TikTok is launching in-app guided meditation workout routines, the social community introduced on Thursday. The corporate started testing the meditation exercises with choose teenagers earlier this yr and is now making the function out there to all customers on its app.
The concept behind the function is to assist customers enhance their sleep high quality and encourage them to place the app down throughout these late-night limitless scrolling periods.
For teenagers beneath the age of 18, meditation will probably be turned on by default. If a teen is utilizing the app after 10 p.m., their For You feed will probably be interrupted by a guided meditation train that encourages them to wind down for the evening. The meditation encompasses a calming display and smooth music alongside respiratory workout routines.
Picture Credit:TikTok
If teenagers select to disregard the message and proceed to make use of the app, they’ll see a second full-screen immediate that can nudge them to fall asleep.
TikTok has been introducing new teen security options over the previous few years in response to considerations over the app’s impact on its youngest customers. The brand new meditation function marks the corporate’s newest effort to appease lawmakers.
Adults who’re within the meditation function can flip it on by navigating to the app’s Display Time settings web page. From there, you simply must toggle on the “sleep hours” function. You’ll be able to select what time you need to see the meditation train every evening.
TikTok additionally introduced that it’s going to donate $2.3 million in advert credit to 31 psychological well being organizations in 19 international locations around the globe as a part of its Psychological Well being Schooling Fund.
Google announced on Thursday that it’s rolling out new AI and accessibility options to Android and Chrome. Most notably, TalkBack, Android’s display screen reader, now helps you to ask Gemini about what’s in pictures and what’s in your display screen.
Final yr, Google introduced Gemini’s capabilities to TalkBack to present people who find themselves blind or have low imaginative and prescient entry to AI-generated descriptions for pictures, even when Alt textual content isn’t obtainable. Now, folks can ask questions and get responses about their pictures.
Picture Credit:Google
For instance, if a buddy texts you a photograph a their new guitar, you may get an outline of it and ask questions in regards to the model and colour. As well as, now you can get descriptions and ask questions on your complete cellphone display screen. So, should you’re procuring in an app, you possibly can ask Gemini in regards to the materials of an merchandise you’re involved in or if there’s a low cost obtainable.
Google additionally introduced immediately that it’s updating Expressive Captions, Android’s real-time captions function that makes use of AI to seize what somebody says, and the way they are saying it.
Google says it’s conscious that one of many methods folks categorical themselves is by dragging out the sound of their phrases, which is why it has developed a brand new length function on Expressive Captions. Now, you’ll know if a sports activities announcer is asking out an “amaaazing shot” or when somebody isn’t merely saying “no” however “nooooo.” You’ll additionally begin to see new labels for sounds, comparable to when an individual is whistling or clearing their throat.
Picture Credit:Google
The replace is rolling out in English within the U.S., U.Okay., Canada, and Australia for units operating Android 15 and above.
Google can be making it simpler to entry PDFs on Chrome. Till now, you wouldn’t have the ability to use your display screen reader to work together with a scanned PDF in your desktop Chrome browser. Now, Chrome mechanically acknowledges some of these PDFs, permitting you to focus on, copy, and seek for textual content like some other web page and use your display screen reader to learn them. That is due to the introduction of Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Google says.
Plus, Web page Zoom on Chrome on Android now helps you to enhance the dimensions of the textual content you see with out affecting the web-page structure. You possibly can customise how a lot you wish to zoom in after which select to use the choice to the entire pages you go to, or simply sure ones. You possibly can entry this function by tapping the three-dot menu within the top-right nook of Chrome.
For years, huge tech corporations like Amazon and Google have been making an attempt to make digital try-ons partaking to encourage shoppers to buy extra on-line. Startups additionally tried to unravel for inspiration and fit in trend utilizing AI.
A brand new startup known as Doji is now coming into this house with an app designed to make attire try-ons each enjoyable and social. It does so by creating your avatar after which serving you totally different seems that will encourage you to purchase new garments.
Thus far, early adopters have been impressed by it.
Solely days after publicly launching on the App Store, the corporate is saying a $14 million seed spherical led by Thrive Capital with participation from Seven Seven Six Ventures. The funding might be used to enhance Doji’s AI fashions, the corporate says.
An app like Doji solely exists due to latest developments in AI. The corporate makes use of its personal diffusion fashions to create its personalised avatars and to make clothes try-ons extra lifelike.
