Meta quietly rolls out Communities on Messenger

June 7, 2024

Meta is quietly rolling out a new “Communities” feature on Messenger, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The feature is designed to help organizations, schools and other private groups communicate in a more organized and structured way. The rollout comes as Meta introduced Communities on WhatsApp back in 2022. The feature lets people connect with others […]

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The Download: making surgery safer, and MDMA therapy has been dealt a blow

June 7, 2024
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. This AI-powered “black box” could make surgery safer The operating room has long been defined by its hush-hush nature because surgeons are notoriously bad at acknowledging their own mistakes. These mistakes kill some…

PowerSchool, provider of K-12 education software, to go private in $5.6B deal

June 7, 2024

Cloud-based education software vendor PowerSchool is being taken private by investment firm Bain Capital in a $5.6 billion deal. The announcement comes amid a swathe of take-private deals led by private equity firms seeking a bargain on under-performing enterprise software firms. Founded in 1997, PowerSchool is a web-based platform that helps educational institutions manage areas […]

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Shopify acquires Threads (no, not that one)

June 7, 2024

Shopify has acquired Threads.com, the Seqiuoa-backed Slack alternative, Threads said on its website. The companies didn’t disclose the terms of the deal but said that the Threads.com team will join Shopify. Threads added that after the launch of Meta’s social network with the same name last year, the startup had “the opportunity to sell our […]

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This AI-powered “black box” could make surgery safer

June 7, 2024
The first time Teodor Grantcharov sat down to watch himself perform surgery, he wanted to throw the VHS tape out the window.   “My perception was that my performance was spectacular,” Grantcharov says, and then pauses—“until the moment I saw the video.” Reflecting on this operation from 25 years ago, he remembers the roughness of…