Tech Digest daily roundup: Half of Threads users stopped using app since launch
Meta’s “Twitter killer” app Threads has struggled to hold the attention of millions of users despite its record-breaking launch, Mark Zuckerberg has admitted. The app, which lets people post messages, pictures and videos, signed up 150m users in its first few weeks, making it the fastest growing product in history. However, Mr Zuckerberg has said more than half of the users have stopped using Threads since its mid-June launch. The Meta chief executive told staff on Thursday: “Obviously, if you have more than 100m people sign up, ideally it would be awesome if all of them or even half of them stuck around. We’re not there yet.” Telegraph
Google says people should use its search engine to check whether information provided by its chatbot, Bard, is actually accurate. Some have suggested chatbots like Bard and ChatGPT could “kill” traditional search, which is dominated by Google. But users have found the information they provide can be wrong or even entirely made up. Google’s UK boss Debbie Weinstein said Bard was “not really the place that you go to search for specific information”. Speaking to the BBC’s Today programme, she said Bard should be considered an “experiment” best suited for “collaboration around problem solving” and “creating new ideas”. BBC
Concerns are rising that public appetite for switching to electric vehicles is waning as the cost of living crisis combines with increasingly vehement anti-electric car rhetoric to severely dent consumer confidence. While electric car registrations grew 32.7% in the first six months of this year, equating to an additional 37,719 cars over the same period in 2022, much of that is due to the easing of the chip crisis and other supply issues. The market as a whole is up 18.4% but, in contrast, EV market share growth, once exponential and a key indicator of market health as a whole, is much more modest. Autocar
WhatsApp is introducing Instant Video Messages to its platform which, as you can probably guess, allows people to send short video messages to chats. According to the platform, you have up to 60 seconds to say whatever you want, be it wishing a friend happy birthday wish or giving them good news. Recording a video works similarly to recording an audio message. All you have to do is tap the microphone icon in the bottom corner to turn it into the camera option. Pressing and holding the button records the clip. Swiping up on the camera icon after holding it locks the video for a hands-free recording. Tech Radar
Apple has been named America’s worst employer by a new study, with Amazon, Meta and Tesla not far behind. Resume builder platform Resume.io looked into the LinkedIn data of the top 100 market companies in the U.S. to find which workplaces have the best and worst employee retention rates. Many of America’s most successful companies like Tesla, Goldman Sachs and Mastercard all found themselves among the top 20 worst employers according to talent retention. Daily Mail
Twitter faces a ban in Indonesia after its rebrand to X.com earlier this week. The country’s Ministry of Communications and Informatics told the company that the domain was previously on a blocked list of sites associated with “negative” content including porn and gambling sites. The ban represents a real-life consequence for the company that until now had been the subject of jokes on its platform: Shortly after Elon Musk announced the name change, Twitter users compared the new name and black logo to those from XVideos.com, a porn site. The Messenger