@doji_com
Attempt it on. Attempt Doji. Obtain the app to safe your spot, or discover a buddy with an invitation. [Link in bio] Inventive route: Gui Boucher Modifying: Noel Oppliger, Khaidar Styling: Jeanette Reza Music: Jake Nadrich Thanks: Tony Wang, Gaia Del Santo, Dena Yago
♬ original sound – doji_com
The startup was based final yr by Dorian Dargan and Jim Winkens — therefore the identify Doji (Dorian + Jim).
Dargan beforehand labored at Apple on VisionOS and at Meta on video games and experiences on Oculus Quest. Winkens was a researcher at DeepMind and likewise labored on a generative AI-based shopper product at Google.
The duo related on Twitter/X round 2022. After realizing a shared curiosity within the trend world, they started exploring aspect initiatives to work on collectively. Later, when the controversial avatar creation app Lensa was launched, Dargan noticed how deep a connection folks had with their avatars.
“Lensa was doing stylized avatars with totally different themes,” Dargan instructed TechCrunch. “We noticed Lensa and thought, what if we might do that for trend, however in a photo-realistic means?”
Thrive Capital accomplice Miles Grimshaw mentioned he’s been captivated by Doji’s app because the first time he used it. He notes that diffusion fashions create a possibility to construct a “digital mirror” to strive on garments.
“Going across the internet to a whole bunch of click on hyperlinks to buy is laborious. Doji has a possibility to make procuring enjoyable because it places me on the heart of the expertise. The app additionally has a social facet of constructing me need to share totally different seems [with friends and family],” he added.
Picture Credit:Doji
What it’s like to make use of Doji’s app
Doji, which remains to be in invite-only mode, guides customers by way of the method of taking six selfies and importing two full-body photos to create an avatar. The app takes roughly half-hour to create an avatar, then notifies you when the avatar is prepared. You may as well select your favourite manufacturers throughout onboarding to see extra gadgets from them within the app.
Different apps like Google-backed lock display app Look have tried to create AI-powered shopping inspiration flow by using a single image. Nonetheless, Doji opted for a extra in-depth setup course of to create higher-quality avatars and higher match customers with the fitting garments.
By default, the app exhibits you garments which may go well with you thru a collection of seems along with your avatar. You’ll be able to scroll by way of the totally different tops and bottoms listed on the location and faucet on them to create a brand new search for your avatar.
Plus, you’ll be able to put up a hyperlink to attire from the net to test if it could go well with you.
These two seem like totally different variations of mePicture Credit:Ivan Mehta
In exams, I felt that among the photos of the avatar made me look thinner or taller than I’m. (Doji notes that customers have the choice of retraining the avatar by way of a brand new set of photos in the event that they don’t like their outcomes.)
Whereas the app allows you to strive on totally different garments to see how sure attire would look on you, it could possibly’t but inform you how an merchandise would match. That’s one thing the startup needs to deal with later, we’re instructed.
The crew can be working to make the digital try-on course of sooner and combine the shopping for course of within the app, as a substitute of directing customers to exterior websites.
The startup, whose app is obtainable in additional than 80 international locations, didn’t specify when it would take away the invite system to permit everybody to make use of the app.
Dargan mentioned that what units them aside from different try-on apps is that Doji additionally presents a enjoyable solution to discover garments. Plus, he believes Doji is best at human illustration than others, due to his expertise designing avatars through the years.
“I feel individuals who have explored this concept earlier than both haven’t had the know-how chops to make it good or the style to know what really makes an individual be ok with a picture of themselves,” Dargan mentioned. “We now have invested loads in core know-how to make sure the way in which you understand your self by way of photos is attention-grabbing and provoking.”
Financial savings and investing startup Acorns has acquired EarlyBird, an funding gifting platform for households, the corporate informed TechCrunch completely. The monetary phrases of the deal weren’t disclosed.
As a part of the acquisition, EarlyBird will shut down, and all buyer accounts will formally shut on June 23. Prospects’ funds will probably be returned to the checking account related to their account.
Based in 2019, EarlyBird launched a product that mixed monetary investing with group. The app allowed households and mates to present investments to youngsters whereas preserving reminiscences via a digital time capsule. The investments would turn out to be the kid’s as soon as they turned 18, they usually may use funds for issues like paying for faculty, paying a down cost on a house, or seeding their first enterprise.
“Once we based EarlyBird, we envisioned making a platform that may remodel how households depart lasting legacies for his or her youngsters,” mentioned EarlyBird CEO and co-founder Jordan Wexler in a press release. “The chance to hitch Acorns not solely reaffirms our imaginative and prescient, however expands our affect to tens of millions of households who additionally care deeply about constructing their youngsters’s monetary futures.”
