Technology

Twitter is working on a new feature called Flock that lets users select a specific group of people to share tweets with, Input reported. The feature was teased in July and at the time was referred to as Trusted Friends. In that version, Flock appeared in a dropdown menu that gave users the option of choosing between the different audiences. The updated tool was spotted via code in the Twitter app by mobile developer Alessandro Paluzzi. According to screenshots shared by Paluzzi, lists now have a limit of 150 people and users will be notified when they’re added to a list, as well as if they’re removed from a list. #Twitter continues to work on Twitter Flock by adding an explanation of how it works ? ℹ️ You can choose up to 150 people to include in your Twitter Flock ?ℹ&...

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced that the video-sharing platform is looking into potential NFT features for creator monetization, according to a letter published by the company on Tuesday. “We’re always focused on expanding the YouTube ecosystem to help creators capitalize on emerging technologies, including things like NFTs, while continuing to strengthen and enhance the experiences creators and fans have on YouTube,” the letter reads. Wojcicki also said that YouTube has been “following everything happening in Web3 as a source of inspiration,” specifically mentioning the expanding opportunities that crypto, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and NFTs can provide creators. The statement came as part of Wojcicki’s letter detailing YouTube’s priorities for 2022, which also inc...

A week after the news Microsoft will acquire Activision Blizzard, and amidst news of alleged union-busting, labor strikes, unionization and the continuing investigation of allegations of discrimination and abuse, Blizzard has announced it’s working on a new IP. The new game is the first new universe from Blizzard since Overwatch in 2016; it’s also the studio’s first survival game. While it’s fairly common to announce games early to recruit new talent — Respawn Entertainment’s announcement of its new Star Wars game contained job listings — Blizzard is facing a particularly challenging time when it comes to hiring. Talent acquisition and retention have been difficult for the developer causing game delays as employees leave the developer at the heart of Activision Blizzard’s legal troubles fo...

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief author Rick Riordan will be the first person to tell you how much he didn’t care for 20th Century Studios’ 2010 adaptation of the novel from director Chris Columbus. For years, Riordan’s been insisting to his fans how he’s been longing to see his work transformed into a live-action story that squares with the grand vision in his mind, and now, Disney Plus plans to make that happen. Though Riordan already announced almost two years ago in a series of now-deleted tweets that Disney Plus was moving forward with a new show based on the book series, the prolific author reiterated today the studio’s plans and shared some new details about the project in a new video posted to Twitter. Along with Riordan, director James Bobin (Muppets Most Wanted, The Flight o...

NASA’s next-generation James Webb Space Telescope may have reached its final parking spot in space, but there’s still a long road ahead for the observatory before it can start taking the dazzling pictures of the cosmos that scientists have been eagerly awaiting. Over the next five months, mission engineers will meticulously tweak and test the telescope in order to prepare the spacecraft for its lifelong mission of observing the Universe. Yesterday at around 2PM ET, the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, fired its onboard thrusters for a little less than five minutes, putting the vehicle into its final orbit in space. It was a crucial last step for JWST’s journey through the cosmos, capping off a 30-day voyage from the launchpad to its parking orbit roughly 1 million miles from Earth. Dur...

Facebook partners with mobile carriers in developing countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, and Pakistan to give users free access to Facebook and a few other websites, but users have been unknowingly getting charged by their cellular providers, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The service, called Free Basics, is offered through Meta Connectivity (formerly Facebook Connectivity) and is supposed to provide users with “access to communication tools, health information, education resources and other low-bandwidth services” at no charge. The program has been around since 2013, and as of last October, it serves more than 300 million people. Pakistan has been charged the most for using Facebook’s “free” internet at a total of $1.9 million In an internal report viewed by th...

