According to the filing, Google is not allowed to pay developers to launch their apps exclusively on Google Play starting November 1 for the next three years. The company also can’t force developers to use Google Play’s billing system and must allow them to notify users of other ways to pay.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/07/us-judge-orders-google-to-open-up-google-play-to-rivals/
Gubbay argued that while other website builders have “scrambled very quickly” to launch AI features, those competitors are asking, “How can we take this technology and use it to stand out to our customers?” while Squarespace has been asking something a little different: “How do we take all these latest technologies and really use it to help our customers stand out?”
https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/06/cpo-paul-gubbay-says-squarespace-is-training-its-ai-tools-with-curation-and-taste
Arc Search is an alternative mobile browser designed specifically to offer a streamlined, distraction-free web-browsing experience. While the design, animations, and user experience are key selling points it also offers lots of baked-in AI functionality with features like the controversial “Browse for Me.” This summarizes information from multiple websites on a single page by generating an “answer” to yout initial search query.
https://9to5google.com/2024/10/04/arc-search-for-android-is-now-available-in-beta/
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The WP Engine web hosting service is suing WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg and Automattic for alleged libel and attempted extortion, following a public spat over the WordPress trademark and open-source project. In the federal lawsuit filed on Wednesday, WP Engine accuses both Automattic and its CEO Mullenweg of “abuse of power, extortion, and greed,” and said it seeks to prevent them from inflicting further harm against WP Engine and the WordPress community.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/3/24261016/wordpress-wp-engine-lawsuit-automattic-matt-mullenweg
Apple famously dispensed with a physical keyboard when it revolutionized the smartphone market, and the company’s long-term goal appears to be to do the same for laptops. A succession of patents have revealed Apple’s work on an all-screen MacBook with a virtual trackpad and keyboard, and a new continuation patent published yesterday shows that this project is still very much alive …
https://9to5mac.com/2024/10/02/apple-continues-work-on-all-glass-macbook-with-virtual-keyboard-and-trackpad/
All told, the response is a mixed bag. Some things like “relentlessly improve the app experience with regular software upgrades” are difficult — if not impossible — to quantify. If you drill down a bit further, however, you begin seeing actual metrics like, “We will roll out updated mobile software versions every 2-4 weeks to optimize and enhance the software experience, even once this issue is resolved.”
https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/01/sonos-outlines-turnaround-plan-following-app-disaster/
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed the Orion glasses on Wednesday and pitched them as “a glimpse of a future that I think is going to be pretty exciting.” The glasses are black and thick framed and come with a wireless “puck” that allows the device to run apps like a holographic game of digital chess or pingpong that appear as digital graphics spliced into the real world.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/27/hands-on-with-metas-orion-augmented-reality-smart-glasses-prototype.html