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Technology

Meta's Edits App: A Comprehensive Guide to the CapCut Competitor

Meta has launched Edits, a new video editing app aimed at competing with ByteDance’s CapCut. Edits, initially previewed in January, provides creators with tools for short-form video editing, offering features such as green screen, timeline adjustments, captions, audio library access, and AI-powered animation.
The app is available on both iOS and Android, requiring users to log in with their Instagram account. Edits includes tabs for Ideas, Inspiration, Projects, Record, and Insights, helping creators manage their video creation process. Key features include timeline frame rate selection, alignment guides, beat markers, filters, transitions, teleprompter, restyle, keyframes, cut silences, audio import from files and clip preview.
While both Edits and CapCut are useful for editing short videos, CapCut currently offers more advanced editing options and a more extensive music library. Edits is currently free but may include paid features in the future, as indicated by Instagram head Adam Mosseri. Unlike CapCut, Edits is currently mobile-only.

Finance

Ramp's Valuation Skyrockets to $22.5B in Just 45 Days

Ramp, the expense management startup, has secured $500 million in a new funding round, elevating its post-money valuation to $22.5 billion.

The round was led by Iconiq Growth, with participation from Founders Fund and D1 Capital Partners, and arrives only 45 days after a previous $200 million raise that valued the company at $16 billion.

Ramp's CEO, Eric Glyman, envisions an AI-driven future for finance, with Ramp launching its first AI agent and planning more to come.

The company has now raised a total of $1.9 billion and reports being cash-flow positive since earlier this year, with 40,000 customers.

Artificial Intelligence

Generative AI Apps Surge in Popularity and Revenue in H1 2025

Generative AI applications experienced significant growth in the first half of 2025, according to a Sensor Tower report. Downloads reached 1.7 billion, a notable increase from the 1 billion in the latter half of 2024. In-app revenue doubled, totaling $1.87 billion, compared to $932 million in the previous period.

Users spent over 15.6 billion hours on these apps across 426 billion sessions. Asia emerged as the fastest-growing market, capturing 42.6% of downloads, driven by India and Mainland China. While Latin America showed the highest growth in in-app purchases, North America maintains the lead in market share with 40%.

ChatGPT remains the top app for in-app revenue in most countries, excluding China, where DeepSeek leads in downloads. Users are dedicating more time to AI assistants, with ChatGPT averaging over 12 days of usage per month. The usage patterns of ChatGPT are increasingly resembling those of primary search tools like Google, extending beyond work-related tasks.

The term "AI" is now prevalent in app descriptions, appearing over 100,000 times in both the App Store and Play Store. Apps incorporating AI-related terms have seen a boost in downloads, reflecting the growing interest in AI-powered applications.

Social Media

YouTube Updates Profanity Rules for Monetization: Creators Get More Leeway

YouTube is updating its profanity rules, allowing creators to monetize videos with swearing within the first seven seconds. This change follows previous adjustments in November 2022 and March 2023, which initially restricted or limited ad revenue for videos with early or frequent profanity. YouTube's head of monetization, Conor Kavanagh, explained that the changes align with evolving advertiser expectations, as they now have more control over ad targeting based on profanity levels. However, videos with profanity in the title or thumbnail may still face limited monetization.

Artificial Intelligence

Generative AI Apps Surge: Downloads and Revenue Double in H1 2025

Generative AI apps experienced significant growth in the first half of 2025, with downloads reaching 1.7 billion, a substantial increase from 1 billion in H2 2024. In-app revenue doubled to $1.87 billion, compared to $932 million in the previous period.

Users spent over 15.6 billion hours on these apps across 426 billion sessions. Asia emerged as the fastest-growing market, leading in downloads with 42.6% market share, driven by India and Mainland China. Latin America saw the highest growth in in-app purchases, while North America maintained the lead in market share with 40%.

ChatGPT remains a dominant app, showing impressive user engagement, comparable to platforms like X and Reddit. Its usage patterns are increasingly resembling those of primary search tools. The term 'AI' is now prevalent in app descriptions, boosting downloads for apps that include it in their names or descriptions.

Aviation Technology

AIR Secures $23M to Expand eVTOL Production and US Presence

AIR, an Israel-based eVTOL startup, raised $23 million in Series A funding to scale production and expand to the U.S. The company develops both crewed (AIR ONE) and uncrewed eVTOLs for personal/commercial taxi and cargo/defense applications, respectively. With over 2,500 pre-orders for AIR ONE and plans to ship 15 cargo eVTOLs this year, the funding will support facility expansion and hiring. AIR's dual-purpose design allows for cross-platform upgrades, simplifying development and scalability. The eVTOLs feature a folding-wing mechanism, enabling operation from flat surfaces and parking in garages.

Social Media Updates

TikTok Enhances Parental Controls and Creator Tools

TikTok has introduced several new features aimed at improving user experience and safety:

  • Enhanced Parental Controls: Parents can now block specific accounts from interacting with their teen's account and receive notifications when their teen posts public content. They also have increased visibility into their teen's privacy settings.
  • Creator Care Mode: Automatically filters offensive, inappropriate, or profane comments using AI to learn the creator's preferences.
  • Comment Management: Creators can block specific words from comments and mute users who use those words.
  • Creator Inbox: A new professional inbox experience with "Unread" and "Starred" folders, custom responses, and quick replies.
  • Creator Chat Room: Similar to Instagram's broadcast channels, allows creators with at least 5,000 followers to share updates and get feedback with up to 300 participants.
  • Content Check: A feature to check if content is eligible for the For You feed and adheres to Community Guidelines before posting.
  • Well-being Missions: Interactive quizzes and flashcards to promote balanced digital habits, along with a new in-app digital wellbeing experience featuring breathing exercises and screen time insights.

Artificial Intelligence

AI Video Startups Target Robotics and Self-Driving Car Industries

Luma and Runway, AI video-generating startups, are exploring new revenue streams beyond movie studios. They are in discussions with robotics and self-driving car companies to apply their AI models. Luma aims to build 3D AI world models for robots to interact with their environment. Runway is also considering video games as a potential market.

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Anthropic, an AI company, is reportedly close to securing a $5 billion funding round, potentially valuing the company at $170 billion. This suggests strong investor confidence and significant growth potential for Anthropic in the AI market.

Artificial Intelligence

NotebookLM Enhances Learning with New Video Overview Feature

Google's NotebookLM now features Video Overviews, transforming dense multimedia into visual presentations, complementing the existing Audio Overviews. This new feature allows users to create custom visuals using images, diagrams, and quotes from uploaded documents to explain complex content.

Users can customize Video Overviews by specifying topics, learning goals, and target audiences. The Studio panel is also updated, enabling users to create and store multiple studio outputs and multitask, such as listening to Audio Overviews while exploring Mind Maps.

Video Overviews are currently available in English, with more languages to be supported soon.