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  • Introducing Apple Invites, a new app that brings together family and friends for social gatherings

Introducing Apple Invites, a new app that brings together family and friends for social gatherings

Google and OpenAI bet on AI agents that perform complex research autonomously | Discover what type of user you are on Vinted, the international secondhand fashion marketplace

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Clara Nafría & Ismael Nafría
February 07, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Good morning!

Welcome to "On the Net Today". Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we bring you a handpicked selection of three valuable and interesting online resources to help you get the most out of the internet and optimize your browsing time.

Here are the three resources we've prepared for today:

  • Introducing Apple Invites, a new app that brings together family and friends for social gatherings

  • Google and OpenAI bet on AI agents that perform complex research autonomously

  • Discover what type of user you are on Vinted, the international secondhand fashion marketplace

Introducing Apple Invites, a new app that brings together family and friends for social gatherings

Apple launched this week a new app for iPhone, Apple Invites, “that helps users create custom invitations to gather friends and family for any occasion”.

The new app will compete with highly successful products in this same space like the Partiful app.

With Apple Invites, users can "easily create and share invitations, confirm attendance, collaborate on shared albums, and interact with Apple Music playlists," among other options.

iCloud+ subscribers can create invitations, and any user, even without an Apple account or device, can confirm attendance.

Brent Chiu-Watson, Senior Director of Worldwide Apps and iCloud Marketing at Apple, explained that "with Apple Invitations, an event comes to life from the moment the invitation is created, and users can share unforgettable memories even after the gathering."

The app integrates with Maps and Weather to provide directions to the event and weather forecasts. Participants can contribute photos and videos to a shared album and use collaborative playlists.

Apple Invitations is available as a free download on the App Store for iPhone models with iOS 18 or later. The app can also be accessed from icloud.com/invites.

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Google and OpenAI bet on AI agents that perform complex research autonomously

Both Google and OpenAI have recently launched generative AI assistants dedicated to performing complex research autonomously on the internet to generate specialized reports. Interestingly, both tools share the same name: Deep Research.

In both cases, the tool is part of these companies' paid subscriptions. Google offers it as part of Gemini Advanced ($20 per month), currently only in English and through the web, while OpenAI has integrated it into ChatGPT Pro ($200 per month and for US users) with a limit of 100 monthly queries.

Google launched Deep Research last December. This assistant, after receiving user instructions, generates a research plan that can be edited before starting real-time searches. The result is a report with citations that can be exported to Google Docs.

In OpenAI's Deep Research case, the tool operates completely independently for 5 to 30 minutes, depending on the complexity of the topic posed by the user in their prompt, and locates, analyzes, and synthesizes hundreds of online sources to produce detailed technical reports like an analyst would, according to the company. This agent can work with texts, images, and PDF files.

Initial analyses of the tools suggest that OpenAI's Deep Research could be useful for researchers and analysts, while Google's assistant would be particularly beneficial for small businesses.

In its blog, Google explained that "Deep Research is the perfect tool if you're an entrepreneur starting a small business and want to conduct quick competitive analysis and get recommendations on suitable locations, or if you're a marketing professional researching recent AI campaigns to establish benchmarks for 2025 planning."

OpenAI has warned about certain limitations of Deep Research, such as the possibility of generating inaccurate information or having difficulties distinguishing source quality. Therefore, they advise that results should be verified by humans.

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Discover what type of user you are on Vinted, the international secondhand fashion marketplace

An increasing number of digital companies are developing annual personalized reports based on user behavior, similar to Spotify's "Wrapped."

Vinted, the international peer-to-peer second-hand fashion marketplace born in Lithuania and present in numerous markets, has put a twist on this idea by launching an original campaign - accompanied by a website - titled Re~invinted.

Vinted has identified 32 unique user profiles or characters, each representing a different mindset, such as "Negotiator," "Hotshot," "Sneakerhead," "Retroholic," "Bundler," or "Novelist," among others.

Re~invinted "reveals the behaviors of millions of people embracing the growing second-hand phenomenon: those who choose second-hand over 'new' to buy, sell, and save in their own way," according to Vinted.

Visitors to the campaign website can complete a playful questionnaire to discover and share their personality and learn about the most relevant data, or "Vin-sights," that match their preferences.

According to its managers, Vinted's campaign presents "a wealth of never-before-shared data that challenges preconceptions about the second-hand world, such as access to luxury fashion, high-quality products, and a wide range of items beyond fashion. It also supports the brand's position that anyone can find what they like and turn it into something new."

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