Category: Technology

YouTube is rolling out updates today around toxic comments that violate community guidelines, TechCrunch has reported. Previously, it has used tools like popups to encourage “respectful” interactions, but it’s now taking a (slightly) more assertive approach with warnings and timeouts. 

If YouTube detects and removes abusive comments, it will notify the user that they’ve violated community guidelines. If the same person continues to post toxic comments, they’ll receive a “timeout” and be unable to leave further comments for 24 hours. If users believe their comments shouldn’t have been pulled, they can share that feedback — though YouTube didn’t say if that would help remove the timeout. 

Prior to the rollout today, YouTube trialed the featured and found it to be effective. “Our testing has shown that these warnings/timeouts reduce the likelihood of users leaving violative comments again,” it wrote in the blog post. 

YouTube famously has one of the more toxic comments sections in social media, and is also overrun with bots offering fake giveaways, crypto and more. To address that problem, YouTube said that it’s “improving our automated detection systems and machine learning models to identify and remove spam.” It noted that it removed over 1.1 billion spammy comments in the first half of 2022, and said its machine learning models are continuously improving as spammers change tactics. 

 

Chances are good you know someone who has subscription fatigue from the many digital services that have become essential in our lives. Or maybe you have a loved one getting a new game console or some other exciting new hardware. In either case, we’ve pulled together a number of digital gifts and subscriptions that range from the entertaining to the enlightening. We have a number of time-tested music, video and gaming services, along with ways to learn an instrument, a language or a new skill for work or enjoyment.

Disney Bundle

Disney’s $14/month video bundle that includes Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu is a great digital gift for basically anyone who likes good entertainment. The appeal of Disney+ is well-known at this point: it includes almost all of Disney and Pixar’s classic animated films, alongside basically everything in the Marvel cinematic universe, the entire Star Wars saga, and original shows like Andor, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, The Mandalorian and more.

Hulu offers a vast slate of current and classic TV shows, a solid rotating selection of feature films, and a growing roster of originals. Those include The Handmaid’s Tale, Dollface, Shrill and Little Fires Everywhere along with FX exclusives like Reservation Dogs, The Bear and American Horror Stories. ESPN+, meanwhile, offers a host of live sports, including MLB games every day of the season, a wide variety of soccer leagues, golf, tennis and college games across multiple sports. Add in ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary library, a smattering of originals and the Disney bundle ends up being a great option for almost anyone — and it’s only $6 more than Disney+ on its own.

Subscribe to the Disney Bundle

Yousician Premium

Whether you know someone just getting started in their musical journey, or someone who could use some inspiration to get playing again, Yousician can be a useful tool. It contains lessons for guitar, bass, piano, ukulele and vocals that can help players of all skill levels. If you’re just starting out, there are loads of beginner lessons that’ll get you familiar with the instrument.

And once your skills are improving, there are faithful renditions of popular songs across a wide variety of genres that you can learn – in my experience, the Yousician guitar transcriptions have been reliably accurate. Finally, Yousician is adding some artist-specific courses, like an in-depth dive into the music of Metallica – if there’s an aspiring Eddie Munson in your life, they’ll get a kick out of this.

Subscribe to Yousician

PlayStation Plus / Nintendo Switch Online / Xbox Game Pass

Video game consoles are a reliable holiday season gift, and a subscription to services like Nintendo Switch Online, PlayStation Plus or Xbox Game Pass can make a new system a lot more fun right out of the box.

A $15/month Xbox Game Pass subscription offers more than 100 games that can be played on the Xbox or PC, and they can be streamed to phones and tablets as well. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate also includes a number of other perks, including Xbox Live Gold. That’s usually $10 a month on its own, and it’s a requirement if you want to play games online. It also includes EA Play, which opens up access to more games for the Xbox and PC. Perhaps the best part of Xbox Game Pass, though, is that it offers access to first-party Xbox Game Studios titles the day they’re released.

