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WhatsApp is rolling out some new features, including one that's designed to bring related group chats together. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the Communities feature earlier this year, and the aim is to allow users to combine group chats “under one umbrella with a structure that works for them.” Similar tools are in the works for Instagram and Facebook.

Communities will be available to all WhatsApp users in the coming months. You'll be able to set up smaller group chats within a community to discuss things that matter to you and switch between them with ease. WhatsApp will offer admins "powerful new tools" to manage communities, such as the ability to broadcast announcements to all members and being able to choose which groups to include.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp suggests that neighborhoods, workplaces and parents who have kids at the same school might bring groups together as part of a community. You can tap the Communities tab at the top of the Android app or the bottom of the screen on iOS to get started. You'll be able to start a community from the ground up or add existing groups to it.

The Communities feature sounds a bit like Facebook Groups (it bears similarities to Nextdoor and Discord too) albeit with the protection of end-to-end encryption. While Zuckerberg has been eyeing a community-driven model to reduce the emphasis on feeds across Meta's apps, there may be some negatives to making group chats act more like Facebook Groups, where misinformation has proliferated in recent years. In general, WhatsApp has fewer moderation tools due to the platform's focus on encryption, which may make it more difficult to keep a lid on falsehoods.

Elsewhere, WhatsApp is adding some new features to groups, even ones that aren't linked to a community. Polls are coming to groups, as is support for encrypted 32-person video calls, which Meta has been testing for the last several weeks. Additionally, groups now support up to 1,024 users.

WhatsApp

The mass layoffs Twitter employees have been bracing for since Elon Musk began his takeover may be on the horizon. According to Bloomberg, the website's new owner and "Chief Twit" is planning to cull 3,700 employees from the company's workforce, which would cut its number of staff members in half, in an effort to cut costs. Musk and a team of advisers are still reportedly in the midst of finalizing the terms for the layoffs, but one option they're considering is offering the people they let go 60 days' of severance pay. The executive could break the news to affected staffers as soon as Friday. 

Those who get to keep their jobs may have to get used to working from the office again. Bloomberg says Musk is also planning to end Twitter's work-from-anywhere policy and asking employees to report to offices, barring some exceptions. The publication previously reported that Twitter employees had been worried about the changes Musk could bring when it comes to this particular policy before he even took over. It's no secret that the executive isn't a fan of work-from-home arrangements and had previously given Tesla and SpaceX employees an ultimatum, demanding that they spend 40 hours in the office or leave the company. 

Before Musk's takeover of the social network started, reports came out that he was going to axe 75 percent of the company's staff members. He reportedly denied those numbers when he visited Twitter's San Francisco HQ, but it was pretty clear that layoffs were still in the cards. After the deal to purchase Twitter was sealed, Musk's first move was to fire former CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and other top execs. 

More director and VP jobs were let go over the weekend, while some remaining Twitter employees in leadership roles were asked to write up lists of staff members that can be cut. Those layoff lists were reportedly ranked based on each individual's contribution to Twitter's code, and Musk asked help from Tesla's directors and engineers to assess them. 

Aside from ordering a mass layoff to save money, Musk is also implementing huge changes to make money, such as raising the price of Twitter Blue to $8 a month from $3. Bloomberg says the new pricing could go live as soon as Monday next week. The subscription will also be a requirement for blue verification badges going forward, though users who are already verified will be given months to start paying before they lose their check mark. 

In another sign of the upheaval happening internally at Twitter, the company has called off its Chirp developer conference just two weeks before it was scheduled to take place on November 16th. The company alerted developers and other attendees in a brief note that didn’t provide a reason for the cancellation.

“The team at Twitter is hard at work right now to make Twitter better for everyone - including developers,” the message says. “While we are heads down working on some exciting things for you, we’ve decided to cancel our #Chirp Developer Conference.”

A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment on the reason for the cancellation. Members of the media received invitations to register for Chirp just two weeks ago. “Chirp is the first time we will bring our developer community from around the globe together in person to preview some new tools, discuss feedback, and celebrate the developers that are making it easier for people on Twitter to discover content, have safer conversations, and impact the greater good,” a Twitter spokesperson said at the time.

While sudden, the cancellation isn’t particularly shocking, given Musk’s recent takeover of the company. In addition to shaking up its leadership, he’s also vowed to significantly change the company’s subscription service, Twitter Blue, and is likely to make changes to content moderation and other policies. It wouldn’t be surprising if he also has a different vision for Twitter's developer strategy.

But for Twitter's developers, the cancellation will likely be a disappointment. The company has had a strained relationship with developers over the years, but has recently tried to revamp its developer platform with new APIs for researchers and third-party apps. Chirp was set to be Twitter’s first in-person developer conference since 2015. Now, like many other aspects of Twitter under Musk, the company’s plans for developers are once again uncertain.

