• Instagram code reveals unreleased voice and video calling

    Instagram code reveals unreleased voice and video calling

    Instagram wants to be your phone, not just your camera. And it wants to be better at it than Snapchat. Files buried in Instagram and the Instagram Direct standalone app’s Android Application Packages (APKs) are files and icons for “Call” and “Video Call”. APKs often show files for unreleased features that are lying dormant in…

  • MIT study shows how much driving for Uber or Lyft sucks

    MIT study shows how much driving for Uber or Lyft sucks

    Ride-hailing giants Uber and Lyft are delivering pitiful levels of take-home pay to the hundreds of thousands of US independent contractors providing their own vehicles and driving skills to deliver the core service, according to an MIT CEEPR study examining the economics of the two app platforms. The report catalyses the debate about conditions for workers…

  • Micropodcasting? Facebook tries Voice Clip status updates

    Micropodcasting? Facebook tries Voice Clip status updates

    More intimate than text but easier to record than video, Facebook hopes voice could get people sharing more on its aging social network. And internationally, where users may have to deal with non-native language keyboards, voice lets them speak their mind without a typing barrier. Facebook is now testing Voice Clips as a status update…

  • Air’s app lets you record high-quality home movies without running out of space

    Air’s app lets you record high-quality home movies without running out of space

    These days, home movies aren’t recorded with handheld video cameras, but rather with our smartphones. Unfortunately, there’s a downside. Our iPhones default to lower quality video so recordings won’t eat up storage space; and while you can adjust that all the way to 4K on newer devices, that would drastically increase your storage consumption. You’d…

  • Snapchat is stuck in the uncanny valley of AR glasses

    Snapchat is stuck in the uncanny valley of AR glasses

    “Timing,” Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel said cryptically when asked what the greatest threat was for Snap Inc. “I think the big risks are always the really big product ideas that we’re investing in that are just hard to get right,” he told the Goldman Sachs conference two weeks ago. The statements got lost amongst flashier…

  • Waze Carpool’s new app lets riders get more choosy about their drivers

    Waze Carpool’s new app lets riders get more choosy about their drivers

    Waze’s carpooling app for commuters is relaunching with a number of new features designed to make it easier and safer to use. The company says it will now allow people to choose their shared rides, instead of being matched blindly. That means riders will be able to pick drivers based on things like star ratings, mutual…

  • Shape is an app to help you learn how to invest the ethical way

    Shape is an app to help you learn how to invest the ethical way

    Recently launched out of beta, U.K. startup Shape wants to create a more educational trading experience for a new generation of traders, including those who might be concerned with the ethical standards of the sectors or companies they back. The Shape iOS app assumes no or very little prior trading knowledge, and provides easy-to-follow information…

  • Amazon confirms that it has acquired GameSparks

    Amazon confirms that it has acquired GameSparks

    Ahead of GDC later this month, Amazon has confirmed an acquisition that speaks to its ambitions to do more in the area of gaming — and specifically through offering platform tools for the games developer community. The company has acquired UK- and Ireland-based cloud gaming platform GameSparks — a “backend as a service” for game developers…

  • Facebook swings at Twitter with Breaking News label

    Facebook swings at Twitter with Breaking News label

    Facebook’s algorithm is terrible at surfacing breaking news, often showing urgent posts hours or even days later when more facts have since emerged or the story has changed. This has made Twitter the default home for this content, but that position has weakened since Twitter implemented its own relevancy algorithm that brings up old tweets.…

  • Google Search comes to iMessage

    Google Search comes to iMessage

    Google Search is now available within iMessage. In an effort to more deeply integrate Google’s search engine on iOS devices, the company announced today that its Search app for iOS has added an iMessage extension, allowing iPhone and iPad users to search the web, then quickly add those search results to their iMessage conversations. The extension…