Sony revamped PlayStation Plus this year, combining basics like online play, cloud storage for saves and two free monthly games with a large catalog of games that can be either streamed or downloaded to your console as long as your subscription is active. There are three different tiers, all with different perks, but the middle “Extra” option ($100 / year, with monthly options available as well) is probably best for most gamers. It includes around 400 PS4 and PS5 games you can either stream or install on your console. You’ll find high-profile titles like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Death Stranding and Ghost of Tsushima as well as newer games like Stray and Returnal. If you know someone who loves older games though, the “Premium” tier ($120 / year) adds a bunch of games from the PS1, PS2 and PS3 catalogs as well as perks like game trials.

Finally, Nintendo has two tiers of its Switch Online plan. The basic $20 / year plan unlocks online play, more than 100 NES and Super NES games and cloud backups of your saved games as well as the occasional special offers. The $50 “expansion pack” adds a collection of N64 and Sega Genesis games as well as some DLC for games like Mario Kart 8, Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Splatoon 2.

Apple One

If you know someone with multiple Apple devices, chances are good they’re already paying for a little bit of iCloud storage, and maybe a few other Apple services like Music or Arcade as well. If that’s the case, consider gifting them an Apple One subscription. In a single monthly charge, it offers a combo of Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade and either 50GB, 200GB, or 2TB of iCloud storage. If you spring for the $19.95 Family plan, that 200GB can be shared with five other family members. The $29.95 plan adds subscriptions to Apple News+ and Apple Fitness+ too. At this point, all of Apple’s offerings are pretty good – Arcade has a load of fun games with no ads, TV+ has a number of excellent shows at this point including, of course, Ted Lasso, and Music is second only to Spotify in the streaming world.

Subscribe to Apple One

Super Duolingo

Duolingo is probably one of the best examples out there of gamification. The app offers lessons for dozens of languages, starting from the very basics, and it teaches in a fun and rather addictive way. You can use the app for free, but the Super Duolingo upgrade removes ads and gives you unlimited “hearts” so that making a mistake won’t slow your progress. Individual plans start at $6.67 per month, but a $10 / month family plan lets you share the app with loved ones – if you have a vacation to a foreign land coming up, getting Duolingo and learning the local language with your family can be pretty delightful.

Subscribe to Duolingo

Headspace

If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that we all likely know someonewhose mental health could use a little bit of a boost. The Headspace app is a great option for adding some peace and quiet to the day. It features a wide variety of guided meditations, including sessions for beginners as well as specific exercises that focus on reducing anxiety, learning breathing techniques, increasing your compassion and so on. It also has sleep tools like soothing music and “sleepcasts,” while other audio programs center on focusing, moving more, and starting your day. For $13/month or $70/year, Headspace can be a great tool to bring someone much-needed peace of mind.

Subscribe to Headspace

Endel

Endel is a unique app in the focus and mental wellness space. In a nutshell, it plays algorithmically-generated soundscapes for a variety of different scenarios. Whether you’re on-the-go, want to get some work done, need to relax, or get some sleep, Endel will produce a soundtrack to help you achieve your goal.

If you give it permission to collect data from your phone (and Apple Watch, if you have one), it can adjust its soundscapes based on things like your heart rate, time of day, location, weather, and so on. Endel is also frequently adding scenarios — recently, the company added study and recovery, and it also has partnered with artists like James Blake, Empress Of, Toro y Moi and Washed Out. At $10 per month or $60 per year, it’s a solid relaxation tool, and I’ve also found it to be particularly useful as a soundtrack when you want to just sit down and focus on a craft, like writing or art.

Subscribe to Endel

Codecademy

If you know someone interested in making a jump into coding, or a coder looking to augment their existing knowledge, a subscription to Codecademy could be a big help. Codeacademy currently offers two different plans that start at $210 per year (or $35 per month); they open up a huge catalog of courses, including things like a career path for front-end engineering, learning JavaScript or Python, digging into development or data science and many other options. Along with these courses, Codecademy also connects you with a large community for support and feedback, gives you real-world projects to test your skills on and offers completion certificates. It’s a bit of an investment, but helping someone you care about invest in themselves is very much in the spirit of the holidays.

