Epic Games today announced plans for Epic Games Store Webshops, a feature that will allow developers to launch digital storefronts that are hosted by the Epic Games Store. With Apple's mandated App Store rule changes in the United States, developers will soon be able to direct customers to web shops to make out-of-app purchases, bypassing the in-app purchase flow.
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/05/01/epic-games-webshops-ios-developers/
Apple’s AirPlay feature enables iPhones and MacBooks to seamlessly play music or show photos and videos on other Apple devices or third-party speakers and TVs that integrate the protocol. Now newly uncovered security flaws in AirPlay mean that those same wireless connections could allow hackers to move within a network just as easily, spreading malicious code from one infected device to another. Apple products are known for regularly receiving fixes, but given how rarely some smart-home devices are patched, it’s likely that these wirelessly enabled footholds for malware, across many of the hundreds of models of AirPlay-enabled devices, will persist for years to come.
https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/04/millions-of-apple-airplay-enabled-devices-can-be-hacked-via-wi-fi/
This means users will no longer be able to control these models remotely from their phone or via Google Assistant, but they’ll still be able to adjust the temperature and modify schedules directly on the thermostat itself.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/psa-google-ends-support-for-early-gen-nest-learning-thermostats
More than three decades ago, the BBC envisioned what today's consumer technology would look like — and their predictions were somehow both astonishingly accurate and hilariously misfired.
https://futurism.com/future-tech-prediction-1987
A similar role at different companies might be titled with “AI,” or “machine learning,” or “data” or “computer vision,” followed by “engineer,” or “developer” or “architect,” with jargon like “senior” or “associate” or “specialist” thrown in for good measure. “In the last two to three years, we’re seeing an acceleration in the job market’s evolution,” she said, adding that some 20% of the people in the U.S. who took on a new job in the past 12 months took on a job title that didn’t exist in 2000, according to LinkedIn’s data.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/looking-for-a-job-in-tech-is-more-confusing-than-ever-58fbaea1?mod=tech_lead_story
Meta laid off employees on Thursday in its Reality Labs division, which encompasses various virtual and augmented reality projects. The cuts impact employees within Oculus Studios, which develops apps and games for Meta’s Quest headsets. Reality Labs has been a massive cost for Meta, losing almost $5 billion in the last quarter of 2024 while generating about $1 billion in sales. Meta has reported billions of dollars in operating losses on Reality Labs each year since rebranding from Facebook and emphasizing its commitment to the “metaverse.”
https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/24/meta-conducts-layoffs-in-oculus-studios-impacting-vr-exercise-app-supernatural/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon
Ai Pin is dead, long live the OpenPin. Same great hardware with none of the hubris. Check out the open-source project at openpin.org if you have a bricked Ai Pin just collecting dust — or if you’re now more interested in owning one than ever like us.
https://9to5mac.com/2025/04/23/ai-pin-returns-from-the-dead-no-thanks-to-printer-maker-hp/