Author : zebethcontrol

With $18M in new funding, EngFlow wants to speed up your builds • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 15, 2022Posted in a16z, Bazel, EngFlow, Enterprise, funding, Gradle, StartupsNo Comments

Back in 2015, Google launched an open-source port of its internal automation tool for building and testing code. Dubbed Bazel (because the internal tool was called Blaze), the service uses a Python dialect to help developers write their rules and macros. Today, the tooling is used by companies ranging from Adobe to Databricks, Dropbox, LinkedIn and Redfin, so when the lead developer of Bazel at Google, Ulf Adams, and the lead of enterprise customer onboarding for Bazel at Google and co-creator of BazelCon, Helen Altshuler, raise new funding for their Bazel-centric startup EngFlow, it’s probably worth paying attention to. As the team announced today, EngFlow has raised an $18 million Series A round from Tiger Global, Firstminute Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, which also led the company’s $3.7 million seed round. Cockroach Labs CEO Spencer Kimball, Github co-founder Tom Preston-Werner and Snowflake CFO Mike Scarpelli, as well as Envoy creator Matt Klein and GitHub engineering VP Rachel Potvin also participated in this round. Image Credits: Bazel EngFlow describes itself as a “build acceleration company” that helps its enterprise customers more efficiently build and test their source code, with support for Bazel, Chromium and the Android Platform. “When we are talking about Bazel use at Google, an important factor is that Google has integrated Bazel with a lot of developer services,” Adams said. “So it’s not just the build tool, but you have remote execution, you have a user interface, you have coverage runners for analyzing coverage data from the tests, you have integration with deployment, all of that stuff. We’ve been talking to Bazel users for four years and they are looking for these things. Sometimes we say that Google is a snowflake, Google is special, but we often see that other companies want to want to do similar things. And so we thought there was an opportunity there.” Altshuler also stressed that increasingly, enterprises are creating platform engineering teams that aim to bring a more opinionated approach to CI/CD to their teams. “That is usually the audience for Bazel to try it to make it work for their specific company — and then launch it to the engineers. These platform engineering teams are our primary customers, but behind every platform engineering team, there are hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of engineers that are impacted by Bazel as a result and hopefully don’t have to be Bazel experts and know all of the internals — it should just work for them,” she noted. Image Credits: Bazel The team noted that a lot of new customers are migrating from Gradle or CMake to the service, so it’s maybe no surprise that EngFlow also recently hired Jay Conrod, the developer of the open-source Gazelle tool for migrating to Bazel (and also a former Googler). It’s worth stressing that while Bazel is a main focus here, the platform also supports Chromium and Android platform builds. Brave, with its Chromium-based browser, is a customer, for example. For Brave, EngFlow’s distributed build system brought build times down from two hours to fifteen minutes. But still, Bazel is the main focus here and the team today also launched its Bazel Invocation Analyzer, a new open-source tool that allows developers to get deeper insights into their Bazel profiles and optimize their builds. “Build is one of the most critical aspects of building software. And traditionally it’s been a massive time and cost sink for companies to get right,” said Martin Casado, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “EngFlow is the leading company changing all of this. Coming from deep roots in Bazel and build, they’ve put together a solution which for the first time we’ve ever seen, is able to tackle the most complex code bases and large infrastructure environments and offer dramatic savings in development time and costs. These aren’t mere words, EngFlow has extraordinary customer traction across a number of verticals, far more than we normally see at this stage. We’re delighted to be investors and doubling down as EngFlow continues their path as the leading build company.” Given the popularity of taking Google open-source tools and bringing them to the enterprise (hello, Kubernetes), it’s maybe no surprise that EngFlow isn’t the only startup in this space. YC-backed BuildBuddy, for example, also offers a Bazel-centric build system. Meanwhile, well-funded Gradle Enterprise offers support for Gradle, Maven and Bazel as part of its enterprise build tool.