Subscribe to Codecademy

Skillshare Premium

In the same vein as Code Academy, Skillshare is a great option if you know someone who wants to jumpstart their abilities in a creative field. The service offers thousands of classes in topics like animation, creative writing, graphic design, photography, web development and music, as well as courses to improve skills like leadership and management, marketing or business analytics. A $165 annual subscription unlocks ad-free classes with unlimited access to everything Skillshare has to offer. The subscription also includes Skillshare’s community and offline courses for your phone or tablet. Finally, a subscription includes some perks of its own, like 20 percent off Squarespace and 15 percent off Adobe Creative Cloud.

Subscribe to Skillshare

Adobe Photography plan

For the budding photographer in your life, Adobe’s photography plans are a natural fit. Adobe has been in this game for years, and Lightroom remains an excellent tool for managing and editing photos anywhere you are.

The company offers a few different plans: For $10/month, you can get Lightroom and a whopping 1TB of storage. If the person you’re gifting this to has been really good, you can spend $20 and get them both Photoshop and Lightroom alongside 1TB of storage, which is ideal for anyone shooting photos in RAW. The plans with Photoshop also include Photoshop for the iPad, so keep that in mind if you’re getting this for someone who loves Apple’s tablet.

Subscribe to Adobe’s Photography plan

HBO Max

HBO Max might not have the best app we’ve ever used, but it does have one of the biggest and best video libraries you can find. Its collection of original shows and films is still unrivaled in a lot of ways, from classics like The Wire and The Sopranos to newer hits like House of the Dragon, Station Eleven and Euphoria. The service also has a huge movie library covering all decades and genres. And if you’re a DC fan, HBO Max has all of the classic Batman movies (including this year’s The Batman along with the Dark Knight Trilogy and Michael Keaton’s two films) as well as more recent films like Aquaman, Wonder Woman and, of course, the infamous Synder Cut of Justice League. Oh yeah, it has Friends, too.

Subscribe to HBO Max

Audible

For years, Audible has been the go-to service for audiobook fans, with good reason. It has a vast Amazon-backed catalog of basically any type of book you might want to listen to. Fifteen dollars a month unlocks one “credit” that can be used to add a “premium” book to a permanent collection; Amazon Prime members get two credits a month. Along with that is a selection of podcasts and audiobooks plus some Audible originals. But the book credits are the real draw here — for $15, you add an audiobook to your library every month.

Subscribe to Audible

Crunchyroll Premium

If you know someone who loves anime – or someone you think would love anime who hasn’t gotten into it yet – Crunchyroll is the gold standard for getting your fix. It offers more than 1,000 shows as well as digital manga, merch and much more. Some of the content is available for free, but one of the three different subscriptions offers a lot more. A premium plan removes ads, unlocks access to the entire Crunchyroll library, provides access to new episodes just one hour after they air in Japan and opens up the manga collection.

The basic $8 / month tier lets you stream on one device only, but the $10 and $15 plans let you stream on four or six devices simultaneously, and they both also offer offline access, which can be crucial for watching when you’re away from WiFi.

Subscribe to Crunchyroll

Twitch Turbo

Whether you know someone who loves to stream their gaming adventures on Twitch, or they just love to watch other people play, Twitch Turbo makes the whole experience better. A $9 / month subscription removes basically all advertising from Twitch, whether it’s pre-roll ads, ones that pop in the middle of a stream or display ads. That’ll make a Twitch binge much more enjoyable. And for those who do stream, Turbo automatically saves all of your broadcasts for 60 days instead of the standard seven, which means you have way more time to dig through your streams for highlights.