Meta is expanding its support for NFTs in a major way. The company is now allowing some creators to make and sell digital collectibles directly on Instagram, Meta announced during its Creator Week event.

The platform has been experimenting with NFTs on Instagram and Facebook since last year. But up until now, Instagram users have only been able to show off their digital collectibles. Now, Instagram will have an “end-to-end toolkit” so creators can make NFT collections and sell them to their fans and followers.

While Instagram has been ramping up commerce features for creatures for some time, this update is the first time Instagram has tried to compete directly with existing NFT marketplaces. Notably, Meta so far hasn't disclosed how much of a cut it plans to take from NFT sales from Instagram. Creators can, however, set a commission rate for resales of their work, ranging from 5% to 25%.

The new tools are only available to a “small group” of creators in the United States for now, but Meta says it plans to expand to more people and countries “soon.” But the company is updating other NFT features that are more widely available. For collectors, Meta is adding support for the Solana blockchain and Phantom wallet, and enabling video NFTs in Instagram profiles. The app is also adding OpenSea metadata for “select collections.”

The expansion of NFTs on Instagram is part of a broader push by Meta to increase money-making features for the creators in its apps. The company is also expanding Instagram’s subscriptions, and “professional mode” for Facebook. Meta is also bringing Facebook Stars to more places, including photo and text posts, and adding in-app gifting to Reels on Instagram.

One of the most recognizable police forces is joining Ring's Neighbors app. The New York Police Department has announced that it will participate in Ring's neighborhood watch tool. Officers won't look for posts "around the clock," but they will respond to users' crime and safety concerns, post notices and ask for help with "active police matters."

The move potentially gives the NYPD another way to interact with the community. It may also obtain footage of criminal activity that it wouldn't otherwise have, with maps and timelines that could help pinpoint crime sprees and trends.

There's already opposition to the NYPD's participation, however. The New York-based Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP) is concerned support for Neighbors will lead to more police violence, racial profiling and vigilantes. The technology "isn't keeping people safe" and even puts people in danger, Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn claims. He cites an incident in October where a father and son shot at a woman in response to a Ring doorbell notification. The woman delivered a package sent to the wrong address.

Ring has previously stressed that device users aren't required to share footage, and it has addressed some worries about enabling police surveillance by requiring public, narrowly focused requests within 12 hours of incidents. There are still fears Ring cameras and doorbells are collecting footage of innocent passers-by, though, and that Neighbors users may be racially biased when reporting suspicious behavior. The company has also grappled with a number of security flaws, including a bug that exposed precise locations.

Elizabeth Warren is calling for more federal oversight of Big Tech. In a letter (PDF link) the Democratic senator sent on Tuesday, she asked the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice to look into Google, Apple and Amazon’s expansion into the automotive industry.

Warren claims the three companies are using their positions in mobile and cloud computing to become dominant players within the sector. “This expansion has potentially alarming implications for developers, workers, and consumers,” Warren states. She’s urging FTC Chair Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter, the head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, to act decisively before it’s too late. “As Chair Khan has written, ‘it is much easier to promote competition at the point when a market risks becoming less competitive than it is at the point when a market is no longer competitive.’ This market finds itself at exactly such a juncture,” Warren warns.

Specifically, the senator calls out the companies for employing “all-or-nothing” bundling tactics. As one example, she points to the terms of Android Automotive. Google’s operating system doesn’t come with Maps or Assistant included. To access one of those services, automakers must purchase a bundle that includes all of them. Warren argues that tactic allows Google to leverage its dominant position in one area to obtain market share in another. In this specific case, she suggests the company is using Maps to grow Assistant.

“These tactics are reminiscent of past Big Tech bundling controversies,” Warren states, drawing a parallel to cases like the Justice Department’s 2001 lawsuit against Microsoft. Apple and Amazon did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment. “Carmakers choose to partner with tech companies to improve the experience for their customers,” a Google spokesperson told Engadget. "There is enormous competition in the connected car space – including Apple CarPlay, Amazon Alexa, Cerence, TomTom, ChargePoint and many others – and carmakers continue to invest in their in-house solutions simultaneously. At Google, our goal is to enable carmakers and developers across the auto industry to develop software solutions at scale.”

As Vox points out, automakers are partly to blame for the current state of the market. One reason platforms like CarPlay and Android Auto are so popular is that first-party options from car companies have historically failed to meet consumer expectations. In 2019, Ford paid $17 million to settle a class-action lawsuit related to its MyFord Touch infotainment system. The platform was known for freezing and crashing while in use.