Supported iPhones in the US and Canada can now contact emergency services via satellite • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 15, 2022Posted in Apple, Apps, Emergency SOS, Hardware, iOS, iPhone, satelliteNo Comments

Months after it was announced at an event in September, Emergency SOS via satellite, Apple’s service for the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro that uses satellite to route emergency calls, launched today. Supported iPhones in the U.S. and Canada updated with the latest iOS 16 can send an SOS even when they’re off the grid, no dish required, thanks to an upgraded wireless chipset and Apple’s partnership with satellite service provider Globalstar. Emergency SOS via satellite will expand to France, Germany, Ireland and the U.K. next month, Apple announced this morning. As my colleague Devin Coldewey noted in his coverage of Emergency SOS earlier this year, the service differs from the satellite-based data and text connectivity offered by Lynk and T-Mobile and Starlink. While those rely on cell towers strong enough to reach and receive a satellite signal, Emergency SOS — via Globalstar — uses bands that normally require a special antenna. It’s a costly venture. Apple recently pledged $450 million through its Advanced Manufacturing Fund toward expanding the infrastructure powering Emergency SOS, including the satellite network and ground stations. A part of the funding went toward installing custom-built antennas designed to receive signals transmitted by Globalstar’s satellite constellation. Testing Emergency SOS via satellite on an autumnal day in Prospect Park. One presumes that Apple intends to eventually recoup its investment. But for now, Emergency SOS is fee-free. Existing iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro owners won’t have to pay for at least two years from today, while new iPhone owners will receive free service for two years from when they activate their phones. On a drizzly Friday morning in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, I — along with other reporters — had a chance to give Emergency SOS a test drive ahead of the launch. Apple spokespeople arranged for us to place calls to 911 using the service, albeit calls that weren’t actually routed to first responders. So how’s the experience? Pretty smooth, I must say. Emergency SOS can be activated either by dialing an emergency number or automatically through Siri or the crash detection feature on the newer iPhone and Apple Watch models and fall detection on the Apple Watch. (In non-emergencies, Emergency SOS can also be used to send your location to friends and family via the Find My app.) After dialing 911, once Emergency SOS detects that cell and Wi-Fi service is unavailable, a prompt appears to launch Emergency SOS via satellite. Image Credits: Apple While active, Emergency SOS prompts you to select one of several types of emergencies — e.g. illness, crime, physical injury — and provide details about the emergency, such as whether you’re struggling to breathe or have medication handy. If you’ve set up emergency contacts, you can choose to notify them along with emergency responders. At this stage, Emergency SOS will instruct you to point your phone at the nearest satellite, showing an animation that indicates when you’ve locked on to the signal. If you’re not in a position to do so — say, unconscious or incapacitated — Emergency SOS will, where cellular and Wi-Fi aren’t available, attempt a satellite connection even if there isn’t a clear view. In my tests, Emergency SOS reliably found a signal through the thick tree branches in Prospect Park. The time to lock on varied from just a few seconds to as long as 10, though Apple says that lock-on success will depend on a number of factors, including the weather and obstructions in the way of the antenna. Like most satellite-based services, Emergency SOS doesn’t work indoors. Image Credits: Apple Apple also notes in a support page that mountains, steep hills and canyons can block Emergency SOS via satellite’s connection. But Prospect Park is devoid of these, so I wasn’t able to truly put Emergency SOS through its paces. Alas. Post-connection, Emergency SOS texts the answers to the aforementioned questions along with your phone’s battery life, location (including elevation) and — if you’ve entered it beforehand — basic medical information to either a public safety answering point (the local call center where emergency calls usually end up) or an Apple-operated emergency relay center. Which party receives the satellite-bound texts depends on whether the nearest public safety answering point supports text to 911. If it doesn’t, staffers in the emergency relay center will communicate the info to an emergency responder via voice, acting as intermediaries. Follow-up Emergency SOS texting happens in iMessage, where responders can ask about your specific location and current status. A notification shows the sending progress of each message; send times can range from a few seconds to up to around a minute for weaker signals. Image Credits: Apple It’s worth noting that Emergency SOS via satellite, as it currently exists, has a number of limitations. It’s only available in English, Spanish and French in Canada and the U.S., as mentioned — excluding Guam and American Samoa. It might not work in places above 62° latitude, such as northern parts of Canada and Alaska. And international travelers who purchased iPhones in mainland China, Hong Kong or Macao can’t use it. But it’s safe to assume we’ll see Emergency SOS via satellite evolve in the coming months to years, particularly if it someday gains a premium component — or Apple Watch support.

