News

A rewards app and social network called Claim raised $4 million in seed funding with Sequoia Capital as the lead investor. The startup wants to make shopping fun, rewarding, and social. With an invite-only beta launch in January, the app targets Boston college and university students. Claim lets friends and …

Rite Aid was banned from using facial recognition software for five years by the FTC for its “reckless use of facial surveillance systems” that humiliated customers and put their “sensitive information at risk.” After Rite Aid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October, the FTC ordered Rite Aid to delete …

Bird filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, ending a rough year for the electric scooter company. Bird announced today that it had begun a “financial restructuring process aimed at strengthening its balance sheet” but would continue to pursue “long-term, sustainable growth.” Bird, founded in 2017 by former Lyft and Uber executive …

Spotify reconsidered leaving Uruguay after the government promised copyright law changes would not cost it. For those unfamiliar with Uruguay’s music streaming scene, the story went like this. Last October, Uruguay mandated “fair and equitable” artist pay. Besides the “featured” artist, this included composers, performers, session musicians, and others on …

Instagram announced Wednesday that users can post video notes. Instagram’s status feature, Notes, launched a year ago. You could only post text or emojis to your status update before. A two-second looping video note can now be shared with mutual followers or close friends for 24 hours. Since Instagram already …

Duet AI for Developers, the suite of AI-powered code completion and generation tools Google announced earlier this year, is now generally available and will start using Google’s more powerful Gemini model in the coming weeks. GitHub’s Copilot leads in developer mindshare for code completion and generation tools, but Google is …

Google is making Imagen 2, its AI model that can create and edit images with a text prompt, more widely available to Google Cloud customers using Vertex AI who have been approved. The company isn’t disclosing which data it used to train the new model or offering creators who accidentally …

Last week, Google announced its family of Gemini models and added them to its Bard chatbot. Today, it’s launching a variety of new and updated services for developers. One of these services is AI Studio, formerly MakerSuite. AI Studio is a web-based tool for developers that opens up the Gemini …

Instagram is considering a new feature called “flipside” that lets users create a private side of their profile to post more candid and personal photos for a select group of friends. The feature productizes “finstas”—alternative Instagram accounts where people post their real-life photos instead of their polished public Instagrams. The …

Snapchat announced Tuesday that Snapchat+ subscribers will get some AI-powered features. Most importantly, subscribers can send text-prompted, AI-generated images. In addition to a new AI extend tool, subscribers can now share Dream selfies with friends. Subscribers can use the AI image generator by clicking “AI” on the right. After clicking …