Instagram is making it harder for people to spam you with DM requests
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge Instagram is trying to make it more difficult for people you don’t follow to spam you with unwanted DM requests. After testing the feature in June, Instagram now only lets users you don’t follow send a one-message invite before they can start chatting
Read moreWorldcoin hopes to resume iris scans in Kenya
Sam Altman’s crypto startup Worldcoin yesterday faced its first major hurdle in Africa when authorities in Kenya suspended its iris-scanning activities (“proof of personhood verification”) over security, privacy and data protection concerns. Worldcoin now says it is working with relevant authorities to resume iris scans in Kenya soon. Meanwhile, Worldcoin
Read moreInstagram’s new feature protects users from unwanted images and videos in DMs
Instagram is launching a new feature that is designed to better protect users from unwanted images and videos in DMs, the company announced on Thursday. The official launch comes a few weeks after Instagram began testing the feature. With this new feature, people looking to send DM requests to people
Read moreDate sequence from the command line
I was looking back at Jeroen Janssen’s book Data Science at the Command Line and his dseq utility caught my eye. This utility prints out a sequence of dates relative to the current date. I’ve needed this and didn’t know it. Suppose you have a CSV file and you need
Read moreSouth Korea’s digital lender Toss Bank in advanced talks to close $154M funding at a valuation of $2.1B
Fresh off a $153 million funding round in March 2023, South Korean digital lender and neobank Toss Bank is close to raising another $154 million (200 billion won) in equity at a valuation of $2.1 billion (2.7 trillion won), and it is already planning a further $150 million round for
Read moreWarner Bros. Discovery loses 1.8M subscribers amid Max rebrand
Warner Bros. Discovery reported its second-quarter earnings results Thursday, revealing that it dropped 1.8 million streaming subscribers across HBO, Discovery+ and its new combined streaming service Max. The company now has a total of 95.8 million users, compared to 97.6 million in the first quarter. The loss in subscribers is
Read moreIndia resurrects data privacy bill following abrupt pullback last year
Ashwini Vaishnaw, the IT minister of India, resubmitted an updated data privacy bill in lower house of the Indian parliament on Thursday, months after introducing its last draft and the abrupt withdrawal of a previous proposal last year following pushback from tech giants, even as many members protested the new
Read moreWaymo is bringing its robotaxi service to Austin
Waymo plans to launch a robotaxi service in Austin — putting the company once again in direct competition with rival Cruise. Austin will be the company’s fourth commercial market following Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The company will kick off the initial phase of its operations in the city
Read moreXiaomi removes its Mi Music app from the Play Store
Xiaomi has silently pulled its music player and streaming app Mi Music from the Play Store in India, continuing its shutdown of various services in the country where it is under regulatory pressure. The China-based phone maker launched the Mi Music app in partnership with the Indian entertainment company Hungama
Read moreAFP sues Musk’s X for refusing to enter news reuse payment talks
Elon Musk-owned X, formerly Twitter, is facing legal action brought under copyright law in France. The Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency has announced it’s suing the social media platform over what it calls a “clear refusal” to enter into discussions with it about remuneration for the sharing of its news
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