Subscribe to Twitch Turbo

YouTube Premium

There’s something for everyone on YouTube — and there are also enough ads to make watching it pretty painful. Shrewdly, YouTube offers a solution. A $12/month subscription removes all advertising, but there are a number of other benefits as well. If you’re watching on a phone or tablet, you can download basically any video and save it for offline playback. Videos also can play in the background, which means you can switch to other apps without stopping. This comes in handy for picture-in-picture, or if you just want to hear the audio while you switch away to send a text message.

Premium also comes with a subscription to YouTube Music, the company’s competitor to Spotify and Apple Music. It’s a pretty solid service, and it does a few things that Apple and Spotify can’t offer. For example, all of YouTube’s music video content lives alongside its standard streaming catalog, which means users can build playlists that combine videos uploaded to YouTube alongside official artist releases. For $12, the combination of a better YouTube experience and a full-fledged music streaming app is a pretty good deal.

Subscribe to YouTube Premium

Stack magazine subscription

Most of the recommendations on this list are for purely digital items, but there’s something to be said for a tangible item, like a magazine. Instead of a standard subscription to one magazine, though, Stack digs through the vast world of indie magazines to find one unique issue to deliver every month. It’s a great choice for anyone who likes to be surprised by something thoughtful in the mail or people who like to enjoy writing they might not otherwise come across. Stack offers monthly, quarterly and annual plans that start at about $15 / month, depending on how long of a commitment you make.

Get Stack magazine subscription

 

Fans of several Spotify live audio shows will soon have to say goodbye to their favorite programs. According to Bloomberg, the music and audio streaming service is ending the production of shows such as Doughboys: Snack Pack, Deux Me After Dark, which describes itself as the “place for the latest tea on your favorite celebrities,” The Movie Buff with comedian Jon Gabrus, and A Gay in the Life, which provides a safe space for conversations about the LGBTQ+ experience. The aforementioned shows have either already ended or have announced that they’re going off the air soon. 

A company spokesperson has confirmed the cancellations to Bloomberg. The news organization also heard from sources that Spotify ended some of the programs before their creators’ contracts were up but that the service will still pay them the entire amount it promised. 

Several companies, including Spotify, saw live audio programming a new area for growth during the height of the pandemic when Clubhouse blew up in popularity. In Spotify’s case, it gave Locker Room, the audio-based social network for sports fans that it acquired in March 2021, an overhaul and renamed it Greenroom. It launched a dedicated Greenroom app last year before rebranding it again as Spotify Live in April and integrating live audio inside of its main app. While cancelling multiple shows indicate that the company is stepping back from live audio, it’s not killing the format completely. Bloomberg says The Fantasy Footballers and The Ringer MMA Show will continue as usual.

 

TikToksaid last year that it reached one billion monthly active users worldwide, so whatever it’s doing is clearly working. That hasn’t stopped the ByteDance-owned company from testing and introducing new features, though, including those that put it in direct competition with YouTube. Case in point, its latest experiment that gives select users worldwide access to a horizontal full screen mode for videos they watch on their phones. 

The company has confirmed to TechCrunch that users chosen to be part of this test will see a button on square or rectangle videos in their feed. If they tap on that button, the video will expand horizontally to take up the whole screen. TikToks are famous for being short vertical videos, and creators still have to put a “turn your phone” message at the beginning of theirs if they filmed in landscape mode. If the company does launch this feature, they wouldn’t have to do that anymore, and other creators might be more inclined to film landscape videos. Of course, a wide release depends on testers’ response to the feature, among other factors. 

This is but the latest move the company has made in an effort to capture audiences who might like YouTube’s format better. Earlier this year, for instance, TikTok extended its maximum video length from three minutes to ten minutes. That said, it’s not exactly lagging behind the Google-owned video platform: According to a previous TechCrunch report, kids and teens have been spending more time on TikTok than YouTube since the middle of 2020. 

