Lockdown Mode disables a series of features that can be used to hack iPhone users. But the lack of these features also makes it easier to figure out who is using Lockdown Mode. From a report: Once Apple launches the new iPhone and iPad operating system early next month, users will be able to turn on a new privacy mode that the company calls "extreme." It's made for journalists, activists, politicians, human rights defenders, and anyone else who may be worried about getting targeted by sophisticated hackers, perhaps working for governments armed with spyware made by companies such as NSO Group. Apple calls it "Lockdown Mode" and it works by disabling some regular iPhone features that have been exploited to hack users in the past. But if users turn on Lockdown Mode, they will be easy to fingerprint and identify, according to a developer who created a proof of concept website that detects whether you have Lockdown Mode enabled or not.

John Ozbay, the CEO of privacy focused company Cryptee, and a privacy activist, told Motherboard that any website or online ad can detect whether some regular features are missing, such as loading custom fonts, one of the features that Lockdown Mode disables. "Let's say you're in China, and you're using Lockdown Mode. Now, any website that you visit could effectively detect you are using Lockdown Mode, they have your IP address as well. So they will actually be able to identify that the user with this IP address is using Lockdown Mode," Ozbay said in a call. "It's a tradeoff between security and privacy. [Apple] chose security."

The end-to-end encryption email service, Tutanota, says they are receiving reports that Crunchyroll is not allowing the use of their email addresses when signing up for their service. After contacting their team requiring that their domains be unblocked, they received the following response: "The ban of your domains is because we encountered a lot of hackers that used your domains emails to hack our accounts." From a report: In other words, Crunchyroll believes that many hackers used Tutanota domain emails to hack their accounts, which is why they banned Tutanota from their list. Moreover, they recommend users to use email accounts powered by "Big Tech" companies for hassle-free sign up to their services. This is not entirely a new phenomenon, notes It's FOSS. "DeviantArt actively blocked Proton Mail in the past because spammers used the platform to create accounts. Now, they have unblocked them."

Tutanota recently called out Microsoft for blocking Tutanota users from registering an account with its cloud-based collaboration platform, Teams.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A new company from the creators of the Godot game engine is setting out to grab a piece of the $200 billion global video game market -- and to do so, it's taking a cue from commercial open source software giant Red Hat. Godot, for the uninitiated, is a cross-platform game engine first released under an open source license back in 2014, though its initial development pre-dates that by several years. Today, Godot claims some 1,500 contributors, and is considered one of the world's top open source projects by various metrics. Godot has been used in high-profile games such as the Sonic Colors: Ultimate remaster, published by Sega last year as the first major mainstream game powered by Godot. But Tesla, too, has apparently used Godot to power some of the more graphically intensive animations in its mobile app.

Among Godot's founding creators is Juan Linietsky, who has served as head of development for the Godot project for the past 13 years, and who will now serve as CEO of W4 Games, a new venture that's setting out to take Godot to the next level. W4 quietly exited stealth last week, but today the Ireland-headquartered company has divulged more details about its goals to grow Godot and make it accessible for a wider array of commercial use cases. On top of that, the company told TechCrunch that it has raised $8.5 million in seed funding to make its mission a reality, with backers including OSS Capital, Lux Capital, Sisu Game Ventures and -- somewhat notably -- Bob Young, the co-founder and former CEO of Red Hat, an enterprise-focused open source company that IBM went on to acquire for $34 billion in 2019.

[...] "Companies like Red Hat have proven that with the right commercial offerings on top, the appeal of using open source in enterprise environments is enormous," Linietsky said. "W4 intends to do this very same thing for the game industry." In truth, Godot is nowhere near having the kind of impact in gaming that Linux has had in the enterprise, but it's still early days -- and this is exactly where W4 could make a difference. [...] W4's core target market will be broad -- it's gunning for independent developers and small studios, as well as medium and large gaming companies. The problem that it's looking to solve, ultimately, is that while Godot is popular with hobbyists and indie developers, companies are hesitant to use the engine on commercial projects due to its inherent limitations -- currently, there is no easy way to garner technical support, discuss the product's development roadmap, or access any other kind of value-added service. [...]

