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I can tell you the exact moment when a new browser called Deta Surf clicked for me.I was getting a demo from Deta cofounder Max Eusterbrock, and he showed me how Surf can take screenshots of web pages and add them to a digital pinboard. But unlike a standard screenshot, this one contained a link to jump back to the web page it came from, and its content was searchable from Surfs menu system.Aha, I thought. Too often, Ill open dozens of tabs on a certain topic, only to forget which page had the quote or chart I was looking for. Surf solves that problem by making it easier to revisit what youve researched. Its as if a browser was built around the idea of bookmarking, instead of the other way around.Its still early days for Deta Surf, which is launching a public alpha today after months of being invite-only. The software has all kinds of rough edges and can feel like its trying to do too much, and theres also no mobile app and no business model yet. Id caution against getting too invested in it.But as a tool for short-term research that involves wrangling a lot of web page content, its one of the most interest concepts Ive seen. Beyond basic bookmarksOn the surface, Deta Surf borrows some ideas from other power user browsers such as Vivaldi, Arc, and SigmaOS. It supports both vertical or horizontal tabs, and you can arrange tabs into separate workspaces, which Surf calls Contexts.[Screenshot: Jared Newman]But Surf also lets you save web pages to a My Stuff menu, which is a powerful spin on the standard browser bookmarks folder. Every tab has a button for saving the page to My Stuff, but you can also use Surfs screenshot tool ((nvoked with Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+1) to save snippets of web pages with your own annotations.The My Stuff menu supports more than just web page content. You can also import images and PDF files from your computer, and theres a built-in notepad for adding freeform thoughts.Everything you save to My Stuff is searchable, and not just by title. Surf also indexes the full content of web pages along with the text of screenshots and PDF files, so you find specific words or phrases. The result is a feeling of finally being able to close inactive browser tabs, because Surf provides an easier way to reference them later.My favorite organizational feature, though, is the Desktop view, where you can rearrange and resize any the items youve saved to My Stuff alongside any number of sticky text notes. Its a neat way to visualize all the different things youve been researching on a single canvas.Yes, of course theres also AILike lots of other startups, Deta is finding ways to bring AI into its browser as well.Some AI features are similar to those of other AI-powered browsers. Theres an Ask this Tab button that can summarize and answer questions about the current page (including YouTube videos). You can highlight text on web pages to translate, rephrase, or ask follow-up questions.[Screenshot: Jared Newman]The more interesting use of AI involves interacting with what youve saved in My Stuff. By clicking the Ask Context button, you can ask Surf to summarize details from across your documents or ask for supplemental information.These AI queries then feed back into Surfs notepad feature, essentially helping to organize or build upon your research. Its kind of like what Google is doing with NotebookLM, but built around what youre already looking up in your browser.[Screenshot: Jared Newman]Eusterbrock also showed me a more ambitious Surflets feature, which can turn data from web pages into interactive visuals. If you were comparing web browsers, for instance, you could open up a bunch of pages that explain various browser features, then ask Surf to create an interactive chart comparing them.Expect things to breaka lotWhile Deta Surf is brimming with smart ideas about what a desktop browser could do, I wouldnt say it all comes together the way it should.For one thing, its just a lot to take in. Between the My Stuff menu, the Desktop, and all your open browser tabs, youve essentially got three different organizational surfaces to work with, and they multiply each time you create a new Context. My gut feeling is that the Desktop and My Stuff features should be streamlined into a single menu system for organizing and managing your research.[Image: Deta Surf]Surfs AI features can be cumbersome to use as well. Deta has stuck AI buttons into seemingly every corner of its interface, but they all flow back to a notepad that opens in a sidebar menu. Ive continually run into issues clicking the correct button to generate an AI response, and the latest build seems to have hidden the option to switch between large language models.The biggest issue, though, is that a lot of things just dont work properly. In my time with Surf, Ive dealt with disappearing bookmarks, information that appears in the wrong Context, and web searches that get truncated after typing them in the address bar.Surfs AI answers are even less reliable. For instance, I asked the browser to provide links to YouTube backing tracks for a list of sheet music in a Google Drive folder, and none of