 

Just ahead of the holidays, Nintendo and Sony have unveiled their 2022 year in review tools for PlayStation and Switch, letting you see stats, a summary of your favorite games and more. As in previous years, you’ll not only be able to see a resume of your year in gaming, but share highlights with friends and see how you compare with other players around the world. 

On PlayStation, you’ll see trophy totals, the number of games played, total hours across PS4 and PS5 games and the number of PlayStation Plus games downloaded if you’re a member. You’ll also see stats achieved collectively by the global PlayStation community, like total miles driven in Gran Turismo 7 and the number of axes thrown in God of War Ragnarok. At the end of the experience, you’ll receive a summary card (below) that can be shared with other players. 

Nintendo has a similar tool for the Switch, with a report showing which games you played the most and for how long. You can also see which titles you were playing on a month by month basis, and share images of the report on social media. You’ll also see an overall year in review showing which games were played most and for how long in 2022. 

To access the stats, you’ll need to visit Nintendo and Sony‘s dedicated sites, then log into your account. If you’re like us, though, you may have spent inordinate amounts of time on Elden Ring, God of War Ragnarok, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

 

According to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, Apple’s software and services teams are redesigning the platform to “open up key elements.” That could lead to the company giving iPhone and iPad users the option to download third-party apps without going through the App Store. Developers could then avoid the company’s infamous 30- and 15-percent commission on payments.

This could be to prepare for the European Union’s Digital Markets and Services Act. The act calls for interoperability between messaging platforms and equal access for outside developers to core operating system features, as well as allowing for sideloading – the ability to install on a device outside official app stores. Apple maintains this will be a security and privacy risk. US lawmakers are considering similar legislation to the Digital Markets Act, but their version, the Open App Markets Act, has yet to pass.

Messaging, too, could be an uphill struggle. RCS integration in iMessage is currently not on the table. Google has pushed the messaging protocol for years, going so far as to criticize Apple for not adopting it. Apple’s responses in the past have even included telling a reporter to buy their mom an iPhone.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

The biggest stories you might have missed

‘Hogwarts Legacy’ delayed for Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Xbox One

‘Westworld’ and ‘The Nevers’ will soon be pulled from HBO Max

Apple releases iOS 16.2 with always-on display changes and tighter security

Apple’s 512GB Mac mini M1 drops to a record low of $750

How to watch the FTX Congressional hearings

Boom finds a new design partner for its supersonic jet engine

Audio from a Martian dust devil captured for the first time

Jack Dorsey responds to Twitter Files: There were no ‘hidden agendas’

‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ is the first great high frame rate movie

But the HFR technology remains divisive.

As a sequel to the highest-grossing film ever – the original Avatar was criticized for its formulaic story (and the small impact it had on pop culture) – the new movie is, according to Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar, a genuine surprise. It’s a sweeping epic that avoids the wobbly dialogue of the first film. From a technical perspective, James Cameron has arguably made the best high frame rate (HFR) movie yet. Certain scenes play back at 48 frames per second, giving them a smoother and more realistic sheen compared to the standard 24 fps. That leads to incredibly immersive 3D action scenes in the three hour and twelve minute runtime.

Continue reading.

Scientists achieve fusion ignition, a major milestone in clean energy production

It’s a breakthrough, but the technology is still years from deployment.

A team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has created the first known fusion reaction with a net energy gain – that is, it produced more energy than it consumed and resulted in ignition. On December 5th, the researchers achieved the feat when they used 192 lasers at the National Ignition Facility to blast a cylinder containing frozen hydrogen surrounded by diamond.

The reaction, which generated a flurry of X-rays, struck a fuel pellet of deuterium and tritium with 2.05 megajoules of energy. That led to a wave of neutron particles and 3.15 megajoules of output. The gain was ‘only’ equivalent to about 1.5 pounds of TNT, but it was enough to meet the criteria for fusion ignition.

Continue reading.

