TikTok is testing a new in-app tipping feature on its platform that would allow creators to accept money from fans outside of TikTok LIVE streams, where gifting is already supported. The company confirmed the feature is part of a limited test for the time being and is not yet broadly available. TikTok creator Jera Bean […]
Mark Zuckerberg takes thinly veiled shots at Apple for ‘stifling innovation’ via its platform policies
Facebook (aka “Meta”) CEO Mark Zuckerberg today took several thinly veiled shots at Apple and the overall app ecosystem when detailing his plans for the metaverse during today’s keynote speech at the company’s Facebook Connect 2021 event. Specifically, he called out app platforms and their associated fees for “stifling innovation,” while simultaneously justifying Facebook’s plans […]
Facebook changes its corporate branding to Meta
Well, it’s official. After 17 years of being called Facebook, the social networking parent company behind Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus has a new name. Facebook’s corporate entity is now Meta. Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg announced the change at the company’s AR/VR-focused Connect event, sharing that the new title captured more of the company’s core […]
Zuckerberg on the Quest 2 as a fitness device — ‘It’s kind of like a Peloton’
Facebook wants the Quest 2 to be known as more than a game console for your face. At the company’s Facebook Connect developer conference, CEO Mark Zuckerberg highlighted the company’s efforts to make the Quest a fitness platform for third-party apps like Supernatural and FitXR. He compared it directly to the Peloton as a connected […]
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is in development for Oculus Quest 2
During its big VR and AR-focused event Thursday, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a major new title headed to its VR platform that should turn a few heads. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is on the way to the Oculus Quest 2. San Andreas is Rockstar’s well-loved 2004 entry into the hit GTA […]
Google announces Android 12L, a feature drop for large-screen devices
Google today announced a preview of Android 12L, which may sound like a new version of Android, but Google calls it “a special feature drop that makes Android 12 even better on large screens.” The idea here is to provide users on tablets, foldables and Chrome OS laptops — anything with a screen above 600 […]
Attest raises $60M to expand its no-code approach to research-surveys-as-a-service, which taps 110M consumers in 49 countries
Surveys have long been used by marketing teams and other business decision makers to learn how customers tick. But they can be costly to put together, hard to run at scale, and, at the end of the day, are only as credible as the data that gets put into them. Today, a London startup called […]
YouTube and Snapchat were asked to defend their apps’ age ratings in Senate hearing
YouTube and Snapchat were asked by lawmakers to defend whether or not their respective social media apps were appropriately rated on the U.S. app stores, given the nature of the content they hosted. In a line of questioning led by Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), Snap was given specific examples of the types of content found […]
TikTok dodges questions about biometric data collection in Senate hearing
In its first-ever Congressional hearing, TikTok successfully dodged questions about what it plans to do with the biometric data its privacy policy permits it to collect on the app’s U.S. users. In an update to the company’s U.S. privacy policy in June, TikTok added a new section that noted the app “may collect biometric identifiers […]
Vercel brings new dynamic features to its Next.js framework
Vercel, the well-funded company behind the popular Next.js React framework, today announced the launch of Next.js 12 during a keynote at its annual conference. While Next.js, by default, mostly focuses on helping developers build static sites, Next.js 12 introduces what Vercel calls ‘middleware’ that makes it easier for developers to provide users with personalized content. […]