Gmail gets a new look, Instagram trips while trying to be TikTok and India blocks Battleground Mobile – TechCrunch
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The Most read This week’s story is about Battlegrounds Mobile India, a popular battle royale title that has attracted tens of millions of viewers in India. Players wake up to find the game is unexpectedly blocked from both Google Play and Apple’s App Store by order of the Indian government. Why? That… it’s still unclear exactly, but Manish has a problem with everything we know so far.
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New Gmail for all: Using Gmail? Don’t be surprised if it changes soon. The company announced this week that the overhaul of the “Material You” interface it’s testing will be rolling out to all users in the coming weeks. Don’t like the new look? For now, at least, you can find a hidden switch in the settings menu to toggle it back.
Instagram’s bad move(s): As one can tell, TikTok seems to be eating lunch on Instagram. The answer to Instagram becoming more like TikTok? Recent updates – such as a focus on full-screen video and more content from people you don’t follow – have made the Insta interface feel more and more TikTok-y… and, well, Complaints have grown. However, Instagram is at least pretending to listen and says it will back to many said changes. Probably.
Rivian fired: Rumors earlier this month suggesting layoffs had surfaced in Rivian; Sure enough, the company confirmed this week that it’s laying off about 6% of its workforce as part of a “restructuring plan.”
A penny for your reminder?: OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 can create incredible works of art seemingly out of thin space, but sometimes getting the exact results you want can require a little… ingenuity. The startup wants to “sell strings of words that deliver predictable results” on DALL-E 2 and other such systems. An interesting story made all the better by its Seussian opening image, which I will note was created by an actual human (and a a lovely person in which).
Shutters meta adjusted: Did you know Meta has a social app for couples? Sure is not! Called Tuning, it’s part of Meta’s New Product Testing effort, and it looks like this particular test is over. Meta announced this week that Tuned will be shutting down on September 19. The app is intended to help couples communicate and “create a shared scrapbook” of photos/videos/etc. It doesn’t help that it’s rolled out right at the start of the pandemic, when many couples probably don’t have a hard time keeping in touch because they probably won’t get anywhere.
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Is cutting your company’s internal valuation ever a good thing? Natasha and Anita focused on that question on Wednesday set of Equity. Meanwhile, about chain reactionsLucas and Anita chat about Minecraft, saying: “Thank you” no wonder” to the NFTs and Lauren jumping in Podcasts TechCrunch to tell us why (as we learned last week) Netflix is pulling in customers.
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