Sarah Perez
Reporter
The Latest from Sarah Perez
Instagram Threads missed a moment to shine, as OpenAI’s drama took place on X
Instagram Threads missed its moment to truly challenge X, this weekend’s OpenAI scandal indicates. Over the past few days, as news spread about the board’s decision to remove Sam Altman as
Advertiser exodus expected to deeply impact X ad revenue, analysis indicates
Even before major brands like Apple, Disney and IBM paused their ad spending on X in the wake of Elon Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic post, the company formerly known as Twitter had seen it
OpenAI’s leadership moves to Microsoft, propelling its stock up
Microsoft is the real winner of the OpenAI chaos that reigned over the weekend, and its rallying stock price is indicative of that. Upon the shocking news that OpenAI’s board had unexpectedly fi
This Week in Apps: Apple’s iPhone app of the year finalists, plus 7 hidden gems
Is the App Store still a source for new technology innovations or has AI development become the hotter new tech to build for these days? We pondered this question this week when Apple unveiled its iPh
Rooms, an interactive 3D space designer and ‘cozy game,’ arrives on the App Store
Cozy game, interior decorating app, learn-to-code primer or something in between, the interactive, 3D spaces builder known as Rooms has made its way to the App Store. The startup, which earlier raised
X rival Bluesky hits 2M users, says federation coming ‘early next year’
Bluesky, the company building a decentralized alternative to Twitter/X, announced today it has hit 2 million users — up by another million since September, despite remaining an invite-only app.
A Quibi-like app called ReelShort hit record downloads and revenue this month
Was Quibi a failure or just before its time? This month, a short-video app and Quibi-like entertainment service called ReelShort found its way to the top of the App Store, which led to the app gaining
Several popular AI products flagged as unsafe for kids by Common Sense Media
An independent review of popular AI tools has found that many — including Snapchat’s My AI, DALLE, and Stable Diffusion, may not be safe for kids. The new reviews come from Common Sense Me
Threads starts testing hashtags…without the hash
Instagram’s Threads app has been duping Twitter/X in a number of ways, and today it’s adding one more feature that’s been core to the Twitter experience for years: hashtags. Meta CEO
Instagram adds new features, including custom AI stickers, photo filters, a clip hub and more
Alongside a bevy of creator updates, Instagram is adding a new feature that will allow users to create custom stickers for their Reels and Stories using AI. Driven by Meta’s Segment Anything AI
Ads watchdog files FTC complaint against X, formerly Twitter, over unlabeled ads
X, formerly Twitter, was caught running unlabeled ads on its platform in September. Now that issue, which has been ongoing, has been brought to the FTC’s attention. An independent nonprofit Chec
Meta seeks legislation that would require parents to approve teens’ app downloads
Meta wants to shift the burden of monitoring social media usage among teens back to the app stores — and to parents. In a blog post published today, Meta’s global head of Safety, Antigone
Google Photos turns to AI to organize and categorize your photos for you
Google Photos is rolling out a set of new features today that will leverage AI technologies to better organize and categorize photos for you. With the addition of something called Photo Stacks, Google
Google overhauls Search with tools to follow interests, annotate web pages and more
There have been a growing number of complaints that Google Search is not as useful as it used to be. In fact, Google execs even admitted that young people are turning to services like TikTok and Insta
Online pet goods retailer Chewy lays off 200+ employees
Chewy, the online pet supplies company that sold to PetSmart in 2017 for $3.35 billion, but then split off a few years later, is the latest company to undergo layoffs, TechCrunch has learned. Accordin
Andreessen Horowitz backs Civitai, a generative AI content marketplace with millions of users
AI image generator Stable Diffusion already has a lot of fans, and now those experimenting with the new AI technology to develop their own models have a place to share their work with other enthusiast
YouTube adapts its policies for the coming surge of AI videos
YouTube today announced how it will approach handling AI-created content on its platform with a range of new policies surrounding responsible disclosure as well as new tools for requesting the removal
Venmo gets a new way to split expenses among groups
PayPal-owned Venmo is rolling out a new feature starting today that will allow its users to track and manage multiple expenses among groups — like families or roommates’ household expenses
TikTok’s newest feature lets you save favorite songs directly to Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music
TikTok is teaming up with streaming music services, including Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Music on a new feature that will allow users to save directly to their preferred streaming music app the s
Pebble, a startup that tried and failed to take on Twitter, finds new life on Mastodon
Pebble, a startup that took on Twitter and failed, has returned from the dead — as a Mastodon instance, it seems. The company announced last month that it was shutting down its Twitter/X alterna