Connect with us

Tech

YouTube finally launches a dedicated app for Apple Vision Pro

After two years of initial hesitation, YouTube has finally unveiled its dedicated app for the Apple Vision Pro.

When Apple’s headset first launched, YouTube opted for a web-based approach instead of developing a dedicated app, directing viewers to use Safari to access content. Until now, anyone wanting to watch YouTube on the headset has missed out on helpful features like offline downloads — making it much less useful for travel or offline viewing. 

To fill the gap, third-party options, such as Juno, briefly appeared on visionOS before being removed for violating YouTube’s Terms of Service.

Today’s announcement changes the game, allowing users to enjoy their favorite content — including all standard videos and YouTube Shorts —on a theater-sized virtual screen in a fully immersive environment. 

Standout features include a Spatial tab that lets users discover spatial videos, including 3D, VR180, and 360-degree formats. For consumers with the latest Apple Vision Pro models powered by the M5 chip, the app supports 8K playback, a notable upgrade.

Additionally, users can interact with the new visionOS app using gesture controls, such as resizing windows or scrubbing through videos.

The timing of this app’s release is interesting, as YouTube initially hesitated to invest in a dedicated visionOS experience, possibly waiting to gauge the headset’s traction. Most major streaming services have offered native experiences on the platform since launch, including Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Paramount, and Peacock, among others. 

Techcrunch event

Boston, MA
|
June 23, 2026

Another reason why YouTube’s decision to launch the app now is interesting is that the initial hype surrounding the headset appears to have diminished. 

Despite the Apple Vision Pro introducing Apple Intelligence-powered features almost a year ago, user engagement with the headset has reportedly been lukewarm. Recent estimates indicate that sales have significantly declined, with only about 45,000 new units shipped during the fourth quarter of 2025. The Financial Times reported that production was halted due to weak demand, resulting in a sharp reduction in marketing efforts across key markets.

The app is now available in the visionOS App Store and is compatible with both the M2 and M5 chip models.

source

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Tech

Tesla brings its robotaxi service to Dallas and Houston

Tesla is expanding its robotaxi service to Dallas and Houston, according to a social media post from the company.

The post says simply that “Robotaxi is now rolling out in Dallas & Houston 🤠” and includes a 14-second video showing Tesla vehicles driving without human monitors or drivers in the front seat.

The company now offers robotaxi service in three cities, all of them in Texas, after launching in Austin last year and starting to offer rides without safety drivers in January 2026. In a February filing, Tesla said that its Austin robotaxis have been involved in 14 crashes since launch.

It also offers a more limited ride service with human drivers in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Tesla may not be running many vehicles in either of these new markets yet, with crowdsourced data on the Robotaxi Tracker website only registering a single vehicle in each city (compared to 46 active vehicles logged in Austin).

source

Continue Reading

Tech

Netflix plans to add a vertical video feed, use AI for recommendations

Netflix is going to launch a TikTok-like vertical video feed within its apps this month, and plans to use AI broadly for content creation and recommendations, the company said on Thursday.

Netflix has been testing a vertical video feed since last year. The short video feature could aid users with discovering video podcasts, along with the current slate of shows and movies. The company is also leaning more into using AI for recommendations after launching a ChatGPT-powered search feature last year.

“We have been in personalization and recommendation for two decades, but we still see tremendous room to make it better by leveraging newer technologies,” Netflix co-CEO Gregory Peters said during the company’s first-quarter conference call. “Recommendation systems based on new model architectures not only improve current personalization but also let us iterate and improve more quickly — adding support for different content types much more efficiently.”

Co-CEO Ted Sarandos said he sees AI tools improving the entire content creation process. “In general, we expect GenAI to make content better; better tools, better processes […] It takes a great artist to make great art, and AI won’t change that. But AI will give those artists better tools to bring those visions to life,” he said.

Last month, Netflix bought Ben Affleck’s AI creation company InterPositive, which, Sarandos said, has garnered interest from creators.