ULUU wants to solve the plastic crisis with seaweed • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 15, 2022Posted in Australia, Climate, environment, green tech, plastic alternative, plastics, ULUUNo Comments

ULUU believes the solution to the plastic crisis lies in the world’s oceans. The Australian startup uses seaweed to create a plastic alternative and is planning to launch its first products in the next 12 to 24 months. Today ULUU announced it has raised $8 million AUD (about $5.3 million USD) led by Main Sequence (the deep-tech fund launched by Australia’s national science agency) with participation from Albert Impact Ventures, Mistletoe and Possible Ventures. Other investors through Main Sequence’s social impact community Voice Capital included Melvin Benn, the managing director of Festival Republi, Nathan McLay, Australian independent music company Future Classic, restauranteur Neil Perry AM, model and philanthropist Karlie Kloss and Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker. ULUU’s compostable polymer, called polhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), is made through a fermentation process that is similar to brewing beer, and enables the company to keep its production process clean. It is made out of seaweed sugars, sea water and salt water microbes and has a durability similar to plastic, but is biodegradable and compostable. ULUU founders Dr. Julia Reisser and Michael Kingsbury Dr. Julia Reisser, who founded ULUU along with Michael Kingsbury, told ZebethMedia that she has a long history with plastics. During her PhD studies, she mapped microplastic pollution within Australian waters and got the idea for ULUU in 2019 while working at Australian businessman Andrew Forrest’s philanthropic organization Minderoo Foundation, analyzing how startups are dealing with plastic pollution. Dr. Reisser researched how startups are created without fossil fuels, but found that alternatives derived from sugar cane or corn (which PHAs can also be created from) have environmental challenges. Kingsbury also worked at Minderoo, where he was introduced to Dr. Reisser while she was looking for someone with a commercial background to help develop ULUU. The startup was launched in 2020 and raised $1.8 million the next year. The latest funding will be used on product development and engineering R&D to scale the production of PHAs. ULUU currently plans to get its pilot plant facility operational in the next 12 months, and start to scale and test products. It can be used in many industries, including fashion, furniture and packaging. ULUU plans to cement partnerships with major consumer brands, and it will pick one or two to work on a pilot project. ULUU will work toward establishing commercial relationships in the fashion sector, with the goal of helping brands develop products that are made with ULUU and are both carbon negative and marine biodegradable. Its investment from industry figures like Kloss and Parker will help them make important connections in the fashion and beauty industry, Kingsbury said. “We’re exploring potential opportunities in sustainable fashion, changing the space one step at a time,” said Kingsbury. “It’s no longer cool to have only the best design and cut when it comes to the clothes we wear—people are starting to care about the materials behind them.” Even though 60% of fibers used in clothes are synthetic, derived from fossil fuels and cause microplastic pollution, Kingsbury noted that many brands are starting to look at more environmentally-friendly alternatives. These include Patagonia, which plans to use only renewable or recycled materials in their products by 2025.

Germany widens antitrust probes of Amazon to loop in special abuse controls • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 15, 2022Posted in Commerce, Government & PolicyNo Comments