Regular listeners of Decoder know car CEOs love coming on the show. There is a lot of change in the car industry, a lot of big ideas about how to manage that change, and a lot of big problems to solve: the transition to electric vehicles, the fact that cars are basically turning into rolling smartphones, how to make self-driving work safely, and more. And, of course, we always end up talking about Tesla — because how can you not? In the past 11 months, I’ve spoken to Ford CEO Jim Farley, Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath, Jeep CEO Christian Meunier, and most recently, Herbert Diess, CEO of Volkswagen Group. We’ve also spoken to a handful of CEOs of companies building autonomous driving technology: Luminar CEO Austin Russell, Argo AI CEO Bryan Salesky, and Waymo CEO Tekedra Mawakana are all wor...

General Motors announced a $7 billion investment in growing its electric vehicle manufacturing capabilities in Michigan, calling it “the single largest investment announcement in GM history.” The company will spend the money on four manufacturing sites, with plans to create 4,000 new jobs and retain another 1,000 in the state. The investment includes construction of a new battery cell plant in Lansing and the conversion of GM’s assembly plant in Orion for production of the Chevy Silverado EV and the electric GMC Sierra. The latter will be GM’s second assembly plant scheduled to build full-size electric pickups, the first being the company’s Factory Zero in Detroit. GM has said it will spend $35 billion by 2025 on electric and autonomous vehicles GM has said it will spend $35 billion by 202...

Hello, hello. I’m back! Welcome to the week from sunny Los Angeles. My trip through California had me disconnecting from the internet, spotting Michael Keaton at a Santa Barbara restaurant inside a furniture store, and, naturally, ending up in multiple conversations about Joe Rogan. Just the R&R I needed :~). Anyway, I’m happy to be back with you and the podcast news. Let’s get into it. Hot Pod Summit is returning on February 24th to start On Air Fest. Hot Pod Summit is the invite-only industry conference for the people building the future of the audio industry. It will kick off On Air Fest, the audio industry’s premier cultural festival, featuring Jad Abumrad, Chuck D, Dr. Jane Goodall, and more. Buy your tickets here. If you’re interested in applying for an invitation to the Summit, ...

Google is walking back plans to replace third-party cookies with FLoC by instead proposing the Topics API, a new system for interest-based advertising. Topics works by pinpointing five of your interests, such as “Fitness” or “Travel & Transportation,” based on your web activity, as measured by participating sites, for one week. [embedded content] Your browser will store these topics for three weeks before deleting them. Google says that these categories “are selected entirely on your device” and don’t involve “any external servers, including Google servers.” When you visit a website, Topics will show the site and its advertising partners just three of your interests, consisting of “one topic from each of the past three weeks.” As noted on the Topics API GitHub page, there are currently...

The Dutch competition regulator, the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM), has fined Apple €5 million (around $5.6 million) for failing to let dating app developers use third-party payment methods, the ACM has announced. The regulator says that Apple will continue to be fined €5 million a week until it properly complies with the order, which was publicly issued on December 24th. With a market cap of well over $2 trillion and revenues last quarter of $83.4 billion, Apple’s bottom line is unlikely to be impacted by these €5 million fines. But the Dutch regulator’s actions, like South Korea’s before it, could embolden others to take action against Apple’s App Store policies, as well as Google’s which are also being scrutinized. Apple made some effort to comply with the ACM’s instructions...

Nvidia is reportedly preparing to give up on its $40 billion purchase of chip designer Arm, according to Bloomberg News. The deal has faced intense scrutiny from regulators and vocal opposition from rivals, forcing Nvidia to adjust its original timeline for the purchase. Now, Bloomberg says Nvidia is telling partners it doesn’t expect the deal to go through at all, while Arm’s current owner SoftBank is reportedly “stepping up preparations” to take Arm public via an initial public offering — which could be an alternative way to profitably rid itself of the firm. Both Nvidia and SoftBank remain publicly committed to the deal, and Bloomberg notes that no final decision has been made. But such rumors are not surprising given it’s long been clear that geopolitical headwinds have been blowing ha...