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Luxy: what a bad dating app teaches people

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Luxy is a dating app that has recently become the target of controversy and uproar with the rollout of a new feature called “Vouch”. If you’re familiar with Luxy, you might now what I’m talking about. Luxy is the Tinder for superficial people who only care about two things: money and looks. Now we’re not sure if the creators of the Luxy app were being ironic or trying to prove a point, but the whole philosophy behind this dating app is rotten at its core. This is going to be an opinion piece and I invite our readers to voice their opinions about the Luxy app and its new Vouch feature.

First let me tell you why the Vouch feature in the Luxy dating app angers me: if you’re not rich and if you’re not hot, you’re not fit for the Luxy community. That level of discrimination is usually frowned upon in many circles, yet Luxy chooses to pride itself with the Vouch feature, for whatever reason. The official name of the Luxy dating ap is the Millionaire dating app, for the successful and attractive people in the world. I get that there’s a market for this and I certainly understand that there are millions of superficial people who in my opinions, don’t get the way in which our world works. But that doesn’t mean we should promote such behavior.

Now let’s see what this app is all about. It’s got about 10 thousand downloads, which means it’s not a very popular dating app, to be fair. But it is the most superficial one I’ve come across. Once you install Luxy, you’re prompted to log in with Facebook, because rich, beautiful people don’t have time to fill out a worthwhile profile that says something about themselves. All that matters is your profile pic and the income you get per year, of course. After logging in with Facebook, you’re prompted to customize your profile. No, you don’t have to write a short bio or introduction, like with most dating apps. Nope, you have to select your income, your luxury brands, tags and your name.

In a dating app, you usually fill out the blanks with information you think that would be relevant for the would-be soul mate or partner you might be looking for. That’s not the case with Luxy. Nope, you get to select your income and the lowest one you can select is 200k per year, or non-disclosure. When it comes to the brands, you get about 30 of those and you can select 5 of them. So, I’m exorbitantly rich and love Bentley, Jaguar, Hermes, Dior, Cadillac, Chanel, Gucci and a ton of other brands, I’m not entitled to share that, I have to share five of them, because why make those with lesser salaries uncomfortable with my preferences?

Then we move on to choosing tags! You can’t put in your own tags, you’re going to have to select from a bunch of them: model, billionaire, actress, golf, doctor, lawyer, entrepreneur, handsome, sexy, fitness, dancer, director, Jewish!, Asian!, gourmet dining and more of the sorts. First off, the amount of stereotypes! I mean, really, Luxy, is it necessary to propagate that Asians and Jewish people are rich because of their ethnicity, provenance, religion or anything like that? Is it really? I don’t know how this app hasn’t been reported yet, honestly. Now for those of you who think that I’m ranting about this dating app because I’m ugly and poor: it doesn’t matter. The fact that Luxy as a dating app is promoting passing judgement based on two very superficial factors like income and looks is an offense to society. If I were the sexiest person alive with the highest salary, I wouldn’t parade that on a dating app, because that’s not why I want somebody to choose me as their date. It’s demeaning to rich people, it’s demeaning to poor people, and it’s just as demeaning to good-looking people (by what standards, though?) as it is ugly people (by whose standards?).

Luxy as a dating app is promoting standards that are non-existent. I made a profile on Luxy, and I’m currently waiting on people to pass judgement on my looks and the minimum income I selected. I’ll update this rant with my results tomorrow. I’m under 50 % right now, which is funny, after only 5 minutes on the dating app. What do you think about Luxy and the values it promotes in the world of romance? Do you think promoting these stereotypes is ok or do you think it’s okay when it’s just for fun? Sound off in the comments below. You can get Luxy, the worst dating app I’ve seen, from the Google Play Store, for free. You’d think being a dating app for millionaires, it would cost at least a tenner.

As part of the editorial team here at Geekreply, John spends a lot of his time making sure each article is up to snuff. That said, he also occasionally pens articles on the latest in Geek culture. From Gaming to Science, expect the latest news fast from John and team.

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Pixel 8 Pro runs Google’s generative AI models

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Rick Osterloh, Google’s SVP of devices and services, says the Pixel 8 Pro will be the first hardware to run Google’s generative AI models.

At an event today, Osterloh said the Pixel 8 Pro’s custom-built Tensor G3 chip, which accelerates AI workloads, can run “distilled” versions of Google’s text- and image-generating models to power image editing and other apps.