Germany’s antitrust watchdog has moved to widen an existing investigation of Amazon’s business in the market in light of special abuse powers it confirmed are applicable to the ecommerce giant’s business in the country this summer. The Federal Cartel Office (FCO) said yesterday it is extending two ongoing “abuse control proceedings” against Amazon to include the application of “the new instrument for more effective oversight over large digital companies” (aka, Section 19a of the GWB; aka it’s rebooted competition law) — which is a reference to a 2021 reform of German competition law that targets digital giants found to have so-called “paramount significance for competition across markets” with a proactive antitrust regime that outlaws practices such as self-preferencing, denying interoperability and exclusively bundling their own services to the detriment of rival offerings, among other ex ante prohibitions listed in Section 19b of the law. The German law is similar to the pan-EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) which was recently adopted by the bloc — and will come into force next year — so the FCO is ahead of the curve here and its application of special abuse controls may offer a little taster of the extended scrutiny that’s coming down the pipe across the continent for Big Tech. The FCO has two open investigations of Amazon that are being extended to include scrutiny of whether they comply with the rebooted competition regime — one examining price control mechanisms it says are used by Amazon to algorithmically control price setting by third-party sellers on its marketplace; and another proceeding focused on what it dubs “brandgating”, aka “possible disadvantages” for marketplace sellers as a result of various instruments applied by Amazon, such as agreements with (brand) manufacturers on whether individual sellers can or cannot sell (brand) products on the Amazon marketplace. In a statement about the extension of the ongoing proceeding, Andreas Mundt, the FCO’s president, said: “We are examining in both proceedings whether and how Amazon impedes the business opportunities of sellers that are active on the Amazon marketplace and compete with Amazon’s own retail business. Amazon operates the most important marketplace in e-commerce and thus has a key position in that area, which allows the company to set far-reaching rules for competition on its platform. Our new competencies, which are precisely intended to restrict such power to set rules, allow us to intervene more efficiently against Amazon’s anti-competitive practices.” Reached for a response to the development, an Amazon spokesperson sent us this statement — which confirms that it is seeking to appeal the earlier FCO decision that its business falls under the special abuse controls regime (NB: the decision remains enforceable during appeal): “We disagree with the FCO’s interpretation of this complex new legislation, and have filed an appeal. The retail market that Amazon operates in is very large and extraordinarily competitive, online and offline. We continue to cooperate with the Federal Cartel Office in these proceedings.” On pricing, the ecommerce giant refutes it indulges in any abusive practices — arguing generally that its business succeeds when sellers succeed, and claiming third party sellers set their own product prices on its marketplace. As regards the FCO’s brandgating probe, Amazon claims it never makes changes to selling privileges without a good reason — further suggesting that any amendments it does make to how sellers can operate are intended to ensure a trusted shopping experience for customers, such as by protecting shoppers from illegitimate goods. While Amazon continues to come out fighting aggressively against multiplying accusations of antitrust abuse, competition scrutiny continues to pile up in Europe and beyond. A Europe Union competition investigation of the ecommerce giant’s use of third party seller data has been grinding on for years — and an attempt by Amazon to settle the probe this summer, by offering a set of commitments, was swiftly denounced by dozens of civil society and digital rights groups as weak sauce. A few days later Commission EVP and competition chief Margrethe Vestager warned the company its offer wasn’t good enough. The EU is still considering industry feedback on Amazon’s commitments so it remains to be seen where that pan-EU antitrust procedure will land. This summer the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority also announced its own investigation into Amazon’s marketplace — although it’s a few years behind so still has to do the work of determining whether Amazon has a dominant position in the market and, only if it confirms that’s the case, look at whether it’s abusing that position and distorting competition by giving an unfair advantage to its own retail business or sellers using its services vs third party sellers who aren’t. So the UK is lagging other European regulators in scrutiny of Amazon. Outside Europe, Amazon is fighting antitrust accusations — and lawsuits — on home soil too after years of increasing scrutiny by US lawmakers on Big Tech’s market power.

Induction cooking heats up with a $20M cash injection for Impulse • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 15, 2022Posted in Climate, funding round, Hardware, impulse, lux capital, StartupsNo Comments

