Business, Financial & Legal - Page 33

Best Buy will exit the physical media business and no longer sell DVDs and Blu-ray discs, sources tell The Digital Bits.

Retailer Best Buy plans to phase out its struggling physical media segment in a bid to reduce inventory costs and offset low sales. The company is expected to stop selling movies and TV shows across DVD, Blu-ray, and UHD 4K discs in early 2024 (corresponding to Best Buy's FY25 period), responding to a shift in consumer behavior. Physical video games are not expected to be included in Best Buy's decision.

The move comes at a time when consumers are buying less disc-based physical media, and any trip to a local Best Buy speaks volumes about the retailer's current focus. What comes as a surprise, however, is that Best Buy will no longer sell DVDs, Blu-rays, or UHD BDs on its online storefront either. The company apparently plans to remove all physical media from its inventory both in-store and online.

A new report from The Wall Street Journal has revealed that Meta is currently planning on rolling out a new subscription plan that will remove ads from both Facebook and Instagram.

The article states that Meta is planning on rolling out the new plan to EU users within the coming months, where it will offer an ad-free experience on Facebook or Instagram for $14 per month on mobile, or both social media platforms for $17 a month on desktop. The new subscription plan comes after a court ruling that enforces Meta to gain consent from users to access personal data that will then be used for targeted advertising.

Users who are unwilling to pay the monthly fee will automatically give consent to targeted advertising. Meta has until November to comply with the recently updated regulations, with regulators even recommending other social media companies to look into subscription models for userbases. It's likely that not many users will choose to opt into Meta's new subscription plan, given its price. The most basic plan is only a little bit cheaper than Netflix's standard plan.

In an exclusive excerpt from Walter Isaacson's biography titled "Elon Musk", where he shadowed the world's richest man for two years, we get a glimpse of what it's like when Musk ticks over to what is described as "demon-mode".

The excerpt was obtained by Space.com and recounts the events leading up up to Starship being stacked on SpaceX's launch pad. According to the biography Musk enters "demon-mode" in a major way only two to three times a year, and during this period of time the CEO becomes hyper-focussed on reaching a specific goal, resulting in strenuous working hours, extreme pressure on staff, outbursts, and more. Isaacson writes that Musk did this at the Nevada battary factory, Fremont car plant, and at Twitter.

The goal behind this particular "demon-mode" was to receive approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for Starship to fly, and Musk believed stacking Starship on the launch pad would cause enough public stir to light a fire under regulators, engineers at SpaceX, and himself - "We need to get to Mars before I die," he said. "There's no forcing function for getting us to Mars other than us, and sometimes that means me."

The Elon Musk-appointed CEO of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has said the company is expected to become profitable early next year.

Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X, announced on stage at the Code Conference that X will be profitable by "early 2024," which will be an incredible achievement when taking into account that Twitter wasn't profitable for the first 13 years of its existence, and Musk only gained control of the company less than a year ago. This statement from Yaccarino is in line with what the X CEO has previously stated about the inner workings of the social media platform, as she stated in July that X was "pretty close to breakeven".

These massive drops in revenue for X came after Musk took over the platform, spooking many advertisers and causing them to stop ad expenditure on the platform. The concerns from advertisers were a result of Musk's overhaul of the content moderation system on then-Twitter and the platform's general approach toward what content can and cannot be on the platform.

More than 5 million people are paying for Snapchat's premium subscription service, indicating a growing number of Snapchat+ subscribers.

A new report from TechCrunch that cites Snapchat's announcement reveals that the popular app has signed on more than 5 million users to its premium subscription service designed for power users. The total number of users on Snapchat+ has steadily grown from 3 million users in mid-April to 4 million users in late June and now 5 million in September.

For those that don't know, Snapchat+ offers a range of features such as custom app themes, unique app icons, options to pin best friends, and tools to improve Stories and the ability to see who rewatched them. There are other features that may have attracted a new swath of users, such as Snapchat's AI chatbot Dreams. However, it's likely many new Snapchat+ subscribers came from Version's subscriptions store +Play.

