The Twitter rival rocketed to more than 100 million users within five days of its launch earlier this month. But Mr Zuckerberg has acknowledged those numbers have now tumbled. "If you have more than 100 million people sign up, ideally it would be awesome if all of them or even half of them stuck around. We're not there yet," he said.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66336058
Universe’s new tool is similar to one launched by Wix earlier this month, which is called the AI Site Generator. The tool allows users to describe their intent and generate a website complete with a homepage, inner pages and text and images — as well as business-specific sections for events, bookings and more. One of the main ideas behind both companies’ products is to help small and medium-sized businesses launch and maintain websites to drive sales, which can be a challenging process. For context, a 2022 survey by Top Design Firms, a directory for finding creative agencies, found that nearly 27% of small businesses still don’t have a website and that low traffic, followed by adding “advanced” functionalities and cost, are the top challenges they face with their website.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/27/mobile-website-builder-universe-launches-ai-powered-designer/
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X.com now redirects to Twitter.com, following a tweet from Twitter owner Elon Musk today, and an “interim X logo” will replace the Twitter bird logo later today. Leading up to the change, Musk spent a lot of time tweeting about it.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/23/23804629/twitters-rebrand-to-x-may-actually-be-happening-soon
Oppenheimer may be one of the biggest box office events of the year and the IMAX version appears massively popular, with some theaters already sold out for the next few weeks. The IMAX version may also be on the biggest physical film reels ever produced. According to Cinemark, the 70mm print of the film is 11 miles long and 600 pounds. To get this movie ready for theaters, IMAX used technology that’s run by an iPad emulating a 20 year old piece of hardware—a PalmPilot.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/88x5gb/imax-still-runs-on-palmpilot-operating-system
APPLE HELD ITS annual Worldwide Developers Conference today. The big news, of course, is that Apple's long-awaited mixed reality headset finally made its debut. The very expensive device may have overshadowed the other news from the event, but the company announced a whole host of other stuff, including new Mac computers and updates to iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.
https://www.wired.com/story/wwdc-2023-everything-apple-announced/
After a period of disillusionment in the industry that some call the metaverse, many of its most fervent believers are banking on Apple to save the day. While an ecosystem of software startups built up around Meta Platforms’ lineup of Quest virtual-reality products, some companies have pulled back recently. Microsoft shut down a social virtual-reality platform it acquired in 2017 and trimmed the team building its HoloLens augmented-reality headset. Walt Disney Co. shuttered the division developing strategies for the metaverse.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-headset-has-metaverse-believers-hoping-it-can-save-their-industry-e692575a
Research by ESET found that the Android app, “iRecorder — Screen Recorder,” introduced the malicious code as an app update almost a year after it was first listed on Google Play. The code, according to ESET, allowed the app to stealthily upload a minute of ambient audio from the device’s microphone every 15 minutes, as well as exfiltrate documents, web pages and media files from the user’s phone.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/29/popular-android-app-microphone-spying-google-play/