its generated links worked. Ive also had responses that dont accurately reflect whats in my notes and appear to be hallucinated, and Ive yet to successfully generate a single Surflet on my own.Meanwhile, I cant bring in my workflow from other browsers, because Surf doesnt work with most browser extensions (password managers are the exception) and doesnt support bookmarklets. The lack of a mobile app means I cant send pages into Surf from my phone, either.Deta is clearly moving fast and breaking things in search of what sticks, and thats totally understandable for an alpha product, but it makes for rough sailing if youre trying to use it as an everyday browser. What to expectEusterbrock acknowledges that a lot of what comprises Surf today is subject to change. Eventually the company wants to charge for things like cross-platform sync and collaboration, but it plans to spend the rest of the year nailing down the core product.Deta had already shifted gears a couple of times before developing Surf. The Berlin-based startup began as a free web app deployment platform for indie developers, then tried spinning that product into a wildly ambitious online operating system with its own set of interconnected apps, called Deta Space, which raised around $3 million, according to Pitchbook.[Screenshot: Jared Newman]It was a neat idea, but its parallel universe of apps lacked immediate appeal to end users, so Deta pivoted to building a browser instead. The core idea is still that you should be able to search and contextualize across your entire online workflow, but the browser allows Deta to work with existing web apps and sites instead of trying to build its own. (Deta killed off Space and deleted users data last year.)The resulting product is more immediately compelling than Detas previous efforts, but it comes with the same risk of getting shut down if things dont work out, and there are few examples of startups turning wildly ambitious browser into thriving businesses. The most notable startup in the space, The Browser Company, gave up on developing its ambitious Arc browser for desktops and is now pivoting to something much simpler.Still, I hope Deta Surf proves the exception to the rule. As a way to actually make sense of your browser tabs and the research you do around them, theres nothing else like it.
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E-Commerce
Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Tuesday signed into law a bill requiring Apple and Alphabet’s Google to verify the age of users of their app stores, putting the second-most-populous U.S. state at the center of a debate over whether and how to regulate smartphone use by children and teenagers. The law, effective on January 1, requires parental consent to download apps or make in-app purchases for users aged below 18. Utah was the first U.S. state to pass a similar law earlier this year, and U.S. lawmakers have also introduced a federal bill. Another Texas bill, passed in the state’s House of Representatives and awaiting a Senate vote, would restrict social media apps to users over 18. Age limits and parental consent for social media apps are among the few areas of wide U.S. consensus, with a Pew Research poll in 2023 finding that 81% of Americans support requiring parental consent for children to create social media accounts and 71% support age verification before using social media. The effect of social media on children’s mental health has become a growing global concern, with dozens of U.S. states suing Meta Platforms and the U.S. Surgeon General issuing an advisory on safeguards for children. Australia last year banned social media for children under 16, with other countries such as Norway also considering new rules. How to implement age restrictions has caused a conflict between Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, and Apple and Google, which own the two dominant U.S. app stores. Meta, along with social media companies Snap and X, applauded the passage of the bill. “Parents want a one-stop shop to verify their child’s age and grant permission for them to download apps in a privacy-preserving way. The app store is the best place for it, and more than one-third of US states have introduced bills recognizing the central role app stores play,” the companies said. Kathleen Farley, vice president of litigation for the Chamber of Progress, a group backed by Apple and Alphabet, said the Texas law is likely to face legal challenges on First Amendment grounds. “A big path for challenge is that it burdens adult speech in attempting to regulate children’s speech,” Farley told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. “I would say there are arguments that this is a content-based regulation singling out digital communication.” Child online safety groups that backed the Texas bill have also long argued for app store age verification, saying it is the only way to give parents effective control over children’s use of technology. “The problem is that self-regulation in the digital marketplace has failed, where app stores have just prioritized the profit over safety and rights of children and families,” Casey Stefanski, executive director for