A document has gone viral showcasing a move by the UK government to censor Russel Brand following numerous allegations.

The actor, comedian, and pollical commentator was accused of rape, sexual assault, and emotional abuse between the years of 2006 and 2013. These allegations are yet to be proven, and Brand has denied their validity in a video posted to his social media platforms. Now, a document has surfaced on X that reveals the British Government is attempting to get Brand's social media platforms censored, which has been viewed by many as a way of manipulating the court of public opinion.

The document requests TikTok provide the UK government with information relating to Brand's monetization of content that has to do with the allegations. With the letter requesting, "We would be grateful if you could confirm whether Mr. Brand is able to monetize his TikTok posts, including his videos relating to the serious accusations against him, and what the platform is doing to ensure that creators are not able to use the platform to undermine the welfare of victims of inappropriate and potentially illegal behavior."

Leaked documents between a Microsoft head and a senior Nintendo employee have revealed Microsoft's intention to purchase Nintendo.

Emails between Phil Spencer, the Head of Xbox, Takeshi Numoto, Executive Vice President & Commercial Chief Marketing Officer at Microsoft, and Chris Capossela, EVP & Chief Marketing Officer at Microsoft, revealed a discussion about purchasing Nintendo, describing the company as the "THE prime asset for us in gaming". The email chains were leaked by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as a result of the Activision Blizzard acquisition by Microsoft.

Not only were emails leaked, but internal documents revealed plans for future Xbox consoles, along with unannounced games and more secret details. The idea for Microsoft to merge with Nintendo is clearly well thought out, as Spencer outlines that the company's Board of Directors has seen a "full writeup" of the possible merger, and that Microsoft's board is "fully supportive" if the opportunity presents itself.

Elon Musk's brain chip company Neuralink is officially looking for its first human participants in an upcoming study, the first of its kind for the company.

The search for study participants follows an independent review board evaluation that granted the company approval to test its product on humans over the course of a six-year study. For those that don't know, Musk's brain-chip company is one of the handful of companies attempting to create a viable brain-computer interface (BCI), essentially a device that is the bridge between the human brain and computers. Musk has said previously that Neuralink will be able to solve medical afflictions in the body, while also connecting humans with artificial intelligence.

It was only last year that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) denied Neuralink's request to fast-track human trials. However, the regulator granted Neuralink an investigation device exemption (IDE), which enables the company to use a device for clinical studies, hence the call for human participants. As for who Neuralink is looking for, Elon Musk's brain-chip company is after patients with quadriplegia caused by a vertical spinal cord injury or ALS.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is cracking down on the owners of the world's largest search engine by accusing the company of using agreements with big tech companies as a way of cornering the market.

A new report from the AP has dived into the relationship between the Department of Justice and Google regarding the company's agreements with tech giants such as Apple, Samsung, and Mozilla Firefox to make Google the default search engine across a large range of devices. The DOJ lawyers argue that these agreements were viewed by Google as "powerful tools" that kept the search engine market away from any competitors.

As you can probably already imagine, Google's lawyers denied any illegal use of its agreements, saying the company didn't use the agreements as a way to dominate the market, and that Google's market share is a result of the company creating superior products compared to its competitors. The DOJ lawyers accuse the goliath platform of using anticompetitive methods to prevent any potential competition from challenging Google's position.

An upcoming biography about Elon Musk has shed some light on the relationship between the Tesla CEO and Bill Gates.

The excerpt from the biography titled "Elon Musk" comes from Walter Isaacson, who shadowed Musk for three years. The passage that highlights the relationship dates back to early 2022 when Gates was discussing philanthropy with Musk, pushing the Tesla CEO to donate to curing AIDS, mosquito eradication, and climate change-reducing projects. However, Musk discovered that Gates had a $500 million short against Tesla, which, for those that don't know trading terminology, means Gates has a $500 million bet that Tesla's share price will go down.

