Gmail will get a brand new look, Instagram journeys whereas attempting to be TikTok and India blocks Battleground Cell – TechCrunch

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The most learn story this week was about Battlegrounds Cell India, a preferred battle royale title that has discovered an viewers of tens of hundreds of thousands in India. Gamers woke as much as discover the sport out of the blue 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 everything we know so far.

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New Gmail for all: Use Gmail? Don’t be shocked if it seems to be completely 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, no less than, you could find a toggle hidden within the settings menu to change it again.

Instagram’s bad move(s): As greatest anybody can inform, TikTok appears to be consuming Instagram’s lunch. Is the reply for Instagram to grow to be extra like TikTok? Latest updates — like a give attention to full-screen video and extra content material from individuals you don’t comply with — have made the Insta interface really feel increasingly TikTok-y…and, properly, the complaints have been loud. Instagram is no less than pretending to hear, although, and says it’ll be walking back many of said changes. Maybe.

Rivian layoffs: Rumors earlier this month urged layoffs had been looming at Rivian; certain sufficient, the corporate confirmed this week that it’s shedding round 6% of its workforce as a part of a “restructuring plan.”

A penny for your prompts?: OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 can generate unbelievable artwork seemingly out of skinny air, however typically getting the precise outcomes you need can require some…finesse. This startup desires to “promote strings of phrases that web predictable outcomes” on DALL-E 2 and different such techniques. An attention-grabbing story made all the higher by its oh-so-Seussian opening picture, which I’ll word 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}? Most likely not! Known 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 many others. It doesn’t assist that it was launched proper at the start of the pandemic, when many {couples} in all probability had no hassle preserving in contact as a result of they in all probability weren’t going anyplace anyway.

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Is chopping your organization’s inner valuation ever a very good factor? Natasha and Anita targeted on that query on Wednesday’s episode of Equity. In the meantime, on Chain Reaction, 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 clients.

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In case you’re a TechCrunch+ subscriber, (a) thanks! and (b) we’ve acquired good things for you this week. Resembling:

3 views on Amazon’s acquisition of One Medical: Find it irresistible or hate it, Amazon is shopping for One Medical. Good factor? Unhealthy factor? Alex Wilhelm, Walter Thompson and Miranda Halpern weigh in with their views.

8 fintech VCs on how to pitch them: What are fintech buyers in search of proper now? Mary Ann Azevedo checked in with eight of the highest buyers within the area.

Could the CHIPS Act spark another U.S. startup renaissance?: The U.S. Senate clearly desires extra semiconductor manufacturing taking place stateside — however chip manufacturing is wildly costly. Is that this “potential money injection” a chance for brand spanking new startups to vary the way in which it’s finished? As Haje places it: “These bizarre theories you had been finding out as a part of your PhD thesis? Now’s the time to mud ’em off.”