Author: Anderson Sawyer
The European Union is once again being urged to expand its investigation of Google under the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). The big aim of the EU’s flagship competition reform — which came into force last spring — was to level the digital playing field by forcing platform giants into fairer dealing with rivals and users. But alternative search engines DuckDuckGo and Seznam.cz, along with a handful of regional consumer and civil society groups, are accusing Google of flouting the rules. In an open letter addressed to Commission EVPs Teresa Ribera and Henna Virkkunen, they urge the bloc to “fully”…
“We’re a long way from pants,” Andy Dunn, founder of online fashion retailer Bonobos, told TechCrunch. Now, the former CEO is taking on a completely different challenge: He wants to help people make friends. Dunn’s newest venture, Pie, is a social app focused on bringing people together in real life. With an $11.5 million Series A raise and the funds to pay organizers to host events, Pie has grown to over 130,000 monthly active users, despite only being available in San Francisco and Chicago. But more users meant that the in-person events hosted through the app were also getting more…
Google on Tuesday announced new software updates for the Pixel phones as part of its “Pixel Drop” program for March. Pixel Watches and all Android devices are also receiving some new features with this release. The most notable parts of the update include using AI to detect scams in messages and calls, better categorization in the screenshot app, menstrual tracking on the Pixel Watch 3, and the ability to share your live location with friends through the Find My Devices app. Pixel phone features Google is launching a scam-detection feature for calls using the company’s Gemini Nano model for all…
While Venmo or Splitwise are effectively “debt collector” tools, which require one person to pay a full bill and then request funds from others, neither have cracked bill-splitting at the moment of payment. European startup Cino, which has come up with just such a product, has now raised €3.5 million in a seed-funding round led by London’s Balderton Capital. The real-time shared payment app allows a group to split the bill and pay their share directly from whatever bank account or wallet they choose. After emerging from Tallinn, Estonia, and operating in continental Europe since 2023, Cino will now use…
Google Gemini users can now access the AI chatbot directly from the iPhone’s lock screen, thanks to an update released on Monday first spotted by 9to5Google. Users can now call up Gemini Live, Google’s relatively real-time voice feature for its AI chatbot, before they unlock their phone by adding a Gemini widget to their lock screen. Talk with Gemini Live from the iphone’s lock screen.Image Credits:Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch As Apple’s version of an AI-enabled Siri reportedly faces delays until 2027, competitors in the AI space are stepping in to supply iPhone users with AI assistants of their own. These…