{"id":600147,"date":"2023-01-22T06:49:03","date_gmt":"2023-01-22T12:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/22\/alphabet-makes-cuts-twitter-bans-third-party-clients-and-netflixs-reed-hastings-steps-down\/"},"modified":"2023-01-22T06:49:03","modified_gmt":"2023-01-22T12:49:03","slug":"alphabet-makes-cuts-twitter-bans-third-party-clients-and-netflixs-reed-hastings-steps-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/22\/alphabet-makes-cuts-twitter-bans-third-party-clients-and-netflixs-reed-hastings-steps-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Alphabet makes cuts, Twitter bans third-party clients, and Netflix\u2019s Reed Hastings steps down"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Howdy, folks! Happy Friday. While our fearless Week in Review leader Greg enjoys parental leave, I\u2019m filling in, curating the latest on the tech news front. It was a roller coaster of a week once again as economic headwinds took a brutal, demoralizing toll, and as chaos reigned at Elon Musk\u2019s Twitter. Somewhere in the midst of all that, Boston Dynamics demoed an improved bipedal robot, Wikipedia launched a redesign and major universities banned TikTok from their campus networks. Yeah \u2014 a lot happened.<\/p>\n

Before we get down to business, a friendly reminder that TechCrunch Early Stage 2023<\/a> is on April 20 in Boston. It\u2019s a one-day summit for founders who are in the first stages of growing their companies, who have built a product but don\u2019t know how to monetize, and who have an idea but aren\u2019t sure where to find the resources to turn it into a viable business. At Early Stage, experts will share advice on protecting intellectual property, structuring cap tables, developing target customer personas and more. You won\u2019t want to miss it.<\/p>\n

most read<\/h2>\n

Alphabet makes deep cuts:<\/strong><\/a> Alphabet, the parent holding company of Google, announced on Friday that it\u2019s cutting around 6% of its global workforce, or roughly 12,000 roles, Paul<\/a> reports. In an open letter<\/a> published by Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, the narrative followed a similar trajectory to that of other companies that have downsized in recent months, noting that the company had \u201chired for a different economic reality\u201d than what it\u2019s up against today.<\/p>\n

Twitter bans third-party clients:<\/a> <\/strong>After\u00a0cutting off<\/a> prominent app makers like Tweetbot and Twitterific, Twitter quietly updated its developer terms to ban third-party Twitter clients altogether. The \u201crestrictions\u201d section of Twitter\u2019s 5,000-some-word developer agreement<\/a> was updated with a clause prohibiting \u201cuse or access [to] the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications,\u201d a decision that seems unlikely to foster much goodwill at a time when Twitter faces challenges<\/a> on a number<\/a> of fronts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Beating a Hastings retreat:<\/a> <\/strong>Netflix founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings announced Thursday that he would step down after more than two decades at the company, Taylor<\/a> writes. While news of his departure comes as a shock, Hastings noted in the announcement<\/a> that Netflix has planned its next era of leadership \u201cfor many years.\u201d\u00a0Netflix will maintain its co-CEO structure in Hastings\u2019 absence, promoting COO Greg Peters to the tandem role with Ted Sarandos.<\/p>\n

College students, no TikTok for you:<\/a> <\/strong>Public universities across a widening swath of U.S. states have banned TikTok in recent months, and two of the country\u2019s largest colleges followed suit earlier this week. As Taylor<\/a> reports, the University of Texas and Texas A&M University took action against the social app, which is owned by Beijing-based parent company ByteDance \u2014 prohibiting campus network and device users from accessing TikTok. The flurry of recent bans<\/a>\u00a0was inspired by executive orders issued by a number of state governors.<\/p>\n

Wikipedia gets a makeover:<\/a><\/strong> This week, Wikipedia, a resource used by billions every month, got its first makeover on the desktop in over a decade, Sarah<\/a> writes. The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the Wikipedia project, launched an updated interface aimed at making the site more accessible and easier to use, with additions like improved search, a more prominently located tool for switching between languages, an updated header offering access to commonly used links, and more.<\/p>\n

Pour one out for AmazonSmile:<\/strong><\/a> Just a few days after announcing a significant round of layoffs<\/a>, Amazon said that it would end AmazonSmile<\/a>, its donation program that redirects 0.5% of the cost of all eligible products toward charities. Amazon claimed that the program had \u201cnot grown to create the impact that [it] had originally hoped,\u201d but as Romain<\/a> notes, since 2013, Amazon has donated $400 million<\/a> through AmazonSmile. Ending it is seems more likely a move to cut costs.<\/p>\n

