WhatsApp officially launches its new discussion group feature, Communities

WhatsApp today is officially launching Communities, the new feature offering larger, more structured discussion groups that first entered into testing earlier this year. Designed to help organizations, clubs, schools, and other private groups better communicate and stay organized, Communities bring a number of new features to the messaging platform, including admin controls, support for sub-groups…

Fintecture wants to replace paper checks or manual transfers for B2B payments

Meet Fintecture, a French startup that wants to upgrade B2B payments. While many payment companies have focused on B2C payments with Stripe leading the way, B2B payments haven’t changed much over the years. “In the U.S., there are still a lot of paper checks. In Europe, it’s mostly transfers and manual reconciliation,” Fintecture co-founder and…

Satellite startup Constellr wins backing to build out its water-monitoring platform

We are living in the era of so-called microsatellites, which are equipped with thermal cameras and other regalia to, for instance, alert farmers before crops are damaged, predict droughts, and aid in the juggling of supply chains. Climate change is making less land available for agricultural food production, leading to strict regulations on the use…

Twitter — one of the first companies to let staff WFH permanently after the pandemic — plans to order employees back to the office: reports

Twitter staff may have to return to the office full-time, in a reversal of its flexible WFH policy. Tayfun Coskun/Getty Images Twitter plans to cut about half of its workforce following Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition. It is planning to order staff to return to the office on a full-time basis after layoffs, per Axios….

WhatsApp’s new Communities feature aims to bring related group chats together

WhatsApp is rolling out some new features, including one that’s designed to bring related group chats together. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the Communities feature earlier this year, and the aim is to allow users to combine group chats “under one umbrella with a structure that works for them.” Similar tools are in the works…

WhatsApp gets better for big groups with new Communities and 32-person video chats

Communities are like Discord, but for WhatsApp. | The Verge Meta is rolling out a few changes to WhatsApp that will make the app better to use for large circles of people, including the wide rollout of Communities. Communities are designed to house multiple related groups within bigger organizations of people, such as a neighborhood…

Layover in Manila

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash Hello from Manila! You thought I’d be writing to you from Bali, and frankly, so did I. But the Gods of Air Travel had other ideas. Let me explain. The original plan was to fly from Los Angeles to Manila, change planes, then head for Bali. Our layover in Manila…

Meet Seoul-based accelerator SparkLabs’ 19th batch of startups 

SparkLabs Korea, a Seoul-based seed to early-stage accelerator, held a demo Day on Thursday for its 19th cohort of companies. The latest demo day marks its tenth year after SparkLabs launched its accelerator program in December 2012. The accelerator has backed more than 270 startups since its inception in 2012, co-founder and partner of SparkLabs…