Hello there, welcome to another round of Global tech roundup.
Twitter’s rival and Instagram’s text-based app Threads has already crossed the 100 million user signups milestone. The social media platform achieved the mark in just five days. The app has now surpassed OpenAI’s ChatGPT as the fastest-growing online platform in history.
Users of Grammarly, the text editing tool, would be without the Text Editor SDK, the developer tool that puts the company’s automated editing functionality into any app, from January 2024. the company has announced that it will shut down the tool on January 10th, 2024, after which the functionality will cease to work in any applications where it’s in use.
More tech corporations continue to announce new AI-based tools as the buzz around generative AI continues sweeping the ecosystem globally. In continuance of its AI swoop, Meta is now poised to release a commercial version of its artificial intelligence model, allowing start-ups and businesses to build custom software on top of the technology.
As layoffs continue, Microsoft has announced a new round of job cuts, internally impacting an unknown number of customer service, support, and sales employees. The cuts go beyond the 10,000 global layoffs announced in January.
We will bring These and more to you in this week’s global roundup. If you missed this major news, sit back and stay informed with the well-curated bits.
Here is a summary of the bulletin
- Threads crosses 100 million signups and becomes the fastest-growing online platform.
- Grammarly to discontinue Text Editor SDK
- Meta to release a commercial version of its AI model
- Microsoft announces new round of job cuts
- Apple launches online store on China’s WeChat app
Read also: Elon Musk sues law firm that defeated his bid to walk away from $44b Twitter deal
Threads becomes the fastest-growing online platform in history
Twitter rival Threads crossed 100 million sign-ups within five days of launch, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Monday, dethroning ChatGPT as the fastest-growing online platform to hit the milestone.
“That’s mostly organic demand, and we haven’t even turned on many promotions yet,” Zuckerberg said in a Threads post announcing the milestone.
The app’s sprint to 100 million users was much faster than that of OpenAI-owned ChatGPT, which became the fastest-growing consumer application in history in January, two months after its launch, according to a UBS study.
Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s head, also confirmed the milestone.
“100 million people signed up for Threads in five days. I’m not sure I can wrap my mind around that fact. It’s insane; I can’t make sense of it,” he said.
Threads have been setting records for user growth since its launch on Wednesday, with celebrities, politicians and other newsmakers joining the platform that analysts see as the first serious threat to the Elon Musk-owned microblogging app.
According to the company’s last public disclosure before Musk’s takeover, Twitter had nearly 240 million monetizable daily active users as of July last year. However, data from web analytics companies indicates usage has dropped since then.
Grammarly to discontinue Text Editor SDK
Popular AI-based writing assistant Grammarly has announced that it will shut down its “Text Editor SDK” next year on January 10.”On Wednesday, January 10, 2024, the Grammarly Text Editor SDK will be discontinued. After that date, the SDK will no longer be able to offer Grammarly’s writing suggestions in your app,” Grammarly said in a blog post on Thursday.
The company said that the decision to discontinue the service was based on learnings and input from the developer community, as well as to prioritise developing our core product offering in ways that go beyond writing assistance to ease many aspects of an organisation’s communication workflow.
For Grammarly, it is apparently a matter of how best to allocate internal engineering resources, and the company wants to focus on the core product, according to Drew Endick, senior manager for platform partners at Grammarly. He pointed out that the company is looking at building AI into the tool, which seems crucial given the emergence of generative AI tools like ChatGPT.
“Deprecating the Text Editor SDK allows us to focus on achieving this vision and meeting increased demand we’re seeing from enterprises by dedicating our resources to addressing the challenges they face,” Endick said.
From now, the company mentioned that it will no longer accept new registrations to Grammarly for Developers.
Meta to release a commercial version of its AI model
Facebook parent company Meta is set to release a commercial version of its artificial intelligence model, which startups and businesses can tap to build custom software on the technology. This move will put it in competition with Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Google, which are currently leading the race in the generative AI market.
According to Meta, the software can create text, images and code, which is powered by large language models (LLMs) that are trained on huge amounts of data, requiring vast computing power.
Customised software is software that is specially developed for some specific organisation or other user. It can be contrasted with the use of software packages developed for the mass market.
According to Financial Times, the Facebook parent company released its language model, known as LLaMA, to researchers and academics earlier this year. The new version will be more widely available and customisable by companies.
During a recent conference in Aix-en-Province, Yann LeCun, vice president and chief AI scientist at Meta said the new innovation will completely change the AI phase.
“The competitive landscape of AI is going to completely change in the coming months, in the coming weeks maybe, when there will be open source platforms that are actually as good as the ones that are not,” he said.
Apple launches online store on WeChat
Apple has launched an online store on China’s WeChat app, the Tencent-owned platform said on Tuesday. The Cupertino-based company has launched the store to the app via WeChat’s mini-programs — small-sized apps hosted on WeChat that feature e-commerce, financial services and transportation offerings.
The announcement by WeChat, China’s dominant messaging app, which also provides e-commerce, live streaming and payment services, said users could buy Apple products, including iPhones, iPads and Macs, from the store.
The move by Apple comes as Chinese consumers increasingly turn to social media platforms such as WeChat and ByteDance’s Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, to shop.
This isn’t the first time Apple has launched a store on a Chinese platform; as Reuters points out, the iPhone maker also has a store on Tencent-rival Alibaba’s Tmall e-commerce platform. Furthermore, Apple also tried selling its products through live commerce in the country in May this year.
China is one of the key markets for Apple outside the U.S. The top three positions in the chart of 2022’s best-selling phones in China were dominated by the iPhone 13 series, research firm Counterpoint estimates.
Microsoft announces new round of job cuts
Microsoft announced a new round of job cuts internally Monday morning, impacting an unknown number of customer service, support, and sales employees. The cuts go beyond the 10,000 global layoffs announced in January.
Microsoft’s fiscal year 2023 ended June 30. It’s not uncommon for Microsoft to restructure parts of its business as it begins a new fiscal year. The company confirmed the layoffs in response to GeekWire’s inquiry without providing details.
“Organizational and workforce adjustments are a necessary and regular part of managing our business. We will continue to prioritize and invest in strategic growth areas for our future and in support of our customers and partners,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement.
Numerous LinkedIn posts shed more light on the nature of the cuts, which target customer support and sales jobs across teams, geographies, and roles.
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