On Wednesday, Substack announced a Home experience redesign for its mobile app to improve discovery and engagement. A new top-of-screen reading queue makes it easier to swipe right between posts in the app. The queue lets you quickly share posts in a note or on other social media platforms. The …
Read More »X launches government ID account verification
For paid users, X, formerly Twitter, has implemented government ID-based account verification to prevent impersonation and provide “prioritized support.” Social media partner Au10tix provides identity verification solutions from Israel. The ID verification pop-up says the Au10tix can store this data for 30 days. X’s verification support page says ID verification …
Read More »Arm after the IPO
Arm EVP and Chief Commercial Officer Will Abbey told me this morning, minutes before the chip designer’s stock started trading on Nasdaq, that “AI, I believe, is the growth of Arm.” You may not think of AI when you hear about Arm, but Abbey immediately thought of it when I …
Read More »The iPhone 15’s smart camera makes it a refined flagship
I got to try the iPhone 15 at Apple’s fall event today. It didn’t have the iPhone 15 Pro’s titanium, but it did get softer, more rounded edges and the Dynamic Island for the first time. The iPhone 15 looks great. Apple explained its material science magic in the new …
Read More »TikTok Shop launches in America
After months of testing, TikTok Shop launched in the U.S., where it has over 150 million users. The rollout includes a dedicated shop tab on the home screen, live video shopping, shoppable ads, and creator affiliate programs. TikTok began testing its U.S. e-commerce initiative last November. Over the last few …
Read More »AuthMind secures identity seed funding. SecOps platform
AuthMind, a Maryland startup that protects businesses from identity-related cyberattacks, raised $8.5 million in a seed round led by Ballistic Ventures and IBM Ventures. CEO Shlomi Yanai and CTO Ankur Panchbudhe founded the company. They founded and sold several security startups before launching AuthMind in 2020. AuthMind is their attempt …
Read More »Former Twitter X caught running unlabeled ads in Following feeds
Confirmed that X, formerly Twitter, was running unlabeled ads in users’ Following feeds. On a Mac using Chrome, we saw a few unlabeled ads among posts from people we follow, as well as ads that displayed the “Ad” label at the top right. Many of X’s ads are labeled, making …
Read More »Updated interior seen in Cybertruck
The summer of 2023 is almost over, and we have no Cybertruck. But a serendipitous visit to a San Francisco parking lot yielded new images of the unreleased polygonal electric truck. Tesla watchers The Kilowatts posted new interior photos of Elon Musk’s Cybertruck. Fingerprints? On this blocky buggy’s exterior? Fingerprints. …
Read More »Musk limited Ukraine’s Starlink to prevent Russia attack
Elon Musk said he canceled a Ukrainian military strike on Russia by refusing to use Starlink. The billionaire claims the decision was made to avoid being “complicit in a major act of war,” but it raises serious questions about oligarchs’ military roles. CNN reported it, citing Walter Isaacson’s upcoming Musk …
Read More »Artists sign open letter saying generative AI is good, actually
Artists will be among the many groups affected by AI in the coming years, but not everyone. A group of artists wrote an open letter to Congress arguing that generative AI isn’t bad and that the creative community should be involved in regulating and defining the technology. The full letter …
Read More »