Microsoft shutting down AltSpaceVR on March 10th
AltspaceVR, a social VR platform founded in 2013 and acquired by Microsoft in 2017, has just announced that it will be closing permanently.
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I've been writing online at various sites since 2003, mostly about a wide variety of topics including web development, tech, food and whatever else I feel like writing and sharing.
TikTok’s Secret ‘Heating’ Button Can Let Their Employees Make Anyone Go Viral
For years, TikTok has describedits powerful For You Page as a personalized feed ranked by an algorithm that predicts your interests based on your behavior in the app.
Read moreTwitterrific: End of an Era
Twitterrific has been discontinued.
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Watch out for these Fake 16 Terabyte Portable SSD Drives on Amazon
If you see a 16 terabyte portable SSD on Amazon for $100 or less, don't buy it. Such a drive would cost thousands of dollars. These are nothing more than a scam, and don't work well at all. We bought one and got a glorified 64GB hard drive.
Read moreCraig Hockenberry on “ The Shit Show” that is Twitter
What bothers me about Twitterrific’s final day is that it was not dignified. There was no advance notice for its creators, customers just got a weird error, and no one is explaining what’s going on. We had no chance to thank customers who have been with us for over a decade. Instead, it’s just another scene in their ongoing shit show.
Read moreAI art tools Stable Diffusion and Midjourney targeted with copyright lawsuit
A trio of artists have launched a lawsuit against Stability AI and Midjourney, creators of AI art generators Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, and artist portfolio platform DeviantArt, which recently created its own AI art generator, DreamUp.
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Twitter Intentionally Ends Third-Party App Developer Access to Its APIs
Late yesterday, The Information reported that it had seen internal Twitter Slack communications confirming that the company had intentionally cut off third-party Twitter app access to its APIs. The shut-down, which happened Thursday night US time, hasn’t affected all apps and services that use the API but instead appears targeted at the most popular third-party Twitter clients.
Read moreGoogle’s Stadia Controller is getting Bluetooth support
Google is launching its final Stadia game today and is promising to release a tool next week to enable Bluetooth connections on its Stadia Controller. The last Stadia game to launch on the service is Worm Game, a test game that was technically available on Stadia before Stadia launched publicly in November 2019. Developers at Google have decided to release the game just before the streaming service disappears next week.
Read moreEddie Cue on Apple's year of original content
“2022 was a groundbreaking year for entertainment. At some point over the past year, you probably discovered a new app, a new song, a new TV show or movie, or game. An experience that made you laugh, taught you something new, or helped you see the world in a new way — and moved you to share it with others.”
Read moreApple Shuts Down Popular Weather App 'Dark Sky'
The calendar has turned to January 1 and Apple has shut down popular weather app Dark Sky. The popular weather app had already been removed from the App Store in September and it stopped functioning for existing users starting today.
Read moreTwitter’s landlord in San Francisco is suing the company for not paying rent.
The landlord, which owns the Hartford Building that houses Twitter’s headquarters, claims the company owes $136,250 in unpaid rent. It allegedly notified Twitter on December 16th that it would default on its lease if it doesn’t receive payment, but Twitter never complied.
Read moreTwitter “abruptly” bans all links to Instagram, Mastodon, and other competitors
The platform will still allow the paid promotion of these banned social platforms, however.
Read moreTwitter Shutting Down Revue
From January 18, 2023, it will no longer be possible to access your Revue account. On that date, Revue will shut down and all data will be deleted.
Read moreJason Snell on Answering the burning questions about Apple’s reported App Store plans
What’s the world going to look like after this happens?
Read moreMicrosoft sued by FTC over Activision Blizzard buyout
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is suing Microsoft over its planned $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, saying that the deal “would enable Microsoft to suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription content and cloud-gaming business.”
Read moreHow Amazon Shopping Ads Are Disguised as Real Results
Amazon is the first app many of us think about to buy things online. But is it actually a good place to go shopping?
Read moreElon Musk tries to blame ‘activists’ for his Twitter moderation council lie
Elon Musk is trying to explain why he let Donald Trump and others back onto Twitter, even after he promised that decision would be left up to a content moderation council made up of people with “widely diverse viewpoints.”
Read moreJohn Gruber: “Twitter Tumult”
If you had told me three weeks ago that Twitter, as a company, would today be embroiled in turmoil — perhaps outright existential crisis — over a company-wide email from Elon Musk centered around the phrase “extremely hardcore”
Read more9 to 5 Mac: “How to take screenshots on your iPad using gestures with iPadOS 16”
What some people don’t know is that there are two other ways to take screenshots on the iPad without pressing any buttons.
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Emergency SOS via satellite available today on the iPhone 14 lineup in the US and Canada
Every model in the iPhone 14 lineup — iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max — can connect directly to a satellite through a combination of custom-designed components and deeply integrated software
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