Don't miss these X rolls out articles for Premium+ subscribers: If you are a subscriber of Xâs most expensive subscription tier, you can now post longer, richer articles directly to the platform. The new feature feels like the inevitable conclusion of Xâs dilution of its original character limit. The initial limit was expanded a few years ago from 140 to 280, and now comes the ability to post full articles to the platform. I suppose with the value of online advertising for most sites in shambles, posting your words to X is no less reasonable than putting them anywhere else. Engadget joked that the feature would give âlong-winded VCsâ a ânew way to be exhausting on main.â Getmobil raises $4M for Turkeyâs weird smartphone market: TechCrunchâs Haje Jan Kamps has a fascinating look at a Turkish startup that repairs, refurbishes and sells smartphones. Why is that helping a startup raise millions in external capital? Because the smartphone market in Turkey is weird, due to tariffs and other local rules designed to keep capital inside of its borders. The oddly-distorted market means that new smartphones are prohibitively expensive, making refurbishing a far more important â and attractive â business opportunity. AALTO wants to use solar-powered drones to offer Internet access: RIP Google Xâs Loon project, which wanted to use balloons to bring the Internet access to places where it was missing or weak. That project failed, partly because balloons tend to move about and are so hard to depend on for coverage at any single point on the ground. Enter AALTO, which uses fixed-wing drones that self-power with solar cells. Each one can beam sweet, sweet Internet access to an area of 7,500-square-kilometers. Is AI + blockchain going to be a thing? TechCrunchâs Jacquie Melinek sat down with the team at Zora (not Sora, mind), which has built an NFT marketplace and platform that lets you use AI to create art that can then be owned and traded on the blockchain. Apparently itâs seeing material traction, with its mission to âmake creating on the internet free and valuableâ resonating with users. For fun, our conversation with Zora is also available to mint here, if thatâs your jam. AI and blockchain is a regular topic of conversation in tech today, for context. Worldcoin fights to stay in Spain: The eyeball-scanning, get-tokens-for-your-biometrics startup Worldcoin is pushing back against Spainâs move to block its operations. The company argues that it is âfully compliant with all laws and regulations governing biometric data collection and data transfer.â This doesnât seem like the last time Worldcoin runs into criticism, though, so the case could help set a precedent. Free Fireâs slow return to India raises eyebrows: Popular Android game Free Fire, developed by Chinese company Sea, has built up a material e-sports scene over the years. The game was banned in India back in 2022, and its planned return to the Indian market has yet to materialize. Understandably, gamers are less than enthused about the matter. | 