So, you signed up for a Threads account, because you wanted to see what the fuss was about with Meta's Twitter rival. If you decide that the new social network isn't for you or if you want to start fresh, deleting your Threads profile may not be the way to go — as The Verge notes, doing so will also erase your entire Instagram account. When you open a Threads account, you can use your Instagram credentials to sign up if you want to bring over your profile and your circles from the photo-sharing app. But by doing so, your accounts on both platforms become inextricably linked. 

In a post on Threads, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, said Meta is aware of the issue and is currently looking for a way to allow you to delete your Threads account separately. The company is also working on features that are still missing from the app, including the following tab, hashtags, fediverse support and messaging. For now, you can deactivate your Threads account to hide your profile and content. You can also set your profile to private or simply just delete individual threads. To note, you can also sign up for a Threads account with an email or a phone number not linked to your Instagram account, so you can keep the two platforms completely separate. 

Meta couldn't have launched Threads at a better time. Twitter recently made changes that frustrated even the most avid users. It first prevented people who aren't logged in from seeing tweets — though it quietly backtracked on requiring users to log in — and then put a strict cap on how many posts users can see per day. Around 10 million users signed up for a Threads account within its first seven hours, and in the first morning after it became available, the app already had 30 million users. Shortly after Threads launched, Twitter threatened to sue Meta, accusing it of poaching former employees and misappropriating trade secrets and intellectual property. In a response to a tweet about the potential lawsuit, Elon Musk replied: "Competition is fine, cheating is not."

Amazon's $1.7 billion acquisition of Roomba manufacturer iRobot is under scrutiny not only in the US, but also in Europe. The European Commission has revealed that it has opened an in-depth investigation into the purchase out of concerns that the merger would restrict competition for robotic vacuum cleaners. In particular, the commission is concerned that Amazon might prevent iRobot's rivals from selling their robot vacuums on its marketplace. Amazon might favor iRobot's products in both paid and unpaid search results or charge competing products more to advertise their offerings, the commission said. 

In addition, authorities are worried about the possibility of Amazon preventing iRobot rivals from accessing future Alexa APIs and from getting the "Works with Alexa" certification, since voice control with the assistant is one of the most important selling points for robot vacuums. Finally, the commission has raised concerns about Amazon obtaining access to iRobot users' data, which it believes could provide the e-commerce giant "an important advantage." Amazon could, for instance, use that information to better personalize and target advertisements. Bottom line is that the "transaction may raise barriers to entry and expansion for Amazon's competitors to the detriment of consumers."

The commission will now look into these concerns in cooperation with other competition authorities and has until November 15th to finalize its results. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission launched a probe into the acquisition last year after politicians from both parties asked it to oppose the purchase.

An Amazon spokesperson told Reuters that the company will "continue to work through the process with the European Commission and [is] focused on addressing its questions and any identified concerns at this stage." They also told the news organization that Amazon could "offer a company like iRobot the resources to accelerate innovation and invest in critical features while lowering prices for consumers."

The Jack Dorsey-backed decentralized social network Bluesky has launched a paid domain service in partnership with Namecheap as a way for users to verify their identity. In a post discussing its plans to make Bluesky sustainable, the team said "users become the product" when a company relies on ads. Since Bluesky set out to "build a protocol where users can own their data," it chose to explore "other avenues of monetization" instead. It's worth noting that the social app started as a project funded by Twitter, but it has lost its connection to the website after Elon Musk took over. 

Since earning by ads isn't an option, the team thought of offering paid services, starting with domain names. Users can already set up custom domain names to use with Bluesky, but they have to go through a separate process with a domain registrar first. This integration will supposedly allow them to do so in under a few minutes. They can simply log into their account, search for a domain name to use as a handle and then pay for it all within Bluesky's interface. For a Twitter competitor that doesn't have a centralized verification system, using a domain name is the best way for a user to verify that they are who they say they are. US Senators, for instance, have apparently been using the senate.gov domain to verify their identities. 

Users who use the integrated service will be able to manage their domain settings and configurations within Bluesky, and they can forward emails sent to their domains to an address of their choice. They can also choose to redirect their domain to their Bluesky profile or any URL they want. And in the event they decide to leave the platform or to use another registrar, they can transfer their domain away. 

Based on Bluesky's announcement, domain integration is just the first in what could be several paid services available on the platform. It says it's exploring other services it "can bundle to users to provide a more seamless experience." That said, Bluesky is still in private beta, and those interested will have to join a waitlist before they can get in. 

Seven companies, mostly made up of American tech giants, have notified the European Commission that they meet the criteria to be classified as "gatekeepers" under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, TikTok owner ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft and Samsung have declared that they meet the thresholds the EU set when it passed the new law. According to Reuters, Booking.com also expects to meet gatekeeper status by the end of the year and will notify authorities by then. 