"W4 will offer console ports to developers under very accessible terms," Linietsky said. "Independent developers won't need to pay upfront to publish, while for larger companies there will be commercial packages that include support." Elsewhere, W4 is developing a range of products and services which it's currently keeping under wraps, with Linietsky noting that they will most likely be announced at Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco next March. "The aim of W4 is to help developers overcome any problem developers may stumble upon while trying to use Godot commercially," Linietsky added. It's worth noting that there are a handful of commercial companies out there already, such as Lone Wolf Technology and Pineapple Works, that help developers get the most out of Godot -- including console porting. But Linietsky was keen to highlight one core difference between W4 and these incumbents: its expertise. "The main distinctive feature of W4 is that it has been created by the Godot project leadership, which are the individuals with the most understanding and insight about Godot and its community," he said.

An anonymous reader shares a report: 'Beware in-app browsers' is a good rule of thumb for any privacy conscious mobile app user -- given the potential for an app to leverage its hold on user attention to snoop on what you're looking at via browser software it also controls. But eyebrows are being raised over the behavior of TikTok's in-app browser after independent privacy research by developer Felix Krause found the social network's iOS app injecting code that could enable it to monitor all keyboard inputs and taps. Aka, keylogging.

"TikTok iOS subscribes to every keystroke (text inputs) happening on third party websites rendered inside the TikTok app. This can include passwords, credit card information and other sensitive user data," warns Krause in a blog post detailing the findings. "We can't know what TikTok uses the subscription for, but from a technical perspective, this is the equivalent of installing a keylogger on third party websites." [emphasis his]

After publishing a report last week -- focused on the potential for Meta's Facebook and Instagram iOS apps to track users of their in-app browsers -- Krause followed up by launching a tool, called InAppBrowser.com, that lets mobile app users get details of code that's being injected by in-app browsers by listing JavaScript commands executed by the app as it renders the page. (NB: He warns the tool does not necessarily list all JavaScript commands executed nor can it pick up tracking an app might be doing using native code -- so at best it's offering a glimpse of potentially sketchy activities.)

After revealing just 23 named titles back in July, Friday morning Sega announced the full lineup of 60 games that will be included on the limited supply of US Sega Genesis Mini 2 units starting on October 27. From a report: Beyond the usual retro suspects, though, that list includes a couple of games that have never been released in any form, as well as several fresh arcade ports and Genesis titles sporting brand-new features for their plug-and-play re-release. Those unreleased retro games include Devi & Pii, a title designed by Sonic 3 developer Takashi Iizuka. The "paddle-style game" looks like something of a cross between Arkanoid and Twinkle Star Sprites, with one or two players shifting back and forth to juggle angels and avoid bouncing devils. The Genesis Mini 2 will also see the worldwide premier of Star Mobile, a game completed in 1992 by little-known journeyman developer Mindware but never actually released. The puzzle-heavy gameplay involves stacking stars on a carefully balanced mobile in a way that reminds us of the tabletop game Topple.

Besides those two never-before-seen titles, the Genesis Mini 2 features a few Sega arcade games that are being "ported" to Genesis-level hardware for the first time. These include:
Fantasy Zone: The cute-and-cuddly side-scrolling shooter gets ported to the Genesis by the same team that ported Darius on the first Genesis Mini, with a brand-new Easy Mode that wasn't in the arcades.
Space Harrier and Space Harrier II: While the sequel was already technically native to the Genesis, these new ports use "modern technology" to provide a much smoother sprite scaling function than was previously possible on 16-bit hardware (it's unclear if these new ROMs could run on a standard Genesis).
Spatter: A little-known 1984 maze game featuring a clown on a bouncing tricycle.
Super Locomotive: A 1982 train game focused on switching tracks to avoid collisions.
VS Puyo Puyo Sun: A competitive two-player-exclusive "demake" of the third game in the popular color-matching puzzle series, with "new rules not found in the original version."

