-
Facebook’s plan to unite AR, VR and News Feed with 3D posts
What if you could digitally sculpt a 3D object and share it on Facebook, play with it in virtual reality or insert it into your world with augmented reality? Facebook is polishing up stages one and two today after debuting posts of interactive 3D models in News Feed in October that you can move and…
-
Instagram Direct one-ups Snapchat with replay privacy controls
Messaging is the heart of Snapchat, so after cloning and augmenting Stories, Instagram is hoping to boost intimate usage of Direct with privacy controls not found elsewhere. Now when you send an ephemeral photo or video from the Instagram Direct camera, you can decide whether recipients can only view it once, replay it temporarily or…
-
Edtech company Kidaptive raises $19.1 million for its adaptive learning platform
Edtech startup Kidaptive, an adaptive-learning company that begin its life with a suite of curriculum-focused iPad games for kids, announced today it has closed on $19.1 million in Series C funding, in a round led by Formation 8 and Korean education company Woongjin ThinkBig. The investment follows a deal with Woongjin that will see Kidaptive powering…
-
Snapchat adds GIF stickers via Giphy, plus new Friends and Discover screen tabs
Snapchat is bringing one of the best recent features of Instagram Stories to its own app, with the ability to add GIF stickers from Giphy to your posts. This is a notable reversal of the typical pattern we’ve seen of Instagram cloning Snapchat features, but it’s a good one for users since GIF stickers for…
-
Nuance ends development of the Swype keyboard apps
The party is over for third party keyboards. But hey, it was fun while it lasted. Nuance, the company that acquired veteran swipe-to-type keyboard maker Swype — all the way back in 2011, shelling out a cool $100M — has ended development of its Swype+Dragon dictation Android and iOS apps. The news was reported earlier by…
-
Uber parks its service in Morocco
Uber is pulling the brakes on its service in Morocco, which will cease on February 23, as it waits (and hopes) for local regulators to accommodate app-based ride-hailing. The company announced the move on its country blog yesterday, writing that it has “not had any clarity” on how its service can be integrated into the…
-
How ad-free subscriptions could save Facebook
At the core of Facebook’s “well-being” problem is that its business is directly coupled with total time spent on its apps. The more hours you pass on the social network, the more ads you see and click, the more money it earns. That puts its plan to make using Facebook healthier at odds with its…
-
People are trolling iPhone users with the ‘killer symbol’ that crashes their apps
Surprise! Assorted jerks on the internet have weaponized the Unicode-based bug we reported yesterday to insta-crash apps running on an iPhone or a Mac. The result is somewhere between the old Alt + F4 trick and a script kiddie stunt, and it ranges from being annoying to rendering a device unusable, depending on the tenacity of…
-
Uber is reportedly preparing to sell its Southeast Asian business to Grab
Uber is preparing to sell its Southeast Asian business to Grab in exchange for a stake in the Singaporean ridesharing company that has a big presence in that region, according to a new report from CNBC. This wouldn’t be an unfamiliar story for Uber, which was handily beaten by Didi in China before eventually caving…
-
Under Russian pressure to remove content, Instagram complies but YouTube holds off
Instagram has taken down content posted by Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny under pressure from a government agency, while YouTube has yet to do so. Navalny and others have criticized Instagram for complying to what they call a politically motivated move to silence him. The issue is around a video accusing a Russian official, deputy…
