TechCrunch – Page 19

YouTube is now cracking down on ad blockers globally | TechCrunch

YouTube is now cracking down on ad-blocker usage globally, by showing warnings about breaking the platform’s terms of service. In some cases, the company is preventing users from viewing more videos unless they disable ad blocks. The video streaming platform started experimenting in June, when it showed a message to users saying that the video player would be blocked after three videos if the ad blocker wasn’t disabled.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/01/youtube-is-now-cracking-down-on-ad-blockers-globally/

Tinder’s app gets more social by letting friends play matchmaker | TechCrunch

Dating app users will often sit with friends as they swipe through their matches in order to gain feedback, or even hand over their phone and let their friends swipe for them. Now, that real-life experience is becoming a part of Tinder’s product, as the company today is introducing a new feature called Tinder Matchmaker where users can invite their friends — including non-Tinder users — to view and suggest potential matches.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/23/tinders-app-gets-more-social-by-letting-friends-play-matchmaker/

Photon’s app for pro photographers lets you shoot and save to an external drive

Photon, an iOS app for pro photographers, is introducing a new feature that will allow iPhone 15 Pro users to save their photos directly to an external drive, freeing up valuable disk space on their device. The app, which hails from LateNightSoft, the makers of the popular consumer app Camera+, was launched this July to cater to a more professional audience with tools for adjusting focus, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, format and resolution, among other things.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/19/photons-app-for-pro-photographers-lets-you-shoot-and-save-to-an-external-drive/

YouTube debuts new playback controls and creator-focused features | TechCrunch

YouTube is rolling out a new set of features for better mobile-based playback, song search and creator-friendly tools, including a feature that will highlight the “like and subscribe” buttons when a creator utters those words. The company is making it easier for users to increase playback speed. With the new update, users can just tap and hold anywhere on the player to increase the speed to 2x, and once they reach the part they want they can let go.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/17/youtube-is-launching-new-playback-and-creator-focused-features/

Spotify is launching a personalized in-app Merch Hub | TechCrunch

Spotify is launching a dedicated in-app Merch Hub that provides personalized merch recommendations based on your listening habits, the company announced on Monday. Previously, you could purchase artist merch from individual artist profiles, the Now Playing view, and release pages. Now, you can access all artist merch in one dedicated place.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/16/spotify-launching-personalized-in-app-merch-hub/

Adobe Firefly’s generative AI models can now create vector graphics in Illustrator | TechCrunch

Illustrator is Adobe’s vector graphics tool for graphic artists and it’s about to join the generative AI era with the launch of the Firefly Vector Model at Adobe’s MAX conference today. In its beta, Illustrator will now let you create entire scenes through a text prompt. What’s nifty here is that those scenes can consist of multiple objects. So this isn’t just a jumble of vectors that make up the overall graphic but Illustrator will automatically generate these different objects and you can manipulate them individually to your heart’s content, just like any other group or layer in Illustrator.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/10/adobe-brings-its-firefly-generative-ai-models-to-vector-graphics-in-illustrator/