Kalakshar US

In