The U.S. has identified intensifying technological competition with China as a top national-security threat. But a Commerce Department-led process that reviews U.S. tech exports to the country approves almost all requests and has overseen an increase in sales of some particularly important technologies, according to an analysis of trade data. From a report: Of the U.S.'s total $125 billion in exports to China in 2020, officials required a license for less than half a percent, Commerce Department data shows. Of that fraction, the agency approved 94%, or 2,652, applications for technology exports to China. The figures omit applications "returned without action," meaning their outcomes were uncertain. The result: The U.S. continues to send to China an array of semiconductors, aerospace components, artificial-intelligence technology and other items that could be used to advance Beijing's military interests.

The Commerce Department says it is focused on long-term, strategic competition with China and that it makes export-control decisions with its interagency partners in the Defense, State and Energy Departments. Critics say Commerce officials are improperly giving priority to U.S. commercial interests over national security and that an urgent regulatory revamp is necessary to respond to the threat from Beijing. For Steve Coonen, the Pentagon's former top China export-controls analyst, the high rate of approvals for licenses to sell tech with potential military use is evidence of significant policy failure.

Alphabet's "urban innovation" arm Sidewalk Labs planned to build a model "smart city" along a 12-acre patch of Toronto waterfront known as Quayside.

But they abandoned the project in 2020, points out MIT's Technology Review, "at the tail end of years of public controversy over its $900 million vision for a data-rich city within the city."

Sidewalk's big idea was flashy new tech. This unassuming section of Toronto was going to become a hub for an optimized urban experience featuring robo-taxis, heated sidewalks, autonomous garbage collection, and an extensive digital layer to monitor everything from street crossings to park bench usage. Had it succeeded, Quayside could have been a proof of concept, establishing a new development model for cities everywhere. It could have demonstrated that the sensor-Âladen smart city model embraced in China and the Persian Gulf has a place in more democratic societies. Instead, Sidewalk Labs' two-and-a-half-year struggle to build a neighborhood "from the internet up" failed to make the case for why anyone might want to live in it....

The project's tech-first approach antagonized many; its seeming lack of seriousness about the privacy concerns of Torontonians was likely the main cause of its demise. There is far less tolerance in Canada than in the U.S. for private-sector control of public streets and transportation, or for companies' collecting data on the routine activities of people living their lives. "In the U.S. it's life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," says Alex Ryan, a senior vice president of partnership solutions for the MaRS Discovery District, a Toronto nonprofit founded by a consortium of public and private funders and billed as North America's largest urban innovation hub. "In Canada it's peace, order, and good government. Canadians don't expect the private sector to come in and save us from government, because we have high trust in government."

With its very top-down approach, Sidewalk failed to comprehend Toronto's civic culture. Almost every person I spoke with about the project used the word "hubris" or "arrogance" to describe the company's attitude. Some people used both.
In February Toronto announced new plans for the area, the article points out, with "800 affordable apartments, a two-acre forest, a rooftop farm, a new arts venue focused on indigenous culture, and a pledge to be zero-carbon.... Indeed, the philosophical shift signaled by the new plan, with its emphasis on wind and rain and birds and bees rather than data and more data, seems like a pragmatic response to the demands of the present moment and the near future."

The article calls it "a conspicuous disavowal not only of the 2017 proposal but of the smart city concept itself."