All electric, everywhere, all of the time; that’s one of the many climate mantras. Induction stovetops take a lot of power, however — they can pull 40 amps at 240 volts. That’s the same as an at-home Level 2 EV charger. Needless to say, a lot of older houses aren’t wired to plug in a Tesla in your kitchen, which means it could get expensive to upgrade to an induction range. Impulse to the rescue — the company’s stoves include a battery solution, which means that it doesn’t pull the full 40 amps when it’s operating, and you could find yourself cooking with induction without having to upgrade your panel. Clever! “I’d been thinking about how to supercharge home appliances for a while and the deeper I dug into the space, the clearer it became that there was a larger story bringing together whole-home electrification and added energy storage in alignment with new policy tailwinds and distributed energy resource incentives,” said Sam D’Amico, CEO at Impulse. “Integrating batteries not only unlocks really impressive performance improvements, it also removes a lot of common barriers around power or panel limitations with installing induction stoves while also adding energy storage to the grid.” The company today announced its official launch, and a $20 million Series A funding round led by Lux Capital, and joined by Fifth Wall, Lachy Groom and Construct Capital. This brings their total funding to $25 million (Lux Capital, Construct and Lachy Groom formerly led the company’s $5 million seed round in 2021). “There is an undeniable directional arrow of progress towards the electrification of everything, which will enable new appliances and applications to be created,” commented Josh Wolfe, co-founder and managing partner at Lux Capital, who led the most recent funding round, in an email to ZebethMedia. “What Impulse is building is not only meaningful but a moral imperative, changing the architecture of our daily lives by decreasing our reliance on natural gas and carbon. We’re proud to back the Impulse team and help bring their vision to life.” Originally, the company set out to use batteries to create the perfect electric pizza oven, but as the company explored the market, it realized there were additional opportunities. As the company puts it: What started as a cool idea to make pizza became a mission to reframe the home appliance industry. Impulse realized early on that there was an opportunity to leverage all the amazing tailwinds from the electric vehicle and renewables space (including the policy tailwinds of the Inflation Reduction Act) to launch compelling products. The company identified induction cooking as something that already had a pretty compelling story, and figured out some foundational ways to make cooking using induction tech significantly better. Impulse’s futuristic-looking induction stovetops may bring some interesting new features to a kitchen near you. Image Credits: Impulse. “We’re very aware of the difficulty of building a hardware business, especially given the present economic climate. We credibly believe that this [round of financing] gets us through the major checkpoints required to ship our first hardware product, at the level where we can take orders from paying customers,” says D’Amico. “That paves the way for us to launch preorders in the next year with a credible, realistic delivery date that is not out of line with expectations for high-end home appliances.” The company is positioning itself squarely in the challenge around residential and light industrial decarbonization. “This is going to push us in a fairly fundamental direction — ending fossil fuel use ‘at the edge’ means we have to make everything electric,” D’Amico says as he outlines his vision. “Moving storage to the edge in lieu of fossil fuels enables us to do this without having to rely on extremely difficult changes to the built environment, and without having to massively scale up power distribution infrastructure to deal with new peak loads.” The big play from Impulse is that battery prices are declining, while the act of installing batteries are continuing to be non-trivial in the built environment. A lot of kitchens do have 220V connections, however, and that’s where Impulse is seeing an opportunity. “A key realization is that the spots where we install home appliances are typically wired for electricity and often for 220V connections in newer homes,” comments D’Amico. “At minimum this means we can electrify that previously gas appliance, and moving forward towards newer properties it also means that storage can be put to use for the home as well.”

After mothballing Amazon Care, Amazon reenters tele-health with Amazon Clinic, a marketplace for third-party virtual consultants • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 15, 2022Posted in Amazon, Biotech & Health, Commerce, telehealthNo Comments