Gatekeepers are companies with an annual turnover in Europe of at least €7.5 billion (US$8.16 billion) in the last three financial years or those with a fair market value of at least €75 billion (US$81.6 billion) in the last financial year in at least three member states of the EU. They must also have served more than 45 million monthly active end users and more than 10,000 yearly active business users in the EU over the last three years. These criteria were designed to include the biggest players in the field, since as the law's name indicates, it's meant to cover large online platforms that act as "gatekeepers" in digital markets. 

Under the DMA, gatekeepers will be prohibited from favoring their own services over their rivals' and from locking users into their ecosystem. They must allow third parties to interoperate with their own services. They must also allow business users to promote their products/services and "conclude contracts with their customers outside the gatekeepers' platform." In Google's and Apple's case, that means they can't prevent developers from using a different payment systems other than their own. The companies can't prohibit users from removing pre-installed apps or from sideloading apps from outside sources, as well. That will mean huge changes for Apple, in particular, whose ecosystem has been designed as a "walled garden" for the longest time. In December last year, Bloomberg reported that Apple was preparing to allow third-party app stores and sideloading with the release of iOS 17. 

All gatekeepers will have to comply with all aspects of the DMA in 2024. For now, European authorities will be reviewing the submissions and will be designating the gatekeepers for specific platform services by September 6th. 

Here's your chance to get a Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 for a price lower than anything we've seen it go for on Amazon. You can get the Galaxy Watch 5 for as low as $199, or 29 percent less than its retail price. The price applies to the 40mm Bluetooth smartwatches in gray and pink gold, though the silver and navy/mustard color options are only just a dollar more expensive at $200. Samsung's Galaxy Watch 5 models are most likely on sale, because the company could launch its next-gen wearables at its Unpacked event scheduled for late July. But this model is still a solid option if you're looking for a smartwatch with health tracking capabilities. 

We gave the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 a score of 85 in our review and praised it for having a clean design and a durable build. We also praised the smartwatch for having comprehensive health and activity tracking features. The device has an advanced sleep tracker that can detect and and analyze sleep stages. It can monitor your activity, remind you to get up and suggest simple exercises, as well as track activities like running, rowing and swimming. The watch can also analyze your body composition — we found its results to be pretty spot on — and has a more accurate heart rate sensor than its predecessor. 

If you want one of the larger watches, some of the 44mm Galaxy Watch 5 models are also on sale. The Bluetooth versions are currently list for $229, while the LTE models will set you back at least $279.

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Google has updated its privacy policy to state that it can use publicly available data to help train its AI models. The tech giant has changed the wording of its policy over the weekend and switched "AI models" for "language models." It also stated that it could use publicly available information to build not just features, but full products like "Google Translate, Bard, and Cloud AI capabilities." By updating its policy, it's letting people know and making it clear that anything they publicly post online could be used to train Bard, its future versions and any other generative AI product Google develops.

The tech giant has highlighted the changes to its privacy policy on its archive, but here's a copy of the pertinent part:

Google

Critics have been raising concerns about companies' use of information posted online to train their large language models for generative AI use. Recently, a proposed class action lawsuit was filed against OpenAI, accusing it of scraping "massive amounts of personal data from the internet," including "stolen private information," to train its GPT models without prior consent. As Search Engine Journal notes, we'll likely see plenty of similar lawsuits in the future as more companies develop their own generative AI products. 

Owners of websites that could be considered public squares in the digital age have also taken steps to either prevent or profit from the generative AI boom. Reddit has started charging for access to its API, leading third-party clients to shut down over the weekend. Meanwhile, Twitter put a restriction on how many tweets a user sees per day to "address extreme levels of data scraping [and] system manipulation."

We've known for quite a while that Meta has been building a Twitter competitor, but now we have a more solid idea of when it will become available. A listing for the app called Threads has popped up in the iOS App Store with an estimated release date of July 6th. In May, a report came out saying that the microblogging service was nearing completion and could be out as soon as the end of June. While an end-of-June launch didn't quite happen, the app could be arriving at a time when Twitter users are more willing (and maybe even eager) to try an alternative. 

Twitter recently put a cap on how many tweets an unverified account can read per day. In a post, Elon Musk announced that verified accounts — which translates to paying users — can read 6,000 posts a day, while unverified/nonpaying users can only read 600. He said the website is adopting the measure to "address extreme levels of data scraping [and] system manipulation." A regular user can easily hit 600 posts, so people who haven't been paying $8 to $11 a month for blue checkmark have been getting locked out of their feeds as a result. 

Meta describes Threads as "Instagram's text-based conversation app." Based on the screenshots posted in the listing, users can keep their Instagram handle and follow the same accounts they follow on the photo-sharing platform. That means users will have a pre-existing following and circles on the new app, giving it an edge over other Twitter rivals. Users will also be able to choose the privacy of their posts and make them visible to anyone, to the profiles they follow or only to the accounts they mention. They will be able to heart, send and share other people's posts, as well. 