Amazon Prime Gaming offers ‘Dishonored 2’ for free this month

There are a few more games, too.

Amazon will offer Prime Gaming members a batch of PC games later this month at no extra cost. Along with a few Metal Slug titles, SNK 40th Anniversary Collection and a few others, you can snap up Arkane Studios’ Dishonored 2 between December 27th and January 3rd.

It’s not yet clear whether Amazon will offer the title through Steam, the Epic Games Store or the Amazon Games app. However, it’s worth noting Steam Deck doesn’t support this game, if that was your plan. And if you’ve got a Netflix sub, the streaming service is also offering a few free games as well.

Continue reading.

Congress introduces bill to ban TikTok over spying fears

Measures in the House and Senate would also block other social apps from China and Russia.

Members of the House and Senate have introduced matching bills to block transactions from any social media company in or influenced by China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, North Korea or Venezuela. The ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act (Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party – pithy) wants to shutter access to TikTok and other apps that could theoretically funnel American user data to oppressive governments, censor news or otherwise manipulate the public.

Continue reading.

 

ARM won’t sell its latest Neoverse V series chips to Chinese tech giant Alibaba after concluding that the US and UK would not approve licenses to export them, according to The Financial Times. The decision follows new US government rules restricting China and Russia exports of powerful chips that could be repurposed for military use. 

Softbank-owned ARM reportedly believes that Neoverse V would fall into the category of high-performance processors affected by the new rules. While it could apply for a license, it would likely be turned down, according to FT‘s sources with knowledge of the sale process. It may be the first time that ARM has decided not to sell it’s most advanced chip designs to China.

ARM designs the advanced RISC architecture for chips used in products ranging from smartwatches to advanced supercomputers. It doesn’t build the processors itself, but sells the designs to manufacturers like TSMC and Samsung. Its latest Neoverse V2 core has the highest performance to date, with a design said to have originated in the US. 

The Biden administration is also reportedly set to put Chinese chip manufacturer YMTC on its entity list as early as next week, according to a separate FT article. The company reportedly violated US export controls by supplying Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei with NAND memory chips. 

The US government had YMTC on an “unverified” entity list, meaning it was unable carry out checks to confirming that domestic technology wasn’t being used illegally. Thirty Chinese companies including YMTC had 60 days to comply to avoid being placed on an entity list that severely restricts exports. The Chinese government now allows such checks, but not all companies are necessarily cooperating. 

The US unveiled sweeping tech export controls in October. “This includes preventing China’s acquisition and use of US technology in the context of its military-civil fusion program to fuel its military modernization efforts, conduct human rights abuses, and enable other malign activities,” it said at the time. When the rules were announced, analysts said that memory chipmakers like YMTC would be most affected.

China filed a dispute with the World Trade Organization earlier this week over those export controls. The US government considers YMTC to be a “national champion” in China, so the latest move is likely to be met with a strong reaction. 

 

Back in February, Tesla chief Elon Musk revealed on Twitter that the automaker is working to bring Steam to its vehicles. Now, the company is officially rolling out Steam integration for the latest versions of its Model S and X cars as part of its holiday update. In its promo video of the feature, you’ll see Tesla’s infotainment system running Steam Beta and even graphically demanding games like Cyberpunk 2077. 

By “new” Model S and X vehicles, Tesla likely means their “Plaid” versions, which started deliveries last year. Both models’ infotainment systems use AMD’s RDNA 2 GPUs, which are also the technology behind PlayStation 5, and AMD’s Ryzen chips. Tesla has been building its library of in-vehicle games over the past few years and has added titles such as Cuphead, PUBG Mobile and Fallout Shelter to its offerings. By bringing Steam to its vehicles, though, Tesla is adding more than just a game or two to the growing list. The automaker said in its announcement that the integration will bring thousands of games to the aforementioned cars. 

Tesla previously got into trouble with the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for allowing people to play games even while driving. It disabled the capability following the agency’s investigation, however, so people most likely can’t play Steam games while the vehicles are in motion. 