LinkedIn has laid off all the employees on the professional social network's global events marketing team amid continued economic uncertainty and layoffs at parent company Microsoft earlier this week. From a report: While a LinkedIn spokesperson did not disclose the exact number of employees affected, they confirmed the entire team was laid off. Affected employees are being encouraged to apply for roles on a new internal team focused on creating virtual, hybrid, and in-person experiences. "The events space has changed so much, and broadly speaking, this new team will focus on creating experiences across virtual, hybrid, and in-person to bring people together," the LinkedIn spokesperson told Insider. Chuck Jones, a senior event marketing manager on LinkedIn's global event marketing team, posted about the layoffs on LinkedIn on Wednesday.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Technology to build cleaner, more efficient air conditioners does exist. Two major AC manufacturers, Daikin and Gree Electric Appliances, shared the top award at last year's Global Cooling Prize, an international competition focused on designing climate-friendly AC tech. Both companies created ACs with higher internal performance that used less environmentally damaging refrigerants; the new units could reduce their impact on the climate by five times. [...] Another strategy is to double down on heat pumps, which are air conditioners that also work in reverse, using vapor compression to absorb and move heat into a home, instead of releasing it outside. Heat pumps usually cost several thousand dollars, though the Inflation Reduction Act includes a proposal for a significant heat pump rebate, and President Joe Biden has invoked the Defense Production Act to ramp up production.

Experts have argued installing heat pumps is critical to another important climate goal: transitioning away from fossil fuel-powered furnaces, which are an even bigger source of emissions than cooling. The holy grail of HVAC would be a heat pump that could provide both heating and cooling but isn't dependent on vapor compression. [...] Another challenge, though, is that heat pumps are not the easiest appliance to install, especially for renters, who don't necessarily have the money or ability to invest in bulky HVAC systems. To address this problem, a company called Gradient has designed a heat pump that easily slides over a windowsill -- it doesn't block light -- and currently uses a refrigerant called R32, which is supposed to have a (comparatively) low global warming potential. Gradient recently won a contract to install its units in New York City public housing.

In a lengthy document submitted to the Brazilian government as part of its investigation into Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft has claimed Sony pays developers "blocking rights" to prevent games from appearing on Xbox Game Pass. From a report: The accusation appears in a 27-page rebuttal of Sony's recent objections to Microsoft's Activision Blizzard buyout, made to Brazil's Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) as part of its investigation. Much of Sony's argument had focused on Call of Duty - which it claimed had "no rival" and was "so popular that it influences users' choice of console" -- with the PlayStation maker suggesting, among other things, that the inclusion of Call of Duty on Microsoft's Game Pass service would hamper its ability to compete.

Microsoft's response is as wide-ranging as Sony's initial objections, touching on everything from the fact it has previously managed to grow Game Pass without Activision Blizzard's titles -- suggesting Call of Duty mightn't be quite as "essential" as Sony claims -- to a reiteration of its assurances that it won't be making Call of Duty an Xbox console exclusive. It's here that Microsoft takes a swipe at Sony, pointing out (as per a Google-translated version of its filing) that for all its concerns around exclusivity, "the use of exclusive arrangements has been at the heart of Sony's strategy to strengthen its presence in the gaming industry." Microsoft says Sony's concerns are "incoherent", given that, by virtue of PlayStation's dominant market share, the company is a leader in the distribution of digital games - especially when, as Microsoft claims, Sony has actively hampered the growth of Game Pass by paying for "'blocking rights' to prevent developers from adding content to Game Pass and other competing subscription services." Further reading: Microsoft Justifies Activision Blizzard's $69 Billion Acquisition By Telling Regulator Call of Duty Publisher Doesn't Release 'Unique' Games.

As first reported by Music Ally, Spotify is testing a new website to sell tickets directly to fans, "rather than just linking to external ticketing firms." From the report: For now, this is strictly a test rather than a full commercial launch. It kicks off [August 10] with a small number of artists, with pre-sale tickets available to fans through Spotify's app and a newly-launched tickets.spotify.com website. The test is happening in the US, with Annie DiRusso, Tokimonsta, Osees, Dirty Honey, Limbeck, Crows and Four Years Strong the first artists confirmed for the initiative. The tickets will come from those artists' pre-sale allocations for upcoming concerts.

Don't get carried away with any 'Spotify takes on Ticketmaster' hyperbole just yet. The company is making it very clear that this is just a test for now, and that it's focused on pre-sales rather than primary ticketing. [...] The theory behind the test kicking off this week is to find out whether Spotify can both widen its involvement in pre-sales while selling the tickets directly. We would expect that to include a share of the revenues, although Spotify declined to give any details of the business model. There's another obvious motivation behind the test. Pre-sales of their own allocations can be an important income stream for artists, so if Spotify can help them do it, that could be a reputation-booster at a time of renewed debate (alright: big arguments) about musicians' streaming royalties.

