The end of LinkedIn’s Audio Events LinkedIn launched Audio Events in 2022. The feature was the business professional-oriented social network’s answer to Twitter’s Spaces feature or the Clubhouse app. Streaming audio-only platforms became quite popular during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Clubhouse, for example, was valued at $1 billion at one point. However, the audio streaming boom quickly ended as industry trends recalibrated following the end of lockdowns and the release of the COVID-19 vaccines. By 2023, Clubhouse was laying off half of its employees. LinkedIn’s announcement says that the company is simply “unifying” its Audio Events and LinkedIn…
Author: Olsi
Digital wallets and payment apps like Apple Pay, Google Pay, Venmo, and PayPal are facing stronger regulations under the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the nation’s bank and financial service watchdog. Through a new rule passed Thursday, the agency will have the power to supervise the behavior and policies of nonbank companies offering digital funds transfer and payment wallet apps recategorizing these processors and their Big Tech owners under similar rules to banking institutions. Under its new powers, the CFPB can keep a closer eye on data collection and sharing, monitor fraudulent transactions and disputes, and act as a…
Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis are recalling about 208,000 EVs in the United States due to an issue that could cause the vehicles to suddenly lose power, according to several filings with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The recall was first reported by Reuters. The problem originates with the integrated charging control unit (ICCU), which may become damaged and stop charging the 12-volt battery and can result in a loss of drive power, according to the filing. Hyundai Motor is recalling about 145,235 of its EVs, which includes some Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 vehicles. The recall also covers three…
Tesla and Rivian may have resolved a lawsuit in which Tesla accused Rivian of poaching employees and stealing trade secrets. Bloomberg reports that Tesla told a California statement judge that the companies have reached a “conditional” settlement, and that it expects to seek dismissal of the lawsuit by December 24. Tesla filed the suit, which was set to got to trial in March, back in 2020. The EV maker alleged that it had discovered an “alarming pattern” in which Rivian was recruiting Tesla employees and encouraging them to take proprietary information with them as they left. In response, Rivian filed…
Not every former top FTX executive is heading to prison. Gary Wang, former FTX chief technical officer, was spared prison time by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan today. Judge Kaplan praised Wang’s cooperation with federal authorities. Wang testified against former FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried at his trial last fall. Wang pleaded guilty to four felony counts of fraud and conspiracy. Former FTX CEO Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison last year, a sentence he filed to appeal in September. Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of FTX-affiliated Alameda Research, was sentenced to two years in prison in…
A pigeon-inspired flying robot is solving avian mysteries that may help create more stable aircrafts. While birds seem to seamlessly maintain stability during turbulence, airplanes need rudders and vertical tails to avoid being rocked from side to side. Scientists have suspected that birds maintain balance by reflexively adjusting their wings and tails but this hypothesis has been hard to prove with real birds in field studies. To overcome this challenge, scientists at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), developed PigeonBot II, a robot equipped with morphing wings, pigeon-like wingtips, and even 52 real pigeon feathers. Just like…
NASA has confirmed over 5,780 worlds beyond our solar system, called exoplanets. But it’s rare to detect a juvenile, still-maturing planet, because they inhabit chaotic systems that are flush with obscuring dust and gas. By chance, this distant debris has parted, allowing researchers using the sensitive cameras aboard the space agency’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) to spot such a planet. “A huge planet with a long name—IRAS 04125+2902 b—is really just a baby: only 3 million years old,” NASA recently explained. “And because such infant worlds are usually hidden inside obscuring disks of debris, it is the youngest planet…
Lawyers for The New York Times and Daily News, which are suing OpenAI for allegedly scraping their works to train its AI models without permission, say OpenAI engineers accidentally deleted data potentially relevant to the case. Earlier this fall, OpenAI agreed to provide two virtual machines so that counsel for The Times and Daily News could perform searches for their copyrighted content in its AI training sets. (Virtual machines are software-based computers that exist within another computer’s operating system, often used for the purposes of testing, backing up data, and running apps.) In a letter, attorneys for the publishers say…
This new interface aims to enhance user experience by providing a more intuitive layout and easier navigation through content. With features like personalized recommendations and a centralized library, users can now enjoy a seamless streaming experience. Streaming service and media software maker Plex on Friday introduced a redesign of its software that puts more emphasis on discovery, easily accessing your watchlist, and other personalization features — including those for home media enthusiasts who still use the app to organize their media libraries. Over the years, the company has tried to balance its history as a software maker focused on home…
The Silicon Valley dream is to build a tech startup that is such a unique idea it alters the commercial universe and turns its founders into billionaires. Participating in the Valley’s most famed startup factory, Y Combinator, is often part of that dream. Airbnb, Coinbase, and Stripe all got started there. Yet, a deep dive into the data from all of the nearly 5,000 companies YC has backed to date reveals a surprising truth: YC startups don’t have to be unique. Far from it. YC commonly accepts startups that are building similar or nearly identical products to previous YC grads.…
