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Susan Wojcicki, who served as YouTube’s CEO for almost a decade until she stepped down last year, has died. She was 56 years old. Her husband Dennis Troper has shared the news on Facebook, revealing that Wojcicki lived two years with non-small cell lung cancer. “Susan was not just my best friend and partner in life, but a brilliant mind, a loving mother, and a dear friend to many,” he wrote in his post. “Her impact on our family and the world was immeasurable.”

Google operated out of Wojcicki’s garage when the company was just starting out, with founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin using it as their office. She became the company’s first marketing manager, co-created Google Image Search and was the first product manager of AdSense. Wojcicki also headed Google’s video efforts and was the one who encouraged the company to purchase YouTube in 2006, a year after the video-sharing platform debuted. 

In 2014, she was appointed as the CEO of YouTube, which became a key part of Google under her leadership. For the fiscal year of 2022, the year before she stepped down, YouTube ads brought in $29.24 billion in revenue, which made up over 10 percent of the company’s total earnings. Outside of her work with Google, Wojcicki brought attention to the gender gap issue in tech and to the plight of refugees. She was also a proponent of lengthy parental leaves and talked about they’re actually good for business. In a post on X, Alphabet’s current CEO, Sundar Pichai, said Wojcicki was “as core to the history of Google as anyone” and described her someone who’s “had a tremendous impact on the world.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/former-youtube-ceo-susan-wojcicki-has-died-110020190.html?src=rss 

Both Russia and Venezuela have blocked access to the encrypted messaging app Signal, The Verge reports.

The Russian news service Interfax broke the news about the block on the Signal app in Russia. Russia’s telecommunications watchdog Roskomnadzor restricted the app due to “violations of the requirements of the Russian legislation whose fulfillment is necessary to prevent the use of the messenger for terrorist and extremist purposes,” according to the Russian report.

The cybersecurity tracker NetBlocks confirmed on X on Friday that Russia has restricted access to Signal “on most internet providers.” NetBlocks also noted the app “remains usable with ‘censorship circumvention’ enabled” in Signal’s settings echoing a recommendation from the Signal’s X account to users who’ve been blocked from their messages in both regions .

The blocking of Signal in Venezuela occurred in the long shadow of the country’s disputed presidential election results from the end of July. Venezuela’s electoral authority declared President Nicolás Maduro the winner without publishing any evidence of his win, sparking protests from detractors and supporters of Maduro’s opponent Edmundo González, according to the Associated Press.

Both regions have been cutting off access to other similar social media apps possibly as a way to quiet dissenting voices. President Maduro banned X earlier today for a period of 10 days claiming that the company’s owner Elon Musk was inciting hatred and “violated” his social network’s rules. VOA News also reported a “mass YouTube outage” in Russia on Thursday.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/russia-and-venezuela-have-blocked-encrypted-messaging-app-signal-221433099.html?src=rss 

Oxford University scientists may have solved one of the greatest hindrances of expanding access to solar energy. Scientists from the university’s physics department have created an ultra-thin layer of material that can be applied to the exterior of objects with sunlight access in place of bulky silicon-based solar panels.

The ultra-thin and flexible film is made by stacking layers of light-absorbing layers of perovskite that are just over one micron thick. The new materials are also 150 times thinner than a traditional silicon wafer and can produce 5 percent more energy efficiency than traditional, single-layer silicon photovoltaics, according to a statement released by Oxford University.

Dr. Shauifeng Hu, a postdoctoral fellow at Oxford’s physics department, says he believes “this approach could enable the photovoltaic devices to achieve far greater efficiencies, exceeding 45 percent.”

This new approach to solar energy technology could also reduce the cost of solar energy. Due to their thinness and flexibility, they can be applied to almost any surface. This reduces the cost of construction and installation and could increase the number of solar energy farms producing more sustainable energy.

This technology, however, is still in the research stage and the university doesn’t mention the long-term stability of the newly designed perovskite panels. Going from 6 to 27 percent solar energy efficiency in five years is an impressive feat but stability has always been limited compared to photovoltaic technology, according to the US Department of Energy. A 2016 study in the science journal Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells also noted that perovskite can provide “efficient, low-cost energy generation” but it also has “poor stability” due its sensitivity to moisture.

Solar energy has also become a cheaper power option just over the last decade. The cost of solar photovoltaic technology has dropped by 90 percent in the last 10 years, according to the Global Change Data Lab.

New solar energy farms are popping up all over the world. The US Department of Energy announced earlier this month its turning an 8,000-acre piece of land that once housed parts of the nuclear weapons program known as the Manhattan Project into a solar farm. Last month, Google invested in a Taiwanese solar company to build a 1 gigawatt pipeline in the region.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/oxford-scientists-new-light-absorbing-material-can-turn-everyday-objects-into-solar-panels-200410760.html?src=rss 

Warner Bros. Discovery has pulled Cartoon Network’s entire website from the web, which means that you can no longer access free episodes and other interactive content. Instead, visitors to CartoonNetwork.com are redirected to the channel’s section on the subscription streaming network Max, Variety reported.

The Cartoon Network website offered full, free episodes and clips of some of its most popular shows including Adventure Time, The Amazing World of Gumball, Teen Titans GO! and Steven Universe. Now if you need a quick fix of those shows, you’ll have to get on Max, pay for them on another digital streaming service or dig up a copy from your stash of old Blu-Rays and DVDs.

A spokesperson for the Cartoon Network told Variety it’s refocusing its efforts on “shows and social media where we find consumers are the most engaged and there is a meaningful potential for growth.” The decision to take down the website will not affect the network’s cable TV programming.

The demise of Cartoon Network’s website comes a week after Warner Bros. Discovery announced the end of its classic cartoon streaming service Boomerang. Warner Bros. Discovery announced that the network for fans of classic cartoons like Tom & Jerry, Wacky Races and the original Looney Tunes shorts will end its operations on September 30. Subscribers will be added to Max’s ad-free tier for no additional cost.

In June, media giant Paramount, too, pulled down some of its cable channels’ old show episodes including The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report from the Comedy Central website as well as free content from other channels’ websites such as TV Land, CMT and the Paramount Network.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/warner-bros-sends-cartoon-networks-website-to-the-digital-graveyard-174502048.html?src=rss