Hiya howdy! Welcome again to Week in Overview, the e-newsletter the place we do a fast rundown of the most-read TechCrunch tales from the previous week. The concept: Once you’ve had a busy few days, you need to have the ability to skim Week in Overview and nonetheless have a good suggestion of what’s up recently in tech. Need it in your inbox? Join right here.
The most learn story this week was about Battlegrounds Cellular India, a preferred battle royale title that has discovered an viewers of tens of thousands and thousands in India. Gamers woke as much as discover the sport all of the sudden blocked from each Google Play and Apple’s App Retailer by order of the Indian authorities. Why? That’s…not precisely clear but, however Manish has the breakdown of all the things we all know to this point.
different stuff
New Gmail for all: Use Gmail? Don’t be stunned if it seems totally different quickly. The corporate introduced this week that the “Materials You” interface overhaul it has been testing will roll out to all customers within the coming weeks. Don’t like the brand new styling? For now, at the very least, yow will discover a toggle hidden within the settings menu to modify it again.
Instagram’s dangerous transfer(s): As greatest anybody can inform, TikTok appears to be consuming Instagram’s lunch. Is the reply for Instagram to change into extra like TikTok? Latest updates — like a give attention to full-screen video and extra content material from individuals you don’t observe — have made the Insta interface really feel an increasing number of TikTok-y…and, nicely, the complaints have been loud. Instagram is at the very least pretending to pay attention, although, and says it’ll be strolling again lots of mentioned adjustments. Possibly.
Rivian layoffs: Rumors earlier this month steered layoffs have been looming at Rivian; positive sufficient, the corporate confirmed this week that it’s shedding round 6% of its workforce as a part of a “restructuring plan.”
A penny to your prompts?: OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 can generate unimaginable artwork seemingly out of skinny air, however generally getting the precise outcomes you need can require some…finesse. This startup needs to “promote strings of phrases that internet predictable outcomes” on DALL-E 2 and different such techniques. An fascinating story made all the higher by its oh-so-Seussian opening picture, which I’ll be aware was created by an precise human (and a lovely one at that).
Meta shutters Tuned: Do you know Meta had a social app for {couples}? In all probability not! Referred to as Tuned, it was a part of Meta’s New Product Experimentation efforts, and it appears this specific experiment is over. Meta introduced this week that Tuned will go away on September 19. The app was meant to assist {couples} talk and “create a shared scrapbook” of photographs/movies/and so forth. It doesn’t assist that it was launched proper at the start of the pandemic, when many {couples} in all probability had no bother preserving in contact as a result of they in all probability weren’t going anyplace anyway.
audio stuff
Is chopping your organization’s inside valuation ever factor? Natasha and Anita centered on that query on Wednesday’s episode of Fairness. In the meantime, on Chain Response, Lucas and Anita chatted about Minecraft, saying, “No friggin’ thanks” to NFTs, and Lauren hopped on The TechCrunch Podcast to fill us in on why (as we discovered final week) Netflix is bleeding prospects.
extra stuff
If you happen to’re a TechCrunch+ subscriber, (a) thanks! and (b) we’ve bought good things for you this week. Resembling:
three views on Amazon’s acquisition of One Medical: Like it or hate it, Amazon is shopping for One Medical. Good factor? Dangerous factor? Alex Wilhelm, Walter Thompson and Miranda Halpern weigh in with their views.
eight fintech VCs on easy methods to pitch them: What are fintech traders searching for proper now? Mary Ann Azevedo checked in with eight of the highest traders within the area.
Might the CHIPS Act spark one other U.S. startup renaissance?: The U.S. Senate clearly needs extra semiconductor manufacturing occurring stateside — however chip manufacturing is wildly costly. Is that this “potential money injection” a possibility for brand new startups to alter the way in which it’s executed? As Haje places it: “These bizarre theories you have been learning as a part of your PhD thesis? Now’s the time to mud ’em off.”
