When Clubhouse made its debut as an audio-only social app for joining or listening into group conversations, it was an invite-only, iOS-only app released at a time when millions of people were stuck at home and perhaps craving social contact.

It was a hit even before the app expanded to Android. And then signups started to decline, perhaps because folks were getting vaccinated and getting out of the house. Or perhaps because major players including Facebook, Twitter, Discord, and Spotify were all launching their own Clubhouse-like features.

Flash forward to… today, and Clubhouse is dropping the invite-only status. Anyone can now sign up for the service… if that’s something you still want to do. I guess we’ll find out whether the club is any fun if it’s not as exclusive as it once was…  or if we have alternatives.

Here’s a roundup of recent tech news from around the web.

  • Opening Day [Clubhouse]
    You don’t need an invite to join the audio-only social networking/chat app Clubhouse anymore. It exits beta today and its available to everyone on iOS and Android… although there’s increasing competition from Facebook, Twitter, Discord, Spotify, etc.
  • ‘Backup by Google One’ is Android’s new unified backup system [9to5Google]
    Google is streamlining Android backups with the new “Backup by Google One” feature. It puts all your data backups including photos, MMS, and device data in one place… and gives you control over which items are backed up.
  • DirectStorage Developer Preview now available! [Microsfot]
    Microsoft’s DirectStorage technology allows games to load faster from an SSD on the Xbox Series X with reduced CPU overhead, and it’s coming to PCs too, and not only Windows 11, as previously announced, but also Windows 10.
  • A clunky (but useable) method for recording video on a PinePhone [LinuxSmartphones]
    Most smartphones ship with software capable of taking advantage of all the device’s hardware. But the PinePhone isn’t most smartphones. It’s designed to be an open platform for developers and when it first began shipping there was only some very basic software available. Among other things, there was no working camera app. Now there is. And up until recently there had also been no good method for recording video on a PinePhone. But now redditor UJC_theguy has come up with a method for recording 720p video at 30 frames per second.

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You can also find the latest news about open source phones by following our sister site LinuxSmartphones on Facebook and Twitter.

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