“With our acquisition of InterPositive, we think it accelerates our GenAI capability because it is proprietary technology created specifically for filmmakers and filmmaking, different from other GenAI video applications. While our ownership of InterPositive is very new, we have generated interest with creators who have spent time with the tools, and we are seeing momentum build around adoption,” he noted.

Netflix also mentioned that it wants to use AI to improve its ad suite, and allow for new formats and customization to get better returns. The company expects to generate ad revenue of $3 billion this year.

Techcrunch event

San Francisco, CA
|
October 13-15, 2026

Netflix reported revenue of $12.25 billion in Q1 2026, up 16.2% year-year-year, and said profit jumped 83% to $5.28 billion. Alongside the first-quarter results, Netflix said its co-founder and chair, Reed Hastings, is leaving the company’s board this summer.

Notably, the company hiked subscription prices in the U.S. late last month, which could have a positive impact next quarter. The company said it ended 2025 with 325 million paying subscribers.

source

Continue Reading

Tech

Bluesky confirms DDoS attack is cause of continued app outages

Bluesky’s website and app are still struggling on Friday after experiencing service interruptions that chief operating officer Rose Wang attributed to an ongoing cyberattack.

On Thursday evening, the social media company confirmed that a “sophisticated Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack” was to blame for the issues, which had originally started on April 15 at around 8:40 p.m. ET.

Distributed denial-of-service attacks often involve pummeling apps or websites with large amounts of junk web traffic aimed at overloading and knocking its servers offline. While these kinds of cyberattacks do not involve intrusions into a company’s systems, these incidents can still be disruptive to both the company and its users.

Our team received a report of intermittent app outages at about 11:40pm PDT on April 15, 2026. They worked through the night to mitigate a sophisticated Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack, which intensified throughout the day.

Bluesky (@bsky.app) 2026-04-16T23:47:25.963Z

In a post on the Bluesky account, the company shared the cause of the problem and noted that the attack was “impacting our operations, with users experiencing intermittent interruptions in service for their feeds, notifications, threads, and search.”

Bluesky said that it has not seen any evidence of unauthorized access to private data, however.

When originally reached for comment on Thursday, Bluesky only pointed us to the status.bsky.app page and account (@status.bsky.app) for updates. The company did not provide an estimated time for a fix.

The network’s status page is currently not working, however.

Bluesky said it will provide another update on the status of the attack and its mitigation by 1 p.m. ET on Friday.

Image Credits:screenshot of Bluesky

Because the outages are intermittent, the Bluesky site and app will load at times, slowly, and other times will display error messages.

For instance, switching to a particular feed within the app could display a message that says, “This feed is currently receiving high traffic and is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later. Message from server: Rate Limit Exceeded.”

Image Credits:screenshot of Bluesky

Popular feeds like Discover or the official Bluesky Team’s feed often see this problem, even as users’ own personal feeds are functional.

Other times, like when trying to visit a user’s profile, the site will display an error message, forcing you to refresh and try again.

Image Credits:screenshot of Bluesky

Bluesky protocol engineer Bryan Newbold remarked around 3:46 a.m. ET on Wednesday, “oof, our services are getting hit pretty hard tonight.”

Notably, the service disruptions are impacting Bluesky, but other communities, like Blacksky, that run their own infrastructure on the underlying protocol that powers the decentralized social network, are still functioning.

Blacksky’s team told TechCrunch that the Bluesky outage has led to a “significant spike” in migration requests from Bluesky users over the past 12 hours, as usersdevs, and other ATmosphere founders like Sebastian at Eurosky have been promoting its services. 

ScreenshotImage Credits:screenshot of Bluesky

It was clear that Bluesky’s team was in a hectic state this week while facing these issues, as one message on its status page had a typo: ” investigating an incident with service in one of our reginos [sic].”

Image Credits:screenshot of Bluesky

source

Continue Reading