In addition to Steam integration, Tesla’s holiday update also gives owners access to Apple Music integration for their infotainment systems. It gives them the ability to schedule Light Shows on multiple vehicles simultaneously, as well, and to view their cabin camera from the Tesla app while in Dog Mode or Sentry Mode. 

 

Jack Dorsey has waded into the Twitter Files discourse. Writing in a newsletter, Dorsey lightly criticizes the manner the files have been released, and condemned attacks on former Twitter executives.

“I continue to believe there was no ill intent or hidden agendas, and everyone acted according to the best information we had at the time,” Dorsey wrote. “As for the files, I wish they were released Wikileaks-style, with many more eyes and interpretations to consider. There’s nothing to hide…only a lot to learn from.”

The response is the first time the former CEO has addressed the “Twitter Files” in detail. The disclosures detail some of the company’s internal deliberations surrounding controversial decisions, like Donald Trump’s suspension and Twitter’s handling of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. However, the “files” have only been made available to a handful of individuals, who have only published snippets of Slack messages, emails, and screenshots from Twitter’s internal tools. The underlying documents have not been released widely, or provided to other media outlets.

Notably, Dorsey also addressed the ongoing harassment of former Twitter executives. “The current attacks on my former colleagues could be dangerous and doesn’t solve anything,” he wrote. “If you want to blame, direct it at me and my actions, or lack thereof.” CNNreported Monday that Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former Trust & Safety head, had “fled his home” after a surge in violent threats against him.

Interestingly, Dorsey doesn’t mention Musk by name in his lengthy post. Dorsey had once said that “Elon is the singular solution I trust” for Twitter, though it’s unclear if he still feels that way. Dorsey, whose personal email was made public in the original installment of the Twitter Files, didn’t respond when asked if he stands by the statement.

As with other recent statements from Dorsey, he also shares lots of ideas about how content moderation should work — namely that algorithms should be used in favor of “a centralized system — and his hopes for an “open protocol” that could “make social media a native part of the internet.” And he revealed that he intends to give messaging app Signal $1 million a year as part of an effort to fund companies working on such protocols.

You can read Dorsey’s entire post here.

 

Honda is joining the ranks of automakers embracing Google’s services. As teased last year, the company has announced that the 2023 Accord sedan’s high-end Touring trim will be the brand’s first car with Google built-in as standard. You’ll have out-of-the-dealership access to Google Assistant, Google Maps and the Play Store on the vehicle’s 12.3-inch infotainment display. You can tweak the climate control, navigate or download a favorite music app without relying on your phone.

There’s no mention of pricing for the Google features. GM offers three free years of Google built-in access for vehicles like the GMC Yukon, but requires a $15 monthly subscription after that. You won’t lose all functionality after that, though. The Accord Touring will also support Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, with a 15W wireless charger to keep your phone running.

Honda hasn’t said which other cars will adopt the functionality. It won’t be surprising if the Prologue EV and other future models use the technology, however. A handful of rivals already use some form of Google built-in, including Volvo, its Polestar offshoot, GM’s brands and Renault. Ford will also use the platform starting in 2023.

Google has strong incentives to bring its apps to as many cars as possible — to an extent, it’s racing against time. Amazon Alexa is already available in some cars, and manufacturers are gaining more control over it thanks to Custom Assistant. Apple doesn’t (currently) have a standalone platform for cars, but its new generation of CarPlay can effectively take over your dash. If Google doesn’t win enough partners, it risks losing influence in the automotive world.

Not everyone is happy about expansions like these. Senator Elizabeth Warren has called on the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department to investigate Big Tech’s expansion to cars. She’s concerned Google and others might stifle competition by requiring service bundles and otherwise discouraging the use of third-party apps. Honda won’t be affected by this political pressure in the near term, but it may get more control over app selection if regulators decide to act.