Previous reports said Meta's Twitter competitor would be a decentralized service that's compatible with Mastodon, but it's unclear if that's still the case when it launches. We'll know for sure within a few days. 

Several popular third-party Reddit apps are no longer operational, while a few have chosen to charge users for access, now that the website's new API rules are in effect. In a lengthy post bidding farewell, Apollo founder Christian Selig said Reddit pulled the plug a little too early, cutting off the app's access to content on the website. Selig previously said that it would cost him $20 million a year under the new rules to keep Apollo running as is, and while the app does offer subscriptions, it's not earning enough to be able to cover that amount. He announced in early June that the app will be shutting down by the end of the month. 

Another popular Reddit app, BaconReader, is now also gone. Users who fire up the app will see a notice thanking them and explaining that it's no longer operational due to "changes with the Reddit API." It's the same situation with Sync for Reddit, which has also sent its users a notification of its shutdown. At least two third-party clients will live on, but they will begin charging users to be able to afford paying for API access.

Relay for Reddit announced that it's moving to a subscription model in the coming weeks, with the developer promising that they'll attempt to hit the lowest price point possible, likely in an attempt to keep subscription prices affordable. Now for Reddit has also posted an announcement that it will introduce subscriptions to cover the cost of API access, though it doesn't have a timeline for the rollout yet. 

Reddit announced back in April that it will start charging companies for API access starting on July 1st, mostly in order to get paid for any data used to train large language models for generative AI. "The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable," Reddit chief executive Steve Huffman told The New York Times in an interview. "But we don"t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free." However, the change also affects third-party clients, prompting communities to stage protests by going private in mid-June. 

While most of the subreddits that participated are already back, some of the most popular ones allowed explicit posts for some time to hit the company where it hurts — its wallet — because advertisers can't target NSFW communities. As for subreddits that still remain closed, Reddit's administrators have reportedly threatened to remove them if they don't reopen this weekend. 

ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese parent company, has debuted a new app designed to make it easier for creators to compose and edit music they could use for their content. The app called Ripple is only available in the US for now, and the company is testing it in a closed beta environment. ByteDance says it can assist creators in the way portable smart digital audio workstations (DAWs) can and is perhaps most useful for beginners and anybody who'd rather not deal with more complex systems. It was also designed to make it easier for creators to add custom soundtracks to their short-form videos for TikTok and other platforms.

Ripple can create songs in various genres based on a melody the user hums. The app prompts them into humming into the phone mic and then generates instrumentals they can use, such as drums, bass and piano. The length of the song output will match the length of the input, though — the app can't generate a full soundtrack from just a few seconds of humming. Also, Ripple can only generate instrumental music, leaving the vocal work to creators.

ByteDance told us that Ripple's model was trained on music it owns and music that was licensed to the company. The company also said that it's committed to respecting the rights of its artists and its rightsholder partners. To note, there have been concerns about the source of data used to train artificial intelligence systems and algorithms. Just recently, a lawsuit seeking class action status was filed against OpenAI, accusing it of violating the copyrights and privacy of countless individuals by using data scraped from the internet to train the model used for ChatGPT. 

At the moment, Ripple is invite-only, and ByteDance doesn't have further rollout plans yet. Those who want to check it out before anybody else can visit Ripple.club, where they can find a download link for the app on iOS and from where they can request an invite.

Meta is gearing up to debut a new type of Facebook ads that will allow users in the European Union to download apps without having to visit their mobile platform's app store, according to The Verge. Yes, it will offer a direct download option for users, though the capability will likely debut only on Android, because the company is reportedly working with Android developers for its pilot launch later this year. 

Android users can already install APKs and sideload apps they download through their browsers. However, those apps still use Google's billing system. Meta's alternative way to download apps is supposedly completely independent of both Apple's App Store and Google Play. It'll be possible to introduce such a feature in the EU due to a new law called the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which will go into effect in 2024. Under the DMA's rules, consumers must be able to download apps from competing app stores. "When a gatekeeper engages in unfair practices, such as... preventing installation of applications from other sources, consumers are likely to pay more or are effectively deprived of the benefits that alternative services might have brought," the European Commission said. 

Tom Channick, a spokesperson for Meta, has confirmed the company's plan to introduce app downloads through Facebook ads to The Verge. "We've always been interested in helping developers distribute their apps, and new options would add more competition in this space," he said. "Developers deserve more ways to easily get their apps to the people that want them." We also reached out to Meta for confirmation and more details. Meta reportedly won't be taking a cut from developers' earnings and will allow them to use whatever billing system they want. For now, anyway. That could change as the service evolves, if it ever gets past the pilot testing phase.