Meta Platforms has rebranded its Quest VR operating system Horizon OS and is opening the platform to third parties. While licensing terms have not been publicly disclosed, Asus and Lenovo have said they’re going to be designing hardware using the system. Microsoft and Qualcomm are also in round one of the companies on the inside track as Meta positions Horizon OS along the lines of a universal VR standard, not unlike Microsoft’s Windows OS for computers. All four companies have already been working with Meta on VR for Quest or its predecessor, Oculus. Continue reading Meta Opens Mixed Reality OS to Third-Party Hardware Makers

Apple Vision Pro users disappointed by the Netflix webOS experience on the spatial computing wearable can now take advantage of the independently developed Supercut app, designed to enhance the streaming platform on Apple’s new headset, as well as to make Amazon Prime Video work better through a dedicated iPad app port. Created by Christian Privitelli, Supercut delivers the correct aspect ratio for each app, as well as eliminating black bars, and more. It also enables 4K streaming with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Privitelli is working on a version for streaming platform Plex. Continue reading Supercut Improves Streaming of Netflix, Amazon on Vision Pro

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, joined by 16 other state and district attorneys, has filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Apple for “monopolization or attempted monopolization” of the smartphone market. The move comes after years of regulatory scrutiny triggered by complaints from companies who compete against Apple or rely on it to do business and pay hefty fees for doing so. The charges center on the iPhone, which has an estimated 60 percent share of the U.S. smartphone market and is seen as an essential platform for anyone that wants to reach mobile consumers. Continue reading U.S. Targets Apple Smartphone Monopoly in Antitrust Lawsuit

Apple has been fined $1.95 billion by the European Union after the bloc’s executive body, the European Commission, found the iPhone maker in violation of antitrust law by using its App Store market dominance to stifle music streaming competition. The EC found that Apple suppressed the ability of app developers to communicate with iOS users about alternative music subscription services available outside the App Store. The fine stems from a 2019 complaint from Spotify that triggered an investigation into Apple. Spotify hailed the result as a win for consumers and “an important moment in the fight for a more open Internet,” while Apple has vowed to appeal. Continue reading Apple Fined $1.95 Billion by EU for Music Streaming Antitrust

Bluesky — Jack Dorsey’s alternative to X (formerly Twitter) — has been quietly ramping up, recently opening for general public sign-ups while adding hashtag support and the ability for users to host their own servers. The company last month appointed Aaron Rodericks to the newly created position of head of trust and safety, a title he held at Twitter before Elon Musk purchased it and decimated the division (which he now co-heads with X CEO Linda Yaccarino). The technical updates will make it easier for users to sort threads for topics of interest and takes a big step toward federation and allowing users to freely move their accounts. Continue reading Bluesky Opens to the Public Ahead of the Presidential Election

GitHub Copilot Enterprise is being released for general availability for $39 per month. Calling the tool GitHub’s “most advanced AI offering to date,” the company says it can be customized to an organization’s knowledge and codebase, placing “the institutional knowledge of your organization at your developers’ fingertips.” Infusing GitHub Copilot Enterprise throughout a company’s software development lifecycle lets team members “ask questions about public and private code, get up to speed quickly with new codebases and build greater consistencies across engineering teams” while ensuring everyone access to the same standard codebase. Continue reading GitHub Copilot Enterprise in General Release at $39 Monthly

Apple has released MGIE, an open-source AI model that edits images using natural language instructions. MGIE, short for MLLM-Guided Image Editing, can also modify and optimize images. Developed in conjunction with University of California Santa Barbara, MGIE is Apple’s first AI model. The multimodal MGIE, which understands text and image input, also crops, resizes, flips, and adds filters based on text instructions using what Apple says is an easier instruction set than other AI editing programs, and is simpler and faster than learning a traditional program, like Apple’s own Final Cut Pro. Continue reading Apple Launches Open-Source Language-Based Image Editor

To comply with the Digital Markets Act, Apple is making changes to iOS, Safari and the App Store in the European Union. The changes include new options for processing app payments and distributing iOS apps, plus more than 600 new APIs, expanded app analytics and functionality for alternative browser engines, Apple says. To combat scams and fraud as Apple loosens restrictions, the company is introducing something called Notarization for iOS apps, to authorize marketplace developers, and is adding disclosures on alternative payments. The new capabilities will become available to users in the 27 EU countries beginning in March. Continue reading Apple Is Bringing Changes to Comply with Digital Markets Act