If Spotify can also become one of the ways artists ensure their tickets go to genuine fans rather than touts -- resales are not allowed in the test -- that could also be positive. And in this case, Spotify has the data to prove whether ticket buyers are genuine fans: their listening history. Important caveat: there's no suggestion at this point that Spotify will use this data as a barrier to purchase, in a 'you can't buy this artist's pre-sale ticket because you haven't streamed them enough' way. We're imagining something else: options for artists to promote their native-Spotify pre-sales to their biggest listeners in the cities / regions where the concerts are happening.

Microsoft is reportedly laying off its team focused on winning back consumers. From a report: In 2018 the software giant originally detailed its efforts to win back the non-enterprise customers it let down, forming a Modern Life Experiences team to focus on professional consumers (prosumers). Business Insider now reports that Microsoft is laying off that team, and telling the roughly 200 affected employees to find another position at the company or take severance pay. While Microsoft isn't officially commenting on the end of its Modern Life initiative, a Microsoft senior designer revealed there was "hard news" for the Modern Life Experiences team this week in a LinkedIn post. The news comes weeks after Microsoft cut less than 1 percent of its 180,000-person workforce, with job cuts in consulting, and customer and partner solutions. Microsoft has also been cutting open job roles as it slows hiring amid a weakening economy.

Polio is back, monkeypox isn't slowing down, COVID-19 is still around -- and now there's more not-so-good news on the infection front: over 200 human diseases could get worse because of climate change, according to a new study. From a report: Researchers have known for a long time that the changing climate affects disease. Warmer temperatures can make regions newly hospitable to disease-carrying mosquitoes, while floods from more frequent storms can carry bacteria in their surges of water. Most research, though, only focused on a handful of threats or one disease at a time. The new study, published in Nature Climate Change, built a comprehensive map of all of the ways various climate hazards could interact with 375 documented human infectious diseases. The authors reviewed over 77,000 scientific articles about those diseases and climate hazards. They found that, of those 375 diseases, 218 could be aggravated by things like heatwaves, rising sea levels, and wildfires.

The study found four main ways climate change exacerbates diseases. First, problems happen when changes cause disease-carrying animals to move closer to people. For example, animal habitats are disrupted by things like wildfires that drive bats and rodents into new areas, increasing the likelihood they'll transmit diseases like Ebola to people. Other research shows that climate change makes viruses more likely to jump from animals to people, as happened with the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. That phenomenon also likely contributed to the 2016 Zika outbreaks.

JavaScript, the world's most popular programming language according to most surveys, has become a barrier to progress, according to Douglas Crockford, creator of the JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) specification used everywhere for serializing data in web applications.

Crockford made this assertion in an interview last month:

"The best thing we can do today to JavaScript is to retire it. Twenty years ago, I was one of the few advocates for JavaScript. Its cobbling together of nested functions and dynamic objects was brilliant. I spent a decade trying to correct its flaws. I had a minor success with ES5. But since then, there has been strong interest in further bloating the language instead of making it better. So JavaScript, like the other dinosaur languages, has become a barrier to progress. We should be focused on the next language, which should look more like E than like JavaScript."

According to a StackOverflow survey earlier this year, JavaScript is used by over 65% of developers, way ahead of second placed Python at 48 percent (ignoring HTML, CSS and SQL which are not general purpose languages).
Crockford also acknowledged there's be two difficulties in replacing browser-based JavaScript, according to the article. "First, we don't have the next language yet. It needs to be a minimal capability-based actor language that is designed specifically for secure distributed programming. Nothing less should be considered.

"Second, we need all of the browser makers to adopt it and to simultaneously replace the DOM with a well designed interface. Good luck with that."

Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 quotes TechXplore: A widely discussed application of social robots that has so far been rarely tested in real-world settings is their use as bartenders in cafes, cocktail bars and restaurants. While many roboticists have been trying to develop systems that can effectively prepare drinks and serve them, so far very few have focused on artificially reproducing the social aspect of bartending.

Researchers at University of Naples Federico II in Italy have recently developed a new interactive robotic system called BRILLO, which is specifically designed for bartending. In a recent paper published in UMAP '22 Adjunct: Adjunct Proceedings of the 30th ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, they introduced a new approach that could allow their robot to have personalized interactions with regular customers.

"The bartending scenario is an extremely challenging one to tackle using robots, yet it is also very interesting from a research point of view," Prof. Silvia Rossi, one of the researchers who carried out the study and the scientific coordinator of the project, told TechXplore. "In fact, this scenario combines the complexity of efficiently manipulating objects to make drinks with the need to interact with the users. Interestingly, however, all current applications of robotics for bartending scenarios ignore the interaction part entirely...."

The innovative system created by this team of researchers allows their robot to process what a human user is telling them and their non-verbal cues, to determine what mood they are in, how attentive they are and what types of drinks they prefer. This information is stored by the robot and used to guide its future interactions with returning customers, so that they also consider their personalities and personal stories, along with their drinking preferences.

Purism posted an announcement Thursday about their privacy-focused "Librem 5 USA" smartphones. "New orders placed today will ship within our standard 10-business-day window." The Librem 5 USA now joins the Librem Mini and Librem 14 as a post-Just In Time product, one where instead of relying on Just In Time supply chains to manufacture a product just as we need it, we have invested in maintaining much larger inventories so that we can better absorb future supply chain issues that may come our way.

For anyone who is new to the product, the Librem 5 USA is our premium phone that shares the same hardware design and features as our mass-produced Librem 5, but with electronics we make in the USA using a separate electronics supply chain that sources from US suppliers whenever possible. This results in a tighter, more secure supply chain for the Librem 5 USA.

The Librem 5 USA uses the same PureOS as our other computers and so it runs the same desktop Linux applications you might be used to, just on a small screen.

PureOS on the Librem 5 USA demonstrates real convergence, where the device becomes more than just a phone, it becomes a full-featured pocket-sized computer that can act like a desktop when connected to a monitor, keyboard and mouse, or even a laptop (or tablet!) when connected to a laptop docking station. All of your files and all of your software remains the same and follows you where you go. Applications just morph from the smaller screen to the larger screen when docked, just like connecting a external monitor to a laptop.

Everyone who has backed the Librem 5 and Librem 5 USA projects hasn't just supported the production of the hardware itself, they have also supported a massive, multi-year software development effort to bring the traditional Linux desktop to a phone form-factor. Projects such as Phosh (the GUI), Phoc (the Compositor), Squeekboard (the Keyboard), Calls (for calling), Chats (for texting and messaging), and libhandy/libadwaita (libraries to make GTK applications adaptive) all required massive investment and many of these projects have already been moved to the GNOME infrastructure to better share our effort with a larger community.

We are delighted to see that many other mobile projects have recognized the quality of our efforts and adopted our software into their own projects....

The Librem 5 USA was designed for longevity and because we support right to repair, we also offer a number of spare parts in our shop, including replacement modems so you can make sure you support all the cellular bands in a particular continent, replacement batteries for when you ultimately wear out your existing battery, and plenty of other spare parts that haven't had sufficient demand to post formally on our shop (yet). If you need a spare part that isn't yet on the shop, just ask.

After a revelation in May that DuckDuckGo's (DDG) privacy-focused web browser allows Microsoft tracking scripts on third-party websites, the company now says it will start blocking those too. From a report: DuckDuckGo's browser had third-party tracker loading protection by default that already blocked scripts embedded on websites from Facebook, Google, and others, but until now Microsoft's scripts from the Bing and LinkedIn domains (but not its third-party cookies) had a pass.

