Amazon has introduced a batch of new generative AI tools that aim to improve the retail experience for both customers and sellers on the platform. One of the more notable features announced at the Amazon Accelerate event on Thursday will use customers’ preferences, search, browsing, and purchase history to create personalized product recommendations on Amazon’s homepage.

Instead of the “more like this” feature that suggests similar, specific items, the new recommendations will be offered as larger categories based on a customer’s shopping habits — such as those catering to holiday events or sporting activities. The company says it’s leveraging a large language model to recommend products with specific features, but it’s not clear how...

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Google is improving passkey support in Chrome by making it easier to use the passwordless sign-in credentials across different devices. The search giant is introducing a Google Password Manager PIN that allows users to securely save and synchronize passkeys for use across Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android devices. These updates are available in beta on ChromeOS as well, with iOS support “coming soon.”

Passkeys needed to be saved to Google Password Manager on Android prior to this update and required users to scan a QR code on their Android device to access them on other platforms. The new PIN replaces the need to scan the QR code while ensuring that your saved passkeys remain protected by end-to-end encryption, so not even Google can...

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Anduril Industries, the military tech company started by Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey, is teaming up with Microsoft to improve the mixed-reality headsets used by the United States Army. The project announced by Anduril will embed the company’s Lattice software into the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), allowing the HoloLens-based goggles to update soldiers with live information pulled from drones, ground vehicles, and aerial defense systems.

The partnership marks a return to the VR headset space for Luckey, having sold Oculus to Meta for $2 billion in 2014. Luckey started Anduril in 2017 with support from venture capitalist Peter Thiel.

The Lattice integration with IVAS could alert wearers to incoming threats picked up by...

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The Setapp Mobile alternative app store is now available in open beta for iPhone users in the European Union, featuring 50 different productivity- and lifestyle-focused apps at launch. While most of these apps, like the Tripsy itinerary planner and MindNode mind mapping tool, are already available on the official iOS App Store, Setapp creator MacPaw says its own platform provides a simplified user experience and a fair, performance-based compensation model for app developers.

Setapp was originally released as an app marketplace for macOS before the company launched a mobile version for iOS users. Setapp Mobile launched as a closed beta in May, shortly after the European Union’s Digital Markets Act forced Apple to start allowing iPhones...

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Apple will let iPad users in the European Union download apps from alternative app marketplaces starting next week, coinciding with the release of iPadOS 18 on September 16th. The change comes after the iPad operating system was designated a “core platform service” in April under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), the same rules that forced the company to allow third-party app stores on iPhones earlier this year.

Apple had six months to ensure iPadOS was compliant with DMA obligations, which include allowing users in the EU to download apps from outside of the Apple App Store, uninstall preloaded iPad apps, and choose their own default apps like browsers. It also opens up iPadOS, like iOS, to apps that use alternative browser engines...

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The Netflix app is dropping support for older iPhones and iPads that are stuck at iOS 16. 9to5Mac reports that Netflix is showing an alert to users on some iOS 16 devices that says “We’ve updated the Netflix app! To use the latest version, install iOS 17 or later.”

The change only impacts devices that can’t be updated to iOS 17, such as the iPhone X, iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus handsets, and Apple’s first-generation iPad Pro and iPad 5 tablets. These devices will be unable to receive further Netflix updates, such as important patches for bugs and other security concerns. Apple is rolling out iOS 18 on September 16th.

Netflix users stuck on iOS 16 can still access their accounts in the current version of their app, for the time being, as...

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Meta is updating how it labels content on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads that has been edited or manipulated using generative AI. In an updated blog post, Meta announced that its “AI Info” tag will appear within a menu in the top-right corner of images and videos edited with AI — instead of directly beneath the user’s name.

Users can click on the menu to check if AI information is available and read what may have been adjusted. Meta previously applied the “AI Info” tag to all AI-related content — whether it was lightly adjusted in a tool like Photoshop that includes AI features or fully AI-generated from a prompt.

The company says the changes are being introduced to “better reflect the extent of AI used” across images and videos on...

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