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The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

Apple Maps on the web now has Look Around

Apple Maps on the web screen shot in safari showing Manhattan Nintendo World store on Look Around
Look Around Look Around at how lucky we are to have Apple Maps right now. | Screenshot: The Verge

Following the beta launch of Apple Maps on the web in July, Apple has now recently added Look Around street-level views for several cities to the site, 9to5Mac reports. You can activate Look Around as you would in the Apple Maps app on devices like the iPhone or iPad by selecting the binoculars icon on the bottom left of the map window. You can then click and drag on the map to see different first-person perspectives in many big cities.

At launch, the Apple Maps web beta included basic functionality like searching for points of interest, seeing ratings, browsing area Guides, and getting directions. With Look Around, the web version inches closer to matching functionality with the Apple Maps app on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS — albeit without personalization features such as searching addresses from your contacts or saving locations to your Library.

Personally, I use the Apple Maps app on my Mac more often than any other mapping software, and I often find Apple’s Look Around to be a smoother experience than Google’s Street View. However, I sometimes also have to switch to Google Maps anyway since Apple doesn’t support Look Around for my hometown of Baltimore, MD — even though I spotted an Apple Maps van in the city all the way back in 2017.

You can see the full list of cities where you can use Look Around on Apple’s website.

The Verge’s 2024 holiday gift guide

Photograph of brightly colored gifts scattered on a graphic background of vibrant patterned paper.
Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

A collection of fun, affordable, and unique gifts fit for everyone on your list.

Read the full story at The Verge.

Grubhub pays $25 million for allegedly tricking customers and lying to drivers

Vector illustration of the Grubhub logo.
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Grubhub has agreed to pay $25 million to settle a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit that claimed the food delivery service misled customers and drivers while also damaging the reputation of restaurants. The proposed settlement will require Grubhub to make several changes to the platform, such as showing the total delivery cost when customers place an order.

Along with advertising “highly inflated hourly pay rates for drivers,” the FTC’s initial complaint accused Grubhub of hiding “the true cost of its services” by adding delivery fees that raised the price of customers’ final orders. The agency claimed that starting around 2019, Grubhub began advertising lower delivery fees to attract more customers but then began tacking on a “service” fee that increased the cost of orders anyway.

The FTC also alleged the company charged Grubhub Plus members for delivery despite advertising the subscription as having “free” or “$0” deliveries. The agency claimed Grubhub makes the plan easy to sign up for but difficult to cancel while also allegedly blocking the accounts of users with large gift card balances.

 Screenshot: FTC
The FTC claimed Grubhub charged customers hidden fees, raising their total order price.

Additionally, the FTC accused Grubhub of adding restaurants to the platform even if they never signed up to sell food on the service. “Grubhub has had as many as 325,000 unaffiliated restaurants on its platform — more than half of all of the available restaurants on Grubhub,” the FTC claims. As a result, many customers wound up having issues with their orders, resulting in bad feedback for unaffiliated restaurants.

Grubhub is now required to show customers the full cost of delivery and can no longer add “junk fees” to orders. It’s also banned from listing unaffiliated restaurants on the platform, and can only make driver earnings claims “that it can back up with evidence and in writing.” Grubhub must also notify customers when they’re banned and offer a way to appeal the decision, as well as make it easier to cancel Grubhub Plus.

“While we categorically deny the allegations made by the FTC, many of which are wrong, misleading or no longer applicable to our business, we believe settling this matter is in the best interest of Grubhub and allows us to move forward,” Grubhub spokesperson Najy Kamal said in a statement to The Verge. The company also responded to the settlement in a post on its website.

Though Grubhub was initially ordered to pay $140 million, it is “partially suspended based on the company’s inability to pay the full amount.” The company's $25 million will go toward refunding affected customers, but the FTC says the full judgment will be due “immediately” if Grubhub “is found to have misrepresented its financial status.”

Threads starts testing scheduled posts

An image showing the Threads logo
Image: The Verge

Threads is about to begin testing the ability to schedule posts, according to Instagram’s Adam Mosseri. “Replies cannot be scheduled,” he added, explaining that “we want to balance giving people more control to plan their Threads posts while still encouraging real-time conversation.”

Mosseri also makes sure to note that Instagram has been working on this feature “for months.” I’m choosing to take as a sign that the Instagram chief is fed up with the notion that Bluesky is the motivating factor behind every new improvement that comes to Threads. Last week, Threads introduced curated collections of people to follow, which drew comparisons to Bluesky’s starter packs.

Yesterday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Threads now has over 100 million daily active users, marking the first time that the company has revealed a DAU figure for its Twitter / X competitor. Threads also has more than 300 million monthly active users. No matter how Meta is calculating those figures, Bluesky objectively remains far smaller.

Instagram has long offered the option to schedule feed posts, and this week it announced the same convenience is being extended to DMs.

YouTube says that soon, its tech will be able to find AI copies of celebs and creators

YouTube logo on an abstract background
Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube is partnering with the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to help creators identify content using their AI-generated likenesses on the platform and submit removal requests. The company will test the controls with celebrities and athletes early next year before rolling it out to “top YouTube creators, creative professionals, and other leading partners representing talent.”

In September, YouTube announced plans for tools that would help manage AI-generated depictions of creators and their voices. Now, the company says it can give celebrities (and soon, creators) the ability to manage AI copies of their likeness, such as their face, “at scale.”

Last year, CAA introduced the CAAVault, which scans and stores the digital likenesses of its clients, including their faces, bodies, and voices.

YouTube is also working on “synthetic-singing identification technology” that will detect AI content that attempts to replicate creators’ singing voices. YouTube has already started letting music labels request the removal of AI content that simulates an artist’s voice, and also began requiring creators to label videos containing AI-generated content earlier this year.