A security researcher named Zach Edwards pointed out the exclusion that he apparently uncovered while auditing the browser's privacy claims, and noted it is especially curious because Microsoft is the partner that delivers ads in DDG's search engine (while promising not to use that data to create a monitored profile of users to target ads, instead relying on context to decide which ones it should show). DuckDuckGo CEO Gabe Weinberg said at the time that the reason for it was a search syndication agreement with Microsoft, and that more updates on third-party tracker preventions were coming. A backlash ensued, with some seizing on DuckDuckGo's own words that "tracking is tracking," a phrase the company used against Google's cookie-replacing "privacy sandbox" ad technology. Now Weinberg writes in a blog post, "I've heard from a number of users and understand that we didn't meet their expectations around one of our browser's web tracking protections." DuckDuckGo is vowing to be more transparent about what trackers its browser and extensions are protecting users from, making its tracker blocklists available and offering users more information on how its tracking protections with a new help page.

SoundCloud CEO Michael Weissman told employees in an email that the company "will be making reductions to our global team that will impact up to 20% of our company."

"Making changes that affect people is incredibly hard. But it is one that is necessary given the challenging economic climate and financial market headwinds," he added. "Today's change positions SoundCloud for the long run and puts us on a path to sustained profitability. We have already begun to make prudent financial decisions across the company and that now extends to a reduction to our team." Billboard reports: In a statement, a rep for SoundCloud confirmed that the company "announced an approximate 20% reduction of its global workforce due to a significant company transformation and the challenging economic and financial environment." "During this difficult time," the rep added, "we are focused on providing the support and resources to those transitioning while reinforcing our commitment to executing our mission to lead what's next in music." Back in 2017, the company cut around 40% of its workforce, which then-CEO Alex Ljung said was necessary for the company to "control" its "independent future."

Billboard notes that SoundCloud has moved towards profitability in the five years since. "The company obtained a $170 million infusion led by The Raine Group and Temasek and a $75 million investment from Pandora parent SiriusXM." This led to SoundCloud announcing its first profitable quarter in 2020. Earlier this year, the company said its annual revenue run rate was around $300 million.

Warner Bros announced that HBO Max and Discovery+ will launch in the U.S. as a single service in the summer of 2023. Variety reports: "At the end of the day, putting all the content together was the only way we saw to make this a viable business," [said JB Perrette, CEO and president of global streaming and interactive for Warner Bros. Discovery, on the company's Q2 earnings call]. Bringing HBO Max and Discovery+ together is aimed at cutting churn so "there's something for everyone in the household," he said. WBD did not announce what the new brand name for the merged service will be, nor did execs discuss pricing for the unified streamer. Warner Bros. Discovery is initially focused on the ad-supported and ad-free versions of the combined HBO Max-Discovery+, Perrette said, but is also "exploring how to reach customers in the free, ad-supported space" with content that is totally different from what's on the premium VOD services.

HBO may or may not be part of the name of the unified direct-to-consumer WBD platform; Perrette said the company is doing research on consumer perception of the HBO Max name. But, HBO will continue to be a major brand: "HBO will always be the beacon and the ultimate brand that stands for television quality," he said on the call. The merged HBO Max-Discovery+ will combine the best elements of both services, said Perrette. He said HBO Max has had "performance and customer" issues but offers a rich set of features; Discovery+ has more limited features but provides a more robust underlying delivery capability. The media company plans to take the unified HBO Max-Discovery+ platform to Latin America following the summer 2023 rollout in the United States, adds Variety. Europe will see it in early 2024; Asia Pacific in mid-2024; and additional markets in fall 2024.

White House adviser Tim Wu, who worked to shape the Biden administration's agenda to increase economic competition, is set to leave his position in the coming months, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the move. From a report: Wu is expected to return to antitrust law at Columbia Law School after serving as special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy since March 2021. He was the key architect behind President Joe Biden's executive order to bolster competition last year, which included 72 initiatives by more than a dozen federal agencies. The administration focused on improving competition within industries including technology, health care and agriculture.