Hello there, welcome to another round of global roundup.
Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla Inc., has appointed Linda Yaccarino as the new chief executive officer (CEO) of Twitter. The billionaire announced in a tweet on Friday.
The development comes less than 24 hours after Musk said he had found a successor for the position.
Last week, we brought you the announcement made by Google, which conveyed the proposed introduction of its first foldable phone, the Pixel Fold, during the Google I/O 2023 event on May 10,
Among the vast array of cutting-edge technologies and updates showcased in the annual Google IO developer conference was the AI, Bard. The AI chatbot modelled as a competition to the now renowned ChatGPT has finally been released to the rest of the World.
In other news, Elon Musk has announced that he will be stepping down as CEO of Twitter in the coming weeks and would be replaced by an incoming CEO who is supposedly a woman. He made this known in a tweet.
Spotify this week removed tens of thousands of songs made with the generative artificial intelligence service Boomy following complaints of fraud on its streaming platform.
Enjoy this read if you missed the major bits of the biggest news this week. We have curated this roundup so you do not miss those important details.
Summary of the Bulletin
- Bard, Pixel fold, among many releases made by Google at the IO developer conference
- Elon Musk finds new CEO
- Spotify launches offensive against AI-generated songs on its platform
- Linked cuts 716 jobs
- Twitter to purge inactive accounts
Read also: Pixel Fold, android 14 updates, AI announcements expected during the Google I/O 2023 event
Google launches Pixel Fold, releases Bard to the Public
At the annual Google IO developer conference some days ago, a wide array of cutting-edge technologies and updates were showcased, all aimed at enhancing user experiences across various platforms.
Most importantly, Google’s Bard is now widely available, with its waitlist out the window. It is also available in multiple languages, with a dark theme and deep integration with Google services like Lens.
At I/O, Google announced Bard is now available in 180 countries and regions, sans the waitlist. Additional language support is also coming, with Korean and Japanese for starters. The company also plans to expand further, complete with support for 40 more languages down the road.
Significant updates were also announced for Android, Pixel devices, and Google Photos. A standout moment of the conference was the unveiling of PaLM 2, Google’s latest generative language model. The breakthrough model surpasses previous language models in maths, coding, reasoning, multilingual translation, and natural language generation.
Google’s Pixel product line continues to expand by introducing three new devices: the Pixel 7a, Pixel Fold, and Pixel Tablet. The Pixel Fold is Google’s first foldable phone, boasting a 7.6-inch screen when opened, offering a large, immersive display and the best camera on a foldable phone, ensuring high-quality photography. Read more here.
Elon Musk to step down as Twitter’s CEO
Elon Musk on Thursday said he’d found a new CEO to take over Twitter, months after he promised to step back from the role.
However, Wall Street Journal reported that Comcast’s NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino was in talks for the job.
This was what he said:
In the past, Musk has shown some scepticism toward the CEO position, stating in December that he would step down as soon as “I find someone crazy enough to take the job!” These comments were made after he conducted a poll on Twitter asking users if they thought he should step down from the top role. About 58% of respondents indicated he should do so.
Yaccarino, NBCUniversal’s top advertising sales executive, interviewed Musk at an advertising conference in Miami last month. At the conference, Yaccarino encouraged the audience to welcome Musk with applause and lauded his work ethic.
“Many of you in this room know me, and you know I pride myself on my work ethic,” she said, adding, “Buddy, I met my match.”
Musk later announced on Friday that Yaccarrino had been appointed as the CEO.
“I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter! @LindaYacc will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology. Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app,” he wrote
Spotify launches attack on AI-generated songs
Spotify, the world’s largest music streaming service, has removed thousands of songs generated by artificial intelligence (AI) from its platform as part of a crackdown on “fake” streams.
It removed thousands of songs made with the generative artificial intelligence service Boomy following fraud complaints on its streaming platform. Boomy users can create music in seconds using descriptors or styles such as “rap beats” or “rainy nights”, Financial Times reports.
Those tracks can then be uploaded to streaming platforms and potentially generate royalty payments. Universal Music recently notified Spotify and other platforms that it saw suspicious “artificial streaming” on Boomy tracks, with bots being used to inflate streaming numbers. Spotify subsequently pulled 7% of tracks uploaded by Boomy.
Boomy has been a big player in the AI music industry for a few years. Launched in 2021, the company offers users the ability to auto-generate tracks based on particular “vibes.”
Say you want to spin up a hip-hop track with Reggae undertones? Just input those requests into Boomy and ta-da, and you have an “original track.” Users can then upload Boomy tracks to streaming platforms and earn royalties.
LinkedIn cuts 716 jobs
LinkedIn is cutting 716 jobs and will begin phasing out its local jobs app in China. CEO Ryan Roslansky said the decision to shutter the standalone China app, called InCareer, was because of “fierce competition and a challenging macroeconomic climate”, per TechCrunch.
While reducing some roles, LinkedIn, owned by Microsoft and has 20,000 employees, also plans to open about 250 new jobs in some segments of its operations and new business and accounting management teams on May 15.
It becomes the latest tech company, ranging in size from Google and Amazon to startups, to announce layoffs. Microsoft cut 10,000 jobs, or nearly 5% of its global workforce, in January.
According to Layoffs.fyi, more than 270,000 tech jobs globally have been cut in the past six months.
LinkedIn makes money through ad sales and charging for subscriptions to recruiting and sales professionals who use the network to find prospects.
In a letter to employees, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky said the move to cut roles in its sales, operations and support teams was aimed at streamlining the company’s operations and would remove layers to help make quicker decisions.
Twitter to purge inactive accounts
Elon Musk has said that Twitter will purge accounts that have not been active for years.
In a tweet, he informed users to expect a drop in their follower count because the platform would be removing accounts that have been dormant for some time.
“We’re purging accounts that have had no activity at all for several years, so you will probably see a follower count drop.”
According to Twitter’s policy, users should log in to their accounts at least once every 30 days to avoid permanent removal due to prolonged inactivity.
This is not the first time Elon Musk has made do with his words and statements concerning revamping or eliminating some features or accounts on the platform. Twitter last month removed the legacy verified blue tick from the profile of thousands of people, including celebrities, journalists and prominent politicians.
Musk has made account verification a part of Twitter’s Blue subscription, a move he said would tackle the issue of bot accounts on the social media platform.
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