Anthropic brings ChatGPT rival to iPhones, Google builds ‘fart button’ into Android
OpenAI’s ChatGPT is facing serious competition, as the company’s rival Anthropic brings its Claude chatbot to iPhones. Anthropic, led by a group of former OpenAI staff who quit over differences with chief executive Sam Altman, have a product that already beats ChatGPT on some measures of intelligence, and now wants to win over everyday users. “In today’s world, smartphones are at the centre of how people interact with technology. To make Claude a true AI assistant, it’s crucial that we meet users where they are,” said Scott White at Anthropic. Guardian
Uber faces a multimillion-pound lawsuit from London’s black cab drivers in a revival of the longstanding dispute over the operation of the ride-hailing app in the UK capital. The action, which will be filed in the High Court on Thursday, alleges that Uber improperly obtained a licence from Transport for London in 2012 and therefore took business away from other drivers unlawfully. The value of the claim is estimated at a minimum of £250m, with each of the 10,500 black cab drivers potentially eligible for compensation of up to £25,000. Sky News
Meta is set to release its v65 update to Quest, promising a number of improvements ostensibly spurred by its ongoing competition with Apple Vision Pro. The company says in a recent blogpost that v65 will include updates to the spatial video playback feature introduced in v62, a new way to view panoramic stills in-headset, and improvements to how passthrough works on Quest 3. In early April, Meta rolled its v64 update for Meta Quest 3, which included marked boost in passthrough quality, improving color, exposure, contrast, and dynamic range. RoadtoVR
I simply don’t know how to feel about an incoming update to the Google Phone app that adds sound effects to the Android dialer. First spotted as part of a beta update by 9to5Google, the app may soon let you tap one of six “Audio Emoji” buttons to play a short sound clip that both sides of the call can hear. There’s clapping, laughing, crying (a sad, sliding trombone), partying, a drum sting (ba-dum ts) and… poop, which emits a fart sound. The Verge
Fitbit owners are used to seeing features redesigned or scrapped completely since Google‘s takeover in 2021, but the latest change could ultimately be a good one. Google is shutting down Fitbit Pay and forcing users to switch to Google Wallet. As spotted by Droid Life, Fitbit has sent emails to owners of its smartwatches and fitness trackers stating that Fitbit Pay will be fully replaced by Google Wallet on July 29. Google’s contactless payments app has been available on the Versa, Sense and Charge for a while, but this move will make the switch mandatory. Tech Radar
Apple says it is working quickly to fix an issue that caused some iPhone alarms not to play a sound, giving their slumbering users an unexpected lie-in. For many people, their phone is an indispensable alarm clock and some over-sleepers turned to social media to vent. One TikTokker complained that she had set “like five alarms” and they didn’t go off. Apple has confirmed it is aware of the issue – but is yet to spell out what it believes is causing it, or what users can do to avoid a late start. BBC