Wexler and co-founder Caleb Frankel will be part of the Acorns crew to assist construct out Acorns Early, the startup’s good cash app for teenagers. Acorns Early presents a debit card designed for teenagers and youths to assist them develop monetary literacy and handle their cash. The corporate launched Acorns Early following its acquisition of GoHenry, a startup targeted on offering cash administration and monetary schooling providers to 6- to 18-year-olds.
Acorns believes that by bringing on Wexler and Frankel, the corporate will be capable to leverage their expertise and fervour for the area to boost Acorns Early.
“Our imaginative and prescient is to construct a monetary wellness system for the entire household, creating compound progress at each life stage,” Acorns CEO Noah Kerner mentioned in an e mail to TechCrunch. “The shared experiences and insights between our two groups will allow us to ship this imaginative and prescient sooner and higher in order that we create most worth for on a regular basis American households.”
Present EarlyBird prospects will probably be supplied a free one-year subscription to “Acorns Gold,” a plan that provides entry to all Acorns merchandise, together with Acorns Early. Prospects will obtain an e mail detailing the sign-up course of.
Acorns notes that EarlyBird customers won’t be able to switch their EarlyBird funds over to Acorns Early. If customers wish to proceed their investing journey with Acorns, they should withdraw their funds from EarlyBird and open a brand new account with Acorns.
The corporate plans to combine EarlyBird’s digital time capsule function into the Acorns Early app at a later date. On EarlyBird, the function allowed customers to construct out time capsules by recording movies at memorable moments of their lives. For instance, if a mom obtained a promotion and needed to present a one-time funding to her youngster, she may document a video speaking to her youngster about it to commemorate and bear in mind the second.
The acquisition comes as Acorns has doubled its prospects on Acorns Gold, its $12 per thirty days subscription plan, over the previous .
“Our Gold Plan would be the place to ship monetary wellness for the entire household — merchandise for fogeys, children, and all of the connective material between the household unit,” Kerner mentioned. “This would be the place the place the entire household can handle their cash as they develop good cash habits collectively.”
Acorns raised $300 million in March 2022 and was valued at $2 billion on the time. The corporate didn’t present an up to date valuation.
Roblox introduced on Thursday that creators can now promote bodily merchandise immediately inside their experiences and video games on the platform with the launch of recent Commerce APIs.
The providing gives creators with a brand new strategy to generate income past the purchases of digital items or one-time charges to entry particular experiences.
The corporate started testing the flexibility to purchase bodily merchandise inside a few branded experiences in mid-2024. Final September, Roblox introduced that creators would quickly have the ability to promote bodily objects in experiences thanks to a partnership with Shopify.
Now, Roblox is making that integration accessible to all eligible creators and types after finishing a closed beta check of its Commerce APIs.
The power to buy bodily merchandise can be accessible in all-ages experiences for U.S. customers ages 13 and up. Roblox plans so as to add extra companions and develop the characteristic to extra markets sooner or later.
For manufacturers, the Commerce APIs supply a brand new strategy to attain prospects. For instance, magnificence model Fenty goes to launch a shoppable expertise inside Roblox to supply an unique Gloss Bomb shade known as “Grape Splash.”
Picture Credit:Roblox
Eligible creators and types can even bundle bodily purchases with digital objects through the brand new Commerce APIs. Meaning you may buy a bodily hoodie and likewise obtain one to your digital avatar.
Roblox’s new Authorized Merchandiser Program (AMP) lets creators and types join their real-world or on-line retailer purchases to avatar objects and equipment on Roblox.
AMP and a badge on bodily merchandise will function a mark of authenticity to indicate shoppers that the objects are official. Merchandise with the badge will embody a code for a singular digital merchandise related to the IP that they’ll use on Roblox.
“Our imaginative and prescient for the way forward for purchasing is an expertise that’s extra thrilling and social than the standard on-line purchasing expertise,” the corporate stated in a blog post. “On Roblox, you may discover digital shops, strive on garments, and share the expertise with others. This naturally builds curiosity and buy intent. Now we’re taking it one step additional, bridging the hole between digital and real-world purchasing by enabling Roblox customers to buy bodily objects.”
Roblox notes that creator studio Twin Atlas used Commerce APIs of their video games to promote bodily merchandise and ended up seeing six-figure commerce income in the course of the first few weeks. Round 90% of their complete orders are positioned through their in-game commerce integration, Roblox says.