The ink is not yet dry on Amazon’s $4 billion acquisition of OneMedical, but in the meantime, the online services giant is making one more move into telehealth, and into medical services overall, on its own steam. The company today is taking the wraps off of Amazon Clinic, which Amazon describes as a virtual health “storefront”: users will be able to search for, connect with, and pay for telehealth care, addressing variety of conditions that are some of the more popular for telehealth consultations today. Amazon’s launch — which appeared to leak out about a week ago when users spotted some quiet landing pages — is coming only a few months after it shut down Amazon Care, which had been a telehealth service that it initially created for its own employees before stepping up plans to launch it nationwide and to third-party companies. Amazon Clinic represents another pass at the market and problem, but one that is very much built in the Amazon mold: as a marketplace where third parties can leverage Amazon’s platform and reach to find customers, and Amazon can leverage third parties to quickly scale what offers to its consumers, as well as to extend the business funnel for other Amazon operations — in this case Amazon Pharmacy, which can fulfill any prescriptions that come out of Clinic consultations. (Users can fill the scripts in other pharmacies, too.) Amazon Clinic is initially launching in 32 states in the U.S.. It does not work with health insurance and this point, and overall pricing will vary depending on providers, conditions, and location. (One example, connecting with a clinic for acne treatment in Nevada will cost around $40, and you get a choice of two providers whose different offers are provided in a comparative table. Another example, for pink eye (conjunctivitis) in New Jersey, has a wider price gap of between $30 and $48 between the two providers listed.) Other conditions include asthma refills, birth control, cold sores, dandruff, eczema, erectile dysfunction, eyelash growth, genital herpes, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), hayfever, hyperlipidemia refills, hypertension refills, hypothyroidism refills, men’s hair loss, migraines, sinusitis, smoking cessation, urinary tract infections (UTIs), yeast infections and so on. We’ve asked Amazon if it plans to provide its own in-house (private label, in e-commerce parlance) telehealth consultancy utalongside third parties, and what the plans are for further states, whether there are international ambitions, and if it will accept health insurance for Clinic in the future. It may well be that this is laying the groundwork for Amazon to link up what it is building here with OneMedical when that acquisition closes. The bigger picture for Amazon Clinic is that the service will sit within Amazon’s bigger ambitions in the healthcare market. The company already has an online chemists, Amazon Pharmacy, which fulfills subscriptions and lets users additional buy over-the-counter drugs via Prime memberships that ship the items within two days. Amazon also believes its new telehealth service addresses a gap in the market for providing users with health consultations for more minor ailments. Some situations need more direct physician involvement, which might be covered with One Medical or one’s existing healthcare coverage; some situations might be addressable by visiting a pharmacy on one’s own steam. “But we also know that sometimes you just need a quick interaction with a clinician for a common health concern that can be easily addressed virtually,” the company noted in its blog post announcing the service. Amazon has been making inroads, and laying out its ambitions, in healthcare for a number of years. Amazon Pharmacy was launched off the back of its acquisition of PillPack. And it’s been exploring healthcare as an enterprise opportunity, with integrations of Alexa into healthcare environments. But Amazon Care is not the only step back it’s taken in its longer journey. In 2018, it formed a JV with JP Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway to build an employee healthcare operation, appointing a high-profile doctor to lead it. That service never appeared to take shape as expected and shut up shop in 2021. We’ll update this piece as we learn more.

IFC launches $225M platform to back early-stage startups in Africa, Asia, Middle East • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 15, 2022Posted in africa, Asia, IFC, Middle East, VentureNo Comments

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has today launched a $225 million platform to back early-stage startups in Africa, Middle East, Central Asia, and Pakistan. The IFC, a member of the World Bank, will through the platform make equity and “equity-like” investments in tech startups to “grow them into scalable ventures that can attract mainstream equity and debt financing.” The institution said in a statement that it will also use the sector-agnostic platform to work closely with other members of the World Bank to champion for regulatory reforms, sector analyses and other changes that can grow the venture capital ecosystems in these regions. The IFC will also rally for more capital from other development institutions and the private sector. It has so far received a $50 million backing from the Blended Finance Facility of the International Development Association’s Private Sector Window, which de-risks investments in low-income countries. “Support for entrepreneurship and digital transformation is essential to economic growth, job creation, and resilience,” said Makhtar Diop, IFC’s managing director, in a statement shared with ZebethMedia. “IFC’s Venture Capital Platform will help tech companies and entrepreneurs to expand during a time of capital shortage, creating scalable investment opportunities and backing countries’ efforts to build transformative tech ecosystems. We want to help develop homegrown innovative solutions that are not only relevant to emerging countries but can also be exported to the rest of the world,” he said. The IFC’s regions of focus continue to receive a small percentage of the global capital funding, and IFC hopes to help bridge this gap. This is, especially, in the wake of a funding slowdown amidst macroeconomic headwinds. IFC hopes to grow the platform to other startup ecosystems beyond major hubs like Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, and South Africa. The platform adds to IFC’s Startup Catalyst Program, which is also part of investments and efforts to tap tech ecosystems in Africa, Middle East, Central Asia, and Pakistan. In its initial program, IFC has made investments in Twiga Foods, a Kenyan technology food distribution platform; TradeDepot, a B2B e-commerce startup connecting brands with retailers; and Toters, an on-demand delivery platform in Lebanon and Iraq.