the Digital Childhood Alliance, told Reuters. Apple and Google opposed the Texas bill, saying it imposes blanket requirements to share age data with all apps, even when those apps are uncontroversial. “If enacted, app marketplaces will be required to collect and keep sensitive personal identifying information for every Texan who wants to download an app, even if its an app that simply provides weather updates or sports scores,” Apple said in a statement. Google and Apple each has its own proposal that involves sharing age range data only with apps that require it, rather than all apps. “We see a role for legislation here,” said Kareem Ghanem, senior director of government affairs and public policy at Google, told Reuters. “It’s just got to be done in the right way, and it’s got to hold the feet of Zuckerberg and the social media companies to the fire, because it’s the harm to kids and teens on those sites that’s really inspired people to take a closer look here and see how we can all do better.” Stephen Nellis, Reuters
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E-Commerce
Shares in Americas publicly traded movie theater chains surged yesterday, the first day of trading after the Memorial Day holiday. Its a holiday weekend that saw moviegoers flock to theaters in droves, snapping up tickets and leading to the best Memorial Day weekend box office in history. Heres what you need to know about the Memorial Day box office and its impact on shares in movie theater companies. Memorial Day box office was the best on record Movies generated a record $326 million at the Memorial Day box office this weekend, a period that ran from Friday, May 23, to Monday, May 26. That four-day haul record was largely fueled by two films. The first was the live-action remake of Disneys Lilo & Stitch, which took in a staggering $192.7 million domestically during the four-day period, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Thats a historic recordthe most any film has ever made over the Memorial Day period. Coming in second place was Tom Cruises latest installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise. Paramounts Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning took in $79 million domestically over the four-day period, a record for the franchise. In total, Lilo & Stitch made $361.3 million globally during the four-day period, and Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning took in $191 million globally. But while executives at Disney and Paramount are no doubt lauding the record box office haul for the holiday weekend, executives at Americas publicly traded movie theater chains are also celebratingand so are investors. AMC, Cinemark, and Marcus shares surge Thanks to the record-breaking box office haul over the Memorial Day weekend, shares in movie theater chains in the United States surged on Tuesday, the first trading day after the holiday. Iconic meme stock AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: AMC), as well as Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CNK), and The Marcus Corporation (NYSE: MCS) all saw their shares jump yesterday. AMC: up over 23% to $4.01 CNK: up over 3.8% to $33.69 MCS: up over 10% to $18.71 Given how theater attendance has struggled since the pandemic, its little wonder that the stellar Memorial Day weekend period at the box office is giving investors cause for celebration. Many in the industry have worried in recent years that the pandemic triggered a shift in audience habits away from movie theaters and toward their large televisions at home, particularly as streaming has become the de facto king of entertainment. Yet, the weekend box office suggests that if you give audiences movies that resonate with them, they will show up with their wallets at the theater instead of waiting to watch the films at home. This record-setting Memorial Day weekend underscores the long-standing truth that when exceptional films meet unmatched theatrical experiences, audiences respond in a big way, AMC Adam Aron said in a press release. The release also noted that AMC didn’t just see a record-breaking box office. The chain said it also generated record food and beverage revenue this weekend. Concessions, such as popcorn and soda, are a major driver of profits at theaters. Cinemark CEO Sean Gamble also reported records at the chain, noting in a press release, “Cinemark delivered a remarkable over-performance, breaking numerous records across box office and concession revenues. And Greg Marcus, CEO of Marcus Corporation, said the company has high hopes for the rest of 2025, too. “Once again, huge audiences came out for the experience of enjoying these films on the big screen in theatres, Marcus noted. We expect the momentum to continue throughout the summer with an exciting slate of films ahead. That slate of films includes the highly anticipated Superman reboot from Warner Bros; the latest Marvel movie, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, from Disney; and Universals newest installment of the Jurassic Park franchise, Jurassic World Rebirth.
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E-Commerce
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