As part of what it calls “production microservices,” Nvidia is adding an Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) that lets game developers, as well as those who make tools and middleware, to integrate generative AI models into the digital avatars created for games and applications. The new ACE microservices “let developers build interactive avatars using AI models such as Nvidia Omniverse Audio2Face (A2F), which creates expressive facial animations from audio sources, and Nvidia Riva automatic speech recognition (ASR), for building customizable multilingual speech and translation applications using generative AI,” Nvidia says. Continue reading CES: Nvidia Avatar Cloud Engine Uses AI for Digital Characters

Concurrent with the U.S. Supreme Court’s January 16 decision not to hear the appeal in Epic vs. Apple, the iPhone maker has revised its App Store rules, letting developers link to outside payment platforms. While that ostensibly lets third parties circumvent Apple’s unpopular payment processing fee of up to 30 percent, the tech giant says it will still collect a premium of up to 27 percent using a “commission” structure. That workaround has Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney vowing to continue litigating the case in U.S. District Court. Continue reading Apple Creates Payment Fee Workaround After Battle with Epic

Milano-based Voiseed demonstrated its web-based Revoiceit platform at CES, pitched as the best way to manage synthetic voice actors, particularly ensuring that synthetic voices present realistic emotions. The company describes it as a cloud-based solution that uses “generative AI to infuse virtual voices with human emotions and prosody, creating highly expressive, lifelike audio experiences.” While Revoiceit’s most obvious feature is its Studio (imagine Adobe Audition devoted to second-by-second management of voices), it may well be the product’s forthcoming API that provides real value to developers of entertaining technology products. Continue reading CES: Voiseed Upgrades Its Platform for Expressive AI Voices

Xreal, the Chinese XR company formerly known as Nreal, debuted its Air 2 Ultra AR glasses at CES 2024 this week in Las Vegas, with the $699 item scheduled to ship to U.S. buyers in March, crowding the February 2 release date Apple just announced for its $3,500 Vision Pro mixed reality headset. Though currently aimed at developers, who can preorder now, the Air 2 Ultra will be available for purchase online from Xreal to anyone in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and the UK, in addition to China and the United States. Continue reading CES: Xreal Offers Spatial Computing with Air 2 Ultra for $699

Meta Platforms has reportedly been investing billions of dollars each quarter in developing the metaverse, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg has described as the future of the company. Although sales of VR headsets and AR glasses dropped nearly 40 percent in the U.S. (according to research firm Circana), Meta continues to tout the intersection between AI and the metaverse. “The progress we made in 2023 means generative AI is making its way into the heart of the world’s most popular apps, mixed reality is now at the core of a mass market headset, and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses will let AI see the world from our perspective for the first time,” explained Andrew Bosworth, CTO and head of Meta’s Reality Labs. Continue reading Meta Platforms Continues Its Pursuit of AI and the Metaverse

Google is rolling out Gemini to developers, enticing them with tools including AI Studio, an easy-to-navigate Web-based platform that will serve as a portal to the multi-tiered Gemini ecosystem, beginning with Gemini Pro, with Gemini Ultra to come next year. The service aims to allow developers to quickly create prompts and Gemini-powered chatbots, providing access to API keys to integrate them into apps. They’ll also be able to access code, should projects require a full featured IDE. The site is essentially a revamped version of what was formerly Google’s MakerSuite. Continue reading Google Debuts Turnkey Gemini AI Studio for Developing Apps

Epic Games has prevailed against Google in U.S. District Court, scoring a victory in the 2020 lawsuit filed against the search giant over antitrust behavior related to its Google Play store. Epic claims that Google leverages control over the Android mobile operating system to require content creators who want a presence on an estimated 71 percent of the world’s smartphones to sell through the Play Store. The verdict “proves Google’s app store practices are illegal and they abuse their monopoly to extract exorbitant fees, stifle competition and reduce innovation,” Epic wrote of the win. Google disagrees with the ruling and says it plans to appeal. Continue reading Court Rules in Favor of Epic Games in Google Antitrust Case