A milestone for Jolla, the Finnish startup behind the Sailfish OS — which formed, almost a decade ago, when a band of Nokia staffers left to keep the torch burning for a mobile linux-based alternative to Google’s Android — today it’s announcing hitting profitability. The mobile OS licensing startup describes 2020 as a “turning point” […]
This Week in Apps: OnlyFans bans sexual content, SharePlay delayed, TikTok questioned over biometric data collection
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices […]
Taking consumer subscription software to the great outdoors
Fitness and the outdoor passion space is one of the most exciting CSS categories in a growing landscape that includes everything from family planning to entertainment and education.
Samsung has its own AI-designed chip. Soon, others will too
Semiconductor software-design maker Synopsys is adding AI to its arsenal.
Is Apple’s image-scan plan a wise move or the start of a slippery slope? | John Naughton
The tech giant says its iCloud security update is designed to help weed out images of abuse their children, but activists have voiced concernsOnce upon a time, updates of computer operating systems were of interest only to geeks. No longer – at least i…
A simple software fix could limit location data sharing
With Pretty Good Phone Privacy, carriers wouldn’t always know where you are.
A new Senate bill would totally upend Apple and Google’s app store dominance
With two giants calling the shots and collecting whatever tolls they see fit, mobile software makers have long complained that app stores take an unfair cut of the cash that should be flowing directly to developers. Hearing those concerns, a group of senators introduced a new bill this week that, if passed, would greatly diminish […]
FEMA just tested the US national emergency alert system
Did you hear it? FEMA just ran its first nationwide test of the U.S. emergency alert system since the pandemic. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, tested both the Emergency Alert System (EAS), which broadcasts an emergency tone and message on televisions and radios, and the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA), a newer system that […]
Privacy-oriented search app Xayn raises $12M from Japanese backers to go into devices
Back in December 2020 we covered the launch of a new kind of smartphone app-based search engine, Xayn. “A search engine?!” I hear you say? Well, yes, because despite the convenience of modern search engines’ ability to tailor their search results to the individual, this user-tracking comes at the expense of privacy. This mass surveillance […]
Time to clip the wings of NSO and its Pegasus spyware | John Naughton
Now the reach of the Israeli firm’s smartphone-hacking software has been revealed, the US and Apple may take actionSee all the Guardian’s stories as part of the Pegasus project investigationWhat’s the most problematic tech company in the world? Faceboo…