Osterloh said, “We’ve worked closely with our research teams across Google to take advantage of their most advanced foundation models and distill them into a version efficient enough to run on our flagship Pixel.”

Google improved Magic Eraser, its photo-editing tool, to remove larger objects and people smudge-free using on-device models. Osterloh claims that this improved Magic Eraser creates new pixels to fill in shot gaps, producing a higher-quality image.

Osterloh says a new on-device model will “intelligently” sharpen and enhance photo details, improving zoom.

On-device processing benefits audio recording. The Pixel 8 Pro’s recording app will soon summarize meeting highlights.

Gboard will use a large language model on the Pixel 8 Pro to power smart replies. Osterloh claims that the upgraded Gboard will provide “higher-quality” reply suggestions and better conversational awareness.

Osterloh said an update in December will add on-device generative AI features except for Magic Eraser, which appears on the Pixel 8 Pro at launch.

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Telegram launches a global self-custodial crypto wallet, excluding the US

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Telegram, with 800 million monthly users, is launching a self-custodial crypto wallet. The move will solidify its presence in the vibrant crypto community that has grown from its chat platform and may attract more people to crypto.

Telegram and TON Foundation announced TON Space, a self-custodial wallet, on Wednesday at Singapore’s Token2049 crypto conference, which draws over 10,000 attendees.

Telegram has a complicated blockchain relationship. After the SEC sued Telegram over a massive initial coin offering, the chat app abandoned its Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain project in 2020. The Open Network Foundation (TON Foundation), founded by open-source developers and blockchain enthusiasts, supports the development of The Open Network (TON), the blockchain powering a growing number of Telegram applications, including the wallet.

The Open Platform (TOP) and TOP Labs, a venture-building division, created the TON-based wallet.

TON Space will be available to Telegram users worldwide without wallet registration in November. The U.S., which has cracked down on the crypto industry and promoted many crypto apps to geofence users, is currently excluded from the feature.

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Google’s massive antitrust trial begins, with bigger implications

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The Justice Department’s landmark antitrust case against Google began in court today, setting off a months-long trial that could upend the tech world.

At issue is Google’s search business. The Justice Department claims that Google has violated antitrust laws to maintain its search title, but the company claims that it does so by providing a superior product.

The Justice Department sued Google for civil antitrust in late 2020 after a year-long investigation.

“If the government does not enforce the antitrust laws to enable competition, we will lose the next wave of innovation,” said then-Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen. “If that happens, Americans may never see the ‘next Google.’”

A large coalition of state attorneys general filed their own parallel suit against Google, but Judge Amit Mehta ruled that the states did not meet the bar to go to trial with their search ranking complaints.

The search business case against Google is separate from a federal antitrust lawsuit filed earlier this year. The Justice Department claims Google used “anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means” to neutralize threats to its digital advertising empire in that lawsuit.

Justice Department attorney Kenneth Dintzer set the stakes for the first major tech antitrust trial since Microsoft’s late 1990s reckoning on Tuesday. “This case is about the future of the internet, and whether Google’s search engine will ever face meaningful competition,” Dintzer said.

Beginning the trial, the government focused on Google’s deals with phone makers, most notably Apple, that give its search product top billing on new devices. Dintzer claimed that Google maintains and grows its search engine dominance by paying $10 billion annually for those arrangements.

“This feedback loop, this wheel, has been turning for more than 12 years,” he said. “And it always benefits Google.”

Google lawyer John Schmidtlein refuted that claim, hinting at the company’s legal defense in the coming weeks.

“Users today have more search options and more ways to access information online than ever before,” Schmidtlein said. Google will argue that it competes with Amazon, Expedia, and DoorDash, as well as Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

Google planted the seeds for this defense. According to internal research, Google Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan said last year that more young people are using TikTok to search for information than Google Search.

In our studies, almost 40% of young people don’t use Google Maps or Search to find lunch, Raghavan said. “They use TikTok or Instagram.”

Google will be decided by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in the coming months. We’re far from that decision, but the company could be fined heavily or ordered to sell parts of its business.

The trial could change Google’s digital empire if the Justice Department wins. Other tech companies that dominated online markets in the last decade are also watching. If the government fails to hold an iconic Silicon Valley giant accountable, big tech will likely continue its aggressive growth trajectory.

If the Justice Department succeeds, the next decade could be different. The industry-wide reckoning could cripple incumbents and allow upstarts to define the next era of the internet, wresting the future from tech titans.

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