Warren says ensuring there’s fair competition in the automotive sector should be a priority for the FTC and DOJ. “The FTC and DOJ don’t have to wait until there’s a problem to take action,” she writes. “Now is the time to prevent Big Tech from strangling competition in the automotive industry before it’s too late.”

AI-powered image generators have been getting most of the press recently. But musical machine learning models have quietly been making great strides in recent years. Holly Herndon has been at the forefront of that revolution. She co-developed (along with partner Mat Dryhurst) Spawn, a singing neural network, for her last album Proto and released Holly+ (in partnership with Never Before Heard Sounds) to the public last year, which allows anyone to use a model of Holly's voice. Now she's released a new single, where the only vocals come her digital twin.

This cover of Dolly Parton's "Jolene" plays it pretty straight at first listen. Yes it's slower and quieter, but Ryan Norris, who handles the instrumentation, doesn't take any extreme liberties with the arrangement or sound palette. It simply swaps frantic desperation with plaintive resignation. 

What makes it so arresting is that every vocal sound, right down to the sharp inhales before the harmonies kick in, was generated by Holly+. (That's right, it "breathes".) There isn't a human in sight of a vocal booth here. Some of the phrasing is a little stilted and there are occasional digital artifacts, if you listen closely for them. But on the whole this digital model of the real Holly Herndon's voice is impressive in its ability to imitate its creator.

Until now, most major artistsexperimentations with AI have focused on creating generative soundscapes or synth melodies. This is (as far as I know) the first time a machine learning model has taken the mic solo in a pop song. 

Herndon previewed the track way back in March at Sonar Festival, but it largely flew under the radar until it received a proper release this week. (BTW: Go watch the presentation from Sonar for some truly wild real-time demonstrations of Holly+ and Never Before Heard Sounds' technology.) You can attempt to recreate the performance above by recording your own performance of Jolene and uploading it to Holly+, but don't expect the same fidelity of results through the web app. While it's definitely a fun diversion, artists who are serious about using AI to further their craft should explore Spawning, an organization launched by Herdon and Dryhurst earlier this year.

New Yorkers are used to ads dotting the landscape, but now they can't even look to the skies for refuge. As Gothamistreports, mobile developer King and show organizer Pixis are flying a swarm of at least 500 LED-equipped drones over New York City's skyline on November 3rd to advertise Candy Crush. They'll take off from and remain in New Jersey for the 10-minute presentation, but you'll spot them if you're within a one-mile radius of Battery Park.

This isn't the first drone light show aimed at NYC. In June, Pixis orchestrated a swarm that promoted the NBA draft by flying over the Hudson River. Company general manager Jeff Kaplan characterizes the Candy Crush promo as the "next wave," however, and it's safe to say this will be hard to avoid if you're in the area. The largest drone show to date came from Hyundai's Genesis brand, which flew 3,281 drones over Shanghai in March 2021.

Pixis is jumping over multiple legal hurdles to make the campaign happen. New York City's Avigation Law bans drone flights altogether, so any aerial sales pitches have to remain within New Jersey's borders. The company also had to obtain both a Federal Aviation Administration waiver (to fly in federal airspace) and a special permit from New Jersey (to operate from Liberty State Park).

The planned flight is already angering critics. New York State Senator Brad Hoylman, for instance, says it's "outrageous" to fill the sky with drones and is considering legislation to ban such ads. New York City's Audubon is also concerned the drones might interfere with bird flight patterns. There is a history of crackdowns on this kind of behavior — both the state and city kicked out a billboard-carrying boat in 2019.

Unless that happens, though, the drones will become harder to escape. A future robotic flier will be viewable within 3 miles, potentially covering a large swath of Manhattan and even significant parts of western Brooklyn. Like it or not, these tech-driven marketing spiels may soon be difficult for NYC residents to escape.

Say hello to Xumo, the new branding for Comcast and Charter's recently announced joint streaming venture. It's an evolution of the previous Xumo, the ad-supported streaming service Comcast bought two years ago, that's aiming to be "an entire entertainment ecosystem inclusive of streaming devices, content, and a platform for partners to reach audiences at scale," according to the companies. Comcast's Flex streaming device will now be called Xumo Stream Box, while XClass TV, the company's push to bring its technology into Hisense-made televisions, will be rebadged as Xumo TV. You can expect to see the first Xumo devices distributed by Charter, Comcast and Walmart next year.

While it may seem a bit late to launch an entirely new streaming company, the joint initiative could be a smart way for Comcast and Charter to modernize their technology and reach consumers outside of their normal regions. The focus on free, ad-supported content (or FAST, in industry terms), is also a clear shot against Roku's offerings. Even though we're being inundated with increasingly expensive streaming services, it turns out many people don't mind watching a few ads to see some of their favorite shows. And that's easy money for any company offering ad-based content.