Shifting Sands

Apple relaxes its in-app NFT stance, Venmo introduces teen accounts, WhatsApp rolls out editable messages

Good morning! Pac-Man fans can rejoice. For a cool $270, you can now get yourself a premium Lego set based on the 1980’s arcade classic 👾

🌶 Highlight of the day 🌶

Stepn, a web3 running app, shipped in-app NFT trading on iOS. Users can now buy and sell the game’s NFT sneakers without having to rely on an external marketplace, and a new integration also lets users purchase assets with Apple Pay.

Historically, Apple has been strongly opposed to digital asset trading within blockchain games. Given Stepn’s move comes just a week after Axie Infinity launched its iOS app, it seems that Tim Cook’s had a change of heart 🍏

♨️ Hot off the press launches

Big tech

  • Netflix improves content discovery for its My List feature 

  • WhatsApp rolls out editable messages  

  • Google expands its flood forecasting service to 80+ countries 

  • Discord tests new parental controls for teens

  • Linkedin brings its verification tool to job posts

General and early-stage

  • Venmo introduces teen accounts with parental controls 

  • Paramount+ to increase prices across all plans

  • Artifact lets users mark articles as clickbait

  • Daylight kills its LGBTQ+ banking platform 

  • SkyFi ships a satellite-image ordering app

🔍 Other good finds

  • Einstein. Best practices on creating an experiment doc 

  • Reality. AI-generated Pentagon hoax causes market dip

  • Clear eyes. Leaked docs show EU wants to end E2E encryption

🧈 Twitter nugget

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- Amol