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Opera has officially launched its redesigned Opera One browser on iOS, transitioning from the beta phase to a stable release. The updated browser boasts several new features, including a bottom-placed search bar for easier browsing, quick search suggestions while typing, and integration with the Aria AI assistant. The bottom-placed search bar is the default setting, but users have the flexibility to switch to Standard Navigation or Fast Action Button styles. Additionally, users can swipe down to bring up the search bar, similar to the Spotlight search function on iOS. While typing a query in the search engine, users typically receive…
Apple has warned creator platform Patreon that it risks being removed from the App Store if it continues to use unsupported third-party billing options or disables transactions on iOS. Instead, Apple insists Patreon must adopt its in-app purchasing system for subscriptions. Patreon has begun a 16-month migration process to comply with this demand, aiming to transition all creators to Apple’s iOS in-app purchase system by November 2025. In a blog post and email to its creators, Patreon explained that it will switch to subscription billing by November 2024. Creators will then need to decide whether to raise membership fees to…
Polymarket, a prediction marketplace where users can bet on real-world events, has partnered with AI-powered search engine Perplexity to offer news summaries of these events. When users click on an event on Polymarket, they will now be presented with a summary of related news generated from Perplexity’s search results. Additionally, a search box is available for users to ask further questions. Polymarket is also using Perplexity’s Pages feature, which allows users to create shareable pages from search results, to create a column that will be displayed on Perplexity’s Discover page. Perplexity has expressed interest in exploring more third-party partnerships to…
Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, is facing a series of privacy complaints after it used European Union users’ data to train AI models without obtaining consent. This issue came to light when a vigilant social media user noticed a setting indicating that X had started processing regional user data for its Grok AI chatbot. The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), which oversees X’s compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), expressed “surprise” at this discovery. The GDPR mandates that any use of personal data must have a valid legal basis, and violations can result in fines of…
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Justice Department have filed a lawsuit against TikTok and its parent company ByteDance, accusing them of violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). This law mandates that digital platforms must notify and obtain parental consent before collecting and using personal data from children under the age of 13. In a press release issued Friday, the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection claimed that TikTok and ByteDance were “allegedly aware” of the requirement to comply with COPPA, yet spent “years” knowingly allowing millions of children under 13 to use their platform. The FTC…
A recent study revealed that vulnerabilities in the design of several dating apps, including popular ones like Bumble and Hinge, enabled malicious users or stalkers to pinpoint the location of their victims to within 2 meters. Researchers from the Belgian university KU Leuven discovered these vulnerabilities while analyzing 15 popular dating apps. Among those, Badoo, Bumble, Grindr, happn, Hinge, and Hily were found to have the same issue, which could potentially allow a malicious user to identify another user’s near-exact location. Although these apps do not share exact locations when displaying the distance between users on their profiles, they use…
Growing up in China, Xiaoyin Qu was passionate about learning to build paper airplanes that could perform flips in the air. However, neither her parents nor her teachers had the time or expertise to support her curiosity. This experience inspired Qu to create an AI that could act as a dedicated coach and companion for children, helping them learn and explore their interests. Qu founded Heeyo, a startup that provides children aged three to eleven with an AI chatbot and over 2,000 interactive games and activities, including books, trivia, and role-playing adventures. Heeyo also allows parents and children to design…
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday that WhatsApp now boasts over 100 million monthly active users in the United States, a country where SMS and text messaging are traditionally popular. This announcement marks the first time WhatsApp has shared user statistics specifically for the U.S. The company also revealed that more than 50% of its U.S. users are on iPhones, reflecting iOS’s majority market share in the country. Globally, WhatsApp is immensely popular with over 2 billion monthly active users. The app has traditionally focused on markets like India, its largest user base with over 500 million monthly active…
A hacker has claimed to be selling data related to thousands of current and former employees of the Indian conglomerate Piramal Group, which operates in the pharmaceutical, financial services, and real estate sectors. However, Piramal Group denies that its systems were breached, asserting that the data came from a third party. Last week, the hacker posted a sample of the allegedly stolen data on a known cybercrime forum. The data sample included full names and email addresses. Such information could be valuable to cybercriminals for launching targeted attacks against employees. Piramal Group employs over 10,000 people from 21 nationalities across…
OpenAI has entered the search engine arena with the launch of SearchGPT, a new feature designed to provide timely answers to user queries by drawing from web sources. On Thursday, OpenAI unveiled SearchGPT, which closely resembles the company’s existing chatbot platform, ChatGPT. Users can type in a query, and SearchGPT returns information and images from the web, along with links to relevant sources. This allows users to ask follow-up questions or explore related searches in a sidebar. Some searches in SearchGPT are tailored based on the user’s location. OpenAI explains that the feature collects and shares general location information with…