Isaacson asked Gates about the disagreement between the two billionaires, which is mostly tied to Musk saying to Gates, "Sorry. I cannot take your philanthropy on climate seriously when you have a massive short position against Tesla, the company doing the most to solve climate change." Gates told Isaacson, "Once he heard I'd shorted the stock, he was super mean to me, but he's super mean to so many people, so you can't take it too personally." Adding, "I apologized to him."

eBay is attempting to integrate artificial intelligence into its platform, and the company is concentrating on marketplace sellers as its test subjects.

The iconic platform has announced that the new AI-powered tool will first be rolled out to iOS users and will become available to Android users within the coming weeks. So, what does it do? According to reports from Tech Crunch, the new AI tool gives marketplace sellers the ability to snap a single photo of the product and automatically generate a title and description based on that photo. Additionally, it will generate information such as a product release date, suggested category to place that product in, price, and shipping cost.

An eBay spokesperson told TechCrunch that the tool is called "photo-to-listing," and the underpinning AI model that's powering the tool is trained on past product data, which the spokesperson said eBay has a right to use since the platform's terms and conditions state it has a license to use listing data. The idea behind the new tool is to remove what eBay calls the "cold start" issue for first-time sellers, which is the overwhelming feeling generated by how much information needs to be inputted into a listing.

Mark Zuckerberg's summertime activities have certainly changed with his growing interest in mixed martial arts (MMA), and that can be seen in his consistent training that's posted on Meta's social media platforms.

It was in April 2021 when Mark Zuckerberg became the laughing stock of the internet when a photograph surfaced of him surfing with an extremely thick layer of sunscreen on. Those times are now behind the founder of Facebook, as he has adopted MMA training into his already rigorous schedule and has gained the respect of many prolific figures within the field.

An example of this is a recent video shared on Zuckerberg's personal Instagram account that shows him training with Nigerian and New Zealand MMA fighter Israel Adesanya and Australian MMA fighter Alexander Volkanovski. The location of the training was on a floating barge, and the Meta CEO can be seen grappling opponents, kicking, and even flipping into the water.

The Palo Alto Police Department won't be issuing a fine to Elon Musk for his illegal livestream while driving through Palo Alto on a Friday afternoon.

Elon Musk decided to test X's newly improved livestreaming capabilities on Friday afternoon last week, and over the course of the 45-minute livestream, the Tesla CEO revealed he was operating the vehicle while holding his phone. Elon Musk didn't lose control of the vehicle throughout the livestream but was at one stage forced to engage with his Full Self Driving system to stop it from running a red light.

However, these events weren't what caught the attention of many people, it was the fact that Musk was driving while holding his mobile phone, an illegal act under California law. The Verge contacted the Palo Alto Police Department regarding whether Musk will be issued a fine for the offense, and according to their response, Musk won't be fined because a police officer didn't see the act taking place. In the event that Musk was seen by a police officer, he would have been issued an infraction ticket like any other driver.

The controversy with Linus Tech Tips, one of the biggest tech YouTubers on the platform, continues as the official X account has recognized the recent allegations from a former employee.

On the same day that Linus Tech Tips posted an apology video addressing the recent exposure by Gamers Nexus for prioritizing video quantity over quality, which led to many critical review errors such as incorrect benchmark charts, lazy evaluations, poor objective testing standards, Madison Suop, a former Linus Tech Tips employee alleged she experienced sexual misconduct in the workplace, amongst other startling issues.

Suop took to her personal X account to outline her experience working at Linus Tech Tips, and according to the former employee, she was held to egregious working standards, consistently belittled by co-workers and upper management, verbally harassed, inappropriately grabbed, and asked about her sexual history, which all led to Suop suffering from mental health issues and eventually quitting her job.

Linus Tech Tips, one of the biggest tech YouTubers in the world, is battling ongoing controversy following the exposure of multiple inaccuracies in their videos and the blatant mishandling of a Billet Labs' Monoblock.

