STARTUPS CENTRAL

Meta’s messaging service is now letting people claim a unique handle ahead of a wider launch, giving users a way to be reached without sharing phone numbers. The feature — available for reservation though not yet fully active — lets roughly 3 billion users, or about three-eighths of the planet, stake a name that others can use to start a chat when the system goes live in the coming weeks. To reserve a handle, open WhatsApp, go into Settings, select Account and find the entry

Microsoft announced roughly 4,800 job eliminations on Monday — about one in 50 employees at the company — a move that will hit its Xbox division hardest, with around 1,600 positions going away immediately, according to internal messages circulated to staff. The reductions, which also affect commercial sales, come as part of a broader reorganization aimed at reshaping how teams are staffed and how priorities are set across the company. In a note to employees, Amy Coleman, exec

Canada’s Communications Security Establishment disclosed that it mounted several government-approved cyber incursions last year to hobble the operations of intermediaries in the illicit fentanyl supply chain, an overseas extremist cell recruiting people here, and a ransomware-as-a-service operation that targeted Canadian institutions. The agency reported three offensive foreign cyber missions and one defensive intervention — meaning one-quarter of the publicly acknowledged ac

Reddit is rolling out advanced text-generation detectors to limit spam and inauthentic activity after those same kinds of systems helped swell the problem. The company says its new software removes about 23 million spam views every day and intercepts roughly 25,000 fresh spam posts and comments on a daily basis. Reddit officials report that users encountered one-fifth less spam between January and March than in the preceding quarter, a result they attribute to machine-learnin

Apple Is Gradually Allowing Visa And Mastercard Debit And Credit Cards For Subscriptions And App Purchases Apple has begun reintroducing card-based payments for customers in India, more than four years after it suspended the option. The company is rolling the capability out in stages, enabling eligible Visa and Mastercard debit and credit cards to be linked to Apple Accounts for subscriptions such as iCloud+ and Apple Music, along with purchases from the App Store. The change

A little-noticed change to Google’s privacy options now lets the company retain images, audio, video and other media you upload to its search products and use that material to refine its artificial intelligence — unless you turn that off. The update, rolled out in June and communicated by email to account holders, defaults users into broader data collection under settings that were billed as ways to control saved activity and tailor recommendations. The new controls are split