in Disney s IP library, it s way more than Mickey and Goofy. It spans Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and a bunch of other properties. Not everything is included in the deal, though. For example, you ll get the illustrated Tony Stark, not the Robert Downey Jr. version.
Bloomberg reported today that Meta (read: Facebook) is "considering potential budget cuts as high as 30% for the metaverse group next year." That's the same group behind the Quest VR headsets and the online VR game Horizon Worlds. During its annual budgeting sessions, CEO Mark Zuckerberg usually asks execs to identify 10% in cuts, but "the metaverse group was asked to cut deeper this year given that Meta has not seen the level of industry-wide competition over the technology that it once expected."
Now, we're old enough to remember when Zuckerberg went all in on the metaverse in 2021. He, uh, even changed the company's name.
For years, there s been one place where big-name tech products could enjoy a second life, albeit without most or all of the people that got them there: Bending Spoons.
The Italian company, which is valued at $11B and reports 300M+ monthly active users, acquired Eventbrite for $500M this week.
Chinese tech regulators won t let ByteDance use Nvidia s chips in its new data centers. The TikTok owner needs a lot of computing power to keep its 1 billion+ users watching lip-syncing videos. But Nvidia is a U.S. company, and China wants data centers made with homegrown chips. (Reuters)
Robotaxi company Waymo is expanding across California. Already active in SF, Silicon Valley, and LA, it now has a green light from California regulators to cruise into Napa, Sacramento, San Diego, and many of the bedroom communities surrounding those areas.
It s easy to see how Google Maps and Waze, both owned by Alphabet, will fit into the plans of a self-driving car company also owned by Alphabet. But as self-driving cars take off and vehicles become something of a third space, how might app usage change for passengers?
Will you still want to listen to a podcast if your hands are freed up? Would you rather have apps built into the center console? Or will it just be more of the same: scrolling Instagram and checking email on your phone until you arrive?
I have been using Duolingo for almost 3 years to learn a language, but I don't know anything at all.
Of course, I have some basic vocabulary from the vocabulary words, but it's not conversational level. I'm currently considering buying textbooks and workbooks.
On Wednesday, Apple announced three new products that look very much like three existing products: the iPad Pro, MacBook Pro, and Vision Pro. The big difference is what s inside: the company s new M5 chip.
Yesterday, in a few Reddit forums and generally from the discussions around me, I noticed that people are "tired" of office work.
Either too much routine or exaggerated demands on creativity and the like. Mostly, these are people who are paid well and can afford to "leave" their jobs to explore, relax, do something else.
SoundCloud went live 18 years ago as a launchpad for independent artists to share their music. Now, it s adding more tools for listeners to share what they re into.
The music streaming app, which ranks above streaming stalwarts Pandora and Apple Music in terms of monthly average users, introduced new social features on Thursday, including:
Feeling like your chatbot companion/friend/lover is making it hard to say goodbye? You re not imagining it.
A working paper from researchers at Harvard Business School found that when people tried to say goodbye, the top companion chatbot apps responded with emotional manipulation techniques 37% of the time.
Charlie (@cerwindcharlie)and I have been thinking a lot about what really matters when building a startup. And honestly, it all comes down to one thing:
Chipmaker Nvidia announced this week it will be investing up to $100 billion (with a B) in OpenAI to help it build out its computing power. This follows OpenAI s move earlier this month to buy $300B in computer power from Oracle.