The controversy began when competing tech channel Gamers Nexus posted a 45-minute video exposing a collection of poor reporting by Linus Media Group, the parent company managing the multiple channels that fall under its umbrella. The examples brought forward by Gamers Nexus ranged from tragically incorrect benchmark results for GPUs, temperature testing for hardware, unfair review processes, and more. Gamers Nexus proposed that Linus is prioritizing quantity and the bottom line of his channels over quality videos.

An apology video was posted to the Linus Tech Tips YouTube channel addressing the allegations against the quality of their videos. On the same day the apology video was posted, former Linus Tech Tips employee Madison Suop took to her personal X account to outline her experience working at the company. Soup wrote that she quit her role at LTT over egregious working standards and a toxic work environment, which was ruining her mental health.

The highly anticipated cage fight between Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and X owner Elon Musk has taken a strange turn after Musk took to his personal X account to say he's rocking up at Zuckerberg's house.

The post from Musk comes after the X owner leaked text messages between him and Zuckerberg where the Meta CEO expressed doubts Musk wants to participate in a fight, especially considering Musk's recent medical problems that may require surgery. The messages between the two billionaires revealed Musk taunting Zuckerberg, as he called the Meta CEO a "modern day Bruce Lee".

Zuckerberg's text states that he doesn't want to keep hyping up an event that he doesn't believe will even take place, which was followed by, "so you should either decide you're going to do this and do it soon, or we should move on". Musk responded by saying he was going to be in Palo Alto on Monday and that the two social media owners should have a fight in Zuckerberg's octagon at his house.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has slapped a $500 million fine on big banks that used private messaging apps to communicate.

Wells Fargo, along with several other big banks, have been fined a total of $549 million over employees using private messaging apps such as iMessage, WhatsApp, and Signal. The SEC has cited a law that requires publicly traded companies to maintain auditable records of all business decisions and discussions. The Commodity Futures Trading COmmision (CFTC) also requires companies to keep an auditable record of trading decisions.

These rules were broken by big bank employees that reportedly conducted business-related discussions on the aforementioned apps. The employees used their personal phones for these discussions, which means there was no record of these discussions happening, or at least access to these conversations was only available through the personal accounts of these individuals.

The highly anticipated cage fight between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg has seemingly heated up once again, with both of the billionaires taking to their social media platforms to fire back at each other.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken to Threads to post a comment that calls out Musk for not being "serious" about the cage fight, citing his initial request for the fight to happen on August 26, UFC president Dana White offering to organize the event for charity, and Musk's lack of confirmation for the date, which was followed by an announcement that he may need surgery. Zuckerberg also said that Musk contacted him about having a practice round in Zuckerberg's octagon in his house.

Musk responded to a screenshot of Zuckerberg's Threads post by saying, "Zuck is a chicken". Musk then leaked the text messages between himself and Zuckerberg, where it can be seen that Zuckerberg wants the fight to happen soon, if it's going to happen at all, as he doesn't want to continue hyping up an event that he thinks will never happen. Musk responded by saying he would be in Palo Alto on Monday and, "Let's fight in your Octagon".

Elon Musk has given another update on the highly anticipated fight between him and Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.

The fight was first mentioned back in June when Musk challenged Zuckerberg to cage fight on what was called Twitter and is now called X. Zuckerberg accepted the fight, and since then, both billionaires have been going back and forth on their respective social media platforms.

After the fight was thrown into doubt by a comment by Zuckerberg and Musk's potential health problems that may result in surgery, the owner of X has said he's currently talking to the Italian culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano.

Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X has conducted her first interview and revealed some new features coming to the social media platform.

Yaccarino sat down with CNBC for her first interview after taking on the role as X's CEO, and according to Yaccarino, X users can expect to be able to call users without having to provide their personal phone numbers.

The confirmation from Yaccarino comes after a mysterious post by X designer Andrea Conway, who wrote on August 10, "Just called someone on X". Additionally, Yaccarino said that phone calls and video calls are coming to X are part of the company rebrand and the overall goal of turning the social media app into the "everything app."