Microsoft has officially moved its AI-powered Designer app out of preview, making the Canva competitor available to iOS and Android users. The app uses text prompts to generate images and designs for items such as logos, greeting cards, stickers and invitations. Powered by OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 image model, Designer is available as an app in Windows and as a free mobile app. New capabilities include the ability to edit existing designs and the addition of “prompt templates” to help users who are starting the design process with a blank canvas. “Just describe what you want to see, and Designer can create it for you,” explains Microsoft. Read more

U.S. tech companies are fighting back against what they feel are overly oppressive European Union regulations by withholding products from that market. Meta Platforms will not release its next Llama multimodal AI model there, along with future products. Apple last month said certain Apple Intelligence AI features will not be released in the EU. Previously, tech companies would accommodate regional laws by adapting global strategies so they could do business everywhere with the same products. Given the restrictions of the Digital Markets Act and other EU rules, Big Tech is signaling that may no longer be possible. Read more

Samsung Electronics has agreed to acquire UK-based Oxford Semantic Technologies, a knowledge graph firm whose tech will help improve Samsung’s AI-equipped smartphones, TVs and home appliances. When combined with Samsung’s own on-device Galaxy AI, Oxford’s tech will allow “hyper-personalized” user experiences that keep data secure, Samsung said, adding that “knowledge graph technology stores information as an interconnected web of related ideas and process data in a manner similar to how humans acquire, remember, recall and reason over knowledge,” offering insight on “how people use a product or service.” Read more

The live event business is making further inroads with social apps, as Shazam pacts with Ticketmaster and TikTok integrates Eventbrite. Ticketmaster says artists can now link live events in Apple’s Shazam app, where they’ll appear when a user Shazams a track. The feature will work in the more than 30 countries where Ticketmaster operates. The Live Nation-owned company also has deals with Snap and TikTok, whose new alliance with Eventbrite allows event producers and TikTok users to embed Eventbrite links in-stream. Now the TikTok community can discover events and purchase tickets “without ever leaving the app.” Read more

TikTok owner ByteDance lost its court battle challenging the European Union’s classification of it as a “gatekeeper” under the Digital Markets Act. The victory for EU antitrust regulators underscores its seriousness about reining in the power of Big Tech. As a gatekeeper, China’s ByteDance is lumped in with behemoths Google, Apple, Meta and Microsoft, among others. The DMA, which was passed in 2022 and came into effect this year, says gatekeepers must make certain aspects of their apps interoperable with rivals and forbids self-dealing, with stiff fines imposed for those found to fail. Read more