Link

Apple Acquires Machine Learning Startup Laserlike

Andrew Orr ·

Apple has acquired Laserlike, a young startup founded by three former Google engineers. It’s a machine learning startup that could help Apple improve its recommendation algorithms in News, TV, Apple Music, etc (paywall).

An Apple spokesperson confirmed the acquisition of the four-year-old startup, which was founded by three former Google engineers, Anand Shukla, Srinivasan Venkatachary and Steven Baker, and had raised more than $24 million from Redpoint Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures, according to CrunchBase. Terms of the deal could not be learned.

I look forward to getting better recommendations.

TMO Deals

Clip Studio Paint Pro for Mac and Windows: $29.99

Bryan Chaffin ·

We have a deal on Clip Studio Paint Pro for Mac and Windows, the successor program to Manga Studio. It’s aimed at illustrators, comic artists, manga artists, and other creators. You can get it through us for $29.99, 50% off retail. You can see it in action in the video below.

Link

iOS 12.2 Improves Audio Message Quality

Andrew Orr ·

In the latest iOS 12.2 beta Apple has improved audio message quality by switching to a different codec for files.

Details on the improvement in audio quality were shared on Twitter this morning, and we confirmed the change on our own devices. Apple previously used the .AMR file format for its audio messages, but in the beta, has swapped over to .CAF.

The Opus codec, coming in a 24000 Hz, is a big increase from the old AMR codec at 8000 Hz. Opus is used by other messaging services like WhatsApp, Telegram, and WebRTC.

Link

Firefox Send Lets You Share Big Encrypted Files

Andrew Orr ·

Firefox Send is a free tool that lets you send encrypted files up to 1GB in size, or 2.5GB if you sign in with a Firefox account.

What sets Send apart is its ease of use. It works in any browser; just go to send.firefox.com. Upload or drag and drop files, and Send will generate a link that you can set to expire after a certain number of downloads—up to 100—or a certain amount of time, ranging from five minutes to seven days.

Being able to use any browser is probably the best part about this tool.