Browser maker Opera adds built-in TikTok support to desktop sidebar function • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 15, 2022Posted in Opera, Social, TikTokNo Comments

Web browser developer Opera announced today that it added a built-in TikTok feature to the sidebar of its desktop browser, allowing users to scroll through TikTok videos and post content without opening a separate app or creating a new tab. To enable the feature, Opera users must right-click on the browser sidebar and go to the Messengers section. Once enabled, users can open the sidebar and scroll through their TikTok feed on the left-hand side of their screen before returning to what they were doing on their main page. While adding sidebar functionality isn’t new, Opera claims to be the only browser to integrate TikTok in its sidebar. Opera has already added various messengers and social media platforms to its sidebar, including Instagram, WhatsApp, and Twitter. Joanna Czajka, Product Director at Opera, said in a statement, “Typically, people who have started using the messengers and social media platforms available through Opera’s sidebar do not want to go back to a world without them.” Plus, according to Opera’s survey, the built-in TikTok feature was widely requested by respondents between 18 and 35 years old, the company told ZebethMedia. Fifty-four percent of Opera users in the U.S. from the 18-25 age group use TikTok. Still, it’s an interesting move for Opera to roll out a built-in TikTok feature since many users opt for the mobile app. Sensor Tower recently reported that TikTok was the highest-grossing app in the world. In the first quarter of 2022, the social video app had been downloaded over 175 million times. What’s more, app intelligence firm data.ai found that users in more than 12 worldwide markets spend four to five hours per day on apps, with TikTok being among the top apps based on downloads, consumer spend and monthly active users. So, while it’s unlikely the billions of TikTok users will use the lesser-known Opera browser to entertain themselves in between tasks, many Opera users will probably get a kick out of the new feature. “TikTok has developed from a platform full of short funny videos to a source of entertainment, news, and inspiration. With this release, Opera is answering our users’ requests to have TikTok at their fingertips,” added Czajka.

Google Play finally adds UPI subscriptions in India • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 15, 2022Posted in Apps, Google, Google Play, india, UPINo Comments

Unified Payments Interface — commonly known as UPI — has become the most popular mobile payment route for P2P and merchant payments in India, and now Google’s stepping up with an updated UPI functionality to meet demand. Google Play has enabled users in the South Asian country to make subscription-based purchases using UPI. On Tuesday, Google announced that it introduced UPI Autopay as a payment option on the Play Store to allow its users in the country to purchase subscriptions using UPI. The update comes months after Google launched UPI as a payment method for buying apps, games and in-app content through the Play Store in 2019. Users need to select the ‘Pay with UPI’ option after selecting a subscription plan using Google Play Billing to use UPI for recurring payments. Google confirmed to ZebethMedia that adding the new payment option will not bring any other changes to its billing system. This means it will continue to take commissions from subscription-based purchases through the Play Store in the country. The UPI Autopay option is available alongside the existing credit and debit card, net banking, direct carrier billing and gift cards options. Image Credits: Google “With the introduction of UPI Autopay on the platform, we aim to extend the convenience of UPI to subscription-based purchases, helping many more people access helpful and delightful services – while enabling local developers to grow their subscription-based businesses on Google Play,” said Saurabh Agarwal, Head of Google Play Retail & Payments Activation – India, Vietnam, Australia & New Zealand, in a prepared statement. The governing body overseeing UPI, the National Payment Corporation of India, launched the UPI Autopay service in 2020 to expand UPI to recurring transactions. It, however, received little interest last year when companies including Netflix and Disney+ Hotstar in the country enabled UPI Autopay on their apps. This resulted from the Reserve Bank of India’s payments rule that requires banks, financial institutions and payment gateways to obtain additional approval for auto-recurring transactions worth over 5,000 Indian rupees ($62). Last month, India’s antitrust body fined Google $113 million for abusing the dominant position of its Play Store in the country and ordered the company not to restrict app developers from using third-party payment processing services for in-app purchases and purchasing apps through the Play Store. As a result, Google indefinitely paused its policy’s enforcement requiring developers to use Play Store’s billing system for user transactions in the country. The Android maker is also testing alternative payment systems for the Play Store in countries including South Korea, Australia, Japan and most recently in the U.S. to resist regulatory pressure.