Payday for data breach victims:<\/a> <\/strong>If you were one of the nearly 77 million people affected by last year\u2019s T-Mobile breach, you may have a few bucks coming your way. Devin reports that the company will pay $350 million to be split up by customers and lawyers, plus $150 million \u201cfor data security and related technology.\u201d The breach apparently occurred sometime early last year, after which collections of T-Mobile customer data were put up for sale on various criminal forums.<\/p>\n

Robots that grab as well as throw:<\/strong><\/a> TechCrunch\u2019s intrepid Matt Burns<\/a> writes about a demo video this week showing Hyundai-backed Boston Dynamics\u2019 humanoid robot, Atlas, equipped with gripper hands that can pick up and drop off anything the robot can grab independently. The claw-like gripper consists of one fixed finger and one moving finger; Boston Dynamics says that the grippers were designed for heavy-lifting tasks, like Atlas holding a keg over its head during a Super Bowl commercial. Nifty.<\/p>\n

Dungeons & Dragons:<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>After weeks of backlash and protests from fans<\/a>, Wizards of the Coast \u2014 the Hasbro-owned publisher of Dungeons & Dragons \u2014 announced<\/a> it will now license Dungeons & Dragons\u2019 core mechanics under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International<\/a> license. This gives the community \u201ca worldwide, royalty-free, non-sublicensable, non-exclusive, irrevocable license\u201d to publish and sell works based on Dungeons & Dragons \u2014 a massive change of heart for the gaming giant, which was considering implementing a new license that would require<\/a> certain Dungeons & Dragons content creators to start paying a 25% royalty.<\/p>\n

audio roundup<\/h2>\n

Whether it\u2019s to pass the time while commuting or to liven up the morning jog, TechCrunch likely has a podcast to suit your fancy. On startup-focused Equity<\/a> this week, Natasha<\/a>, Mary Ann<\/a> and Rebecca<\/a> jumped on the mic to talk through a diverse news week, including deals from Sophia Amoruso\u2019s new fund, Welcome Homes, and a look at compliment-focused social media apps. Found<\/a>, meanwhile, featured Mir Hwang, the co-founder and CEO of GigFinesse, who talked about how his struggles to book music gigs as a teenager pushed him to launch the company that connects artists with venues for live shows.<\/p>\n

TechCrunch+<\/h2>\n

TC+, TechCrunch\u2019s premium channel for deep dives, surveys, guest posts and general analysis, was jam-packed with content this week (as always). Here\u2019s some of the most popular posts:<\/p>\n

On Twitter\u2019s data leak response:<\/strong><\/a> Carly<\/a> writes about Twitter\u2019s alleged\u00a0data breach<\/a> that exposed the contact information of millions of users. In an\u00a0unattributed blog post<\/a>, Twitter said it had conducted a \u201cthorough investigation\u201d and found \u201cno evidence\u201d that recent Twitter user data sold online was obtained by exploiting a vulnerability of Twitter\u2019s systems. But as she notes, it\u2019s unclear if Twitter has the technical means, such as logs, to determine if any user data was exfiltrated.<\/p>\n

The last unicorns:<\/strong><\/a> VCs think a majority of unicorns aren\u2019t worth $1 billion anymore. Rebecca<\/a> takes a look at the current investment landscape, finding that many of the companies that reached unicorn status last year are in danger of losing it as economic conditions worsen.<\/p>\n

Sexism in the workplace:<\/strong><\/a> Women-founded startups raised 1.9% of all VC funds in 2022, a drop from 2021, Dominic-Madori<\/a>\u00a0writes. That percentage is a notable drop from the 2.4% all-women teams raised in 2021. The decline was expected, but stark nonetheless. Aside from 2016, the last time all-women-led startups raised such a low percentage of funds was in 2012, another period of funding decline caused by economic uncertainty and an election.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Kyle Wiggers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Howdy, folks! Happy Friday. While our fearless Week in Review leader Greg enjoys parental leave, I\u2019m filling in, curating the latest on the tech news front. It was a roller coaster of a week once again as economic headwinds took a brutal, demoralizing toll, and as chaos reigned at Elon Musk\u2019s Twitter. Somewhere in the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":600148,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[223,397,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-600147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alphabet","category-makes","category-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}