Borrowed location databases are paying off big time for Snapchat. They allow users to turn any nearby landmark or business into a stylized geofilter that they can overlay on their photos and videos. Before Snapchat partnered with location data providers Foursquare and Factual, only a few popular neighborhoods, cities, and places had their own geofilters. Making geofilters scalable so even… Read More
Indoor mapping is one of those problems that seems to only have solutions that involve a great deal of money and infrastructure: beacons, lasers, emitters, scanners… who wants to install those in malls across the world? Microsoft Research has produced an indoor navigation app that keeps things simple, using existing sensors and the fact that people already go most of the places you want… Read More
Facebook confirmed it has begun testing a new GIF maker in the camera feature of the main Facebook mobile application. The feature, which is available with the tap of a button at the top of the screen, lets you shoot footage that you can then save in GIF format to your device’s photo gallery, post to your Facebook profile, or add to your Facebook Story. The addition was first spotted… Read More
Why would Uber buy a team that builds Snapchat competitors? To make its driver app feel more human. Uber has acqhired Swipe Labs, the social product studio run by Marwan Roushdy. He and a selection of engineers from the dozen-person startup will join Uber to work on the driver experience within the driver earnings team. Over the past 4 years it had raised $8.2 million and built four apps… Read More
Earlier this year, Facebook was spotted testing a new type of News Feed – one that designed to help you discover content across the social network, beyond posts from friends and Pages you already follow. During tests, the feed was available through the Facebook app underneath a “rocket ship” icon – something that seemed to confuse users, who didn’t understand… Read More
It’s no longer enough to simply offer on-demand music as part of the value proposition for music streaming services – you have to enable discovery of new tunes and make recommendations, too. While it’s fair to say that Spotify is leading the market in terms of its influential playlist selections, rivals are quickly following suit – including Apple Music and Google… Read More
A tense scene unfolded yesterday as user-generated music streaming service SoundCloud held an all-hands meeting to explain to employees why it suddenly had to lay off 40 percent of its staff last week. Exiting team members wanted to know why they weren’t warned, while those that survived the cuts wanted assurance that the cost reductions would keep the company afloat for the long-run. Read More
PayPal announced an expanded partnership with Apple, which will now see the payment method becoming available as an option on iOS devices, in addition to being available in more markets. Before today, U.S. users could add PayPal on iTunes desktop on Mac and Windows when configuring their Apple account, but this expansion means that same feature will be expanded to 11 new countries. Read More
Microsoft today unveiled a redesigned version of its popular Outlook mobile app for iOS and Android, which most notably includes a more intelligent search feature, powered by Microsoft Graph, along with other changes to navigation and conversations. Microsoft Graph, the company’s technology used to make productivity applications smarter, is being used to turn Outlook’s search… Read More
Sega’s making good on its promise to continue adding titles to its Sega Forever library of mobile games – the latest is the Dreamcast classic Virtua Tennis Challenge. The Sega Forever model sees the game maker releasing games from its previous console generations as free-to-play ad supported mobile games, with an optional in-app purchase to get rid of the adds permanently. The… Read More
Messaging is the center of mobile, and Facebook wants ads in front of all those eyes. After seeing “promising results from Australia and Thailand”, Facebook Messenger is expanding its display ad beta test that lets businesses buy space between your chat threads. Later this month, a small percentage of users will start seeing ads in the Messenger app’s home tab. Facebook… Read More
Siri remains the most popular virtual assistant with 41.4 million monthly active users in the U.S., according to a new report from measurement firm Verto Analytics out this morning, but it has seen a 15 percent decline since last year – or 7.3 million monthly users. In addition, the study found that engagement with Siri has also dropped by nearly half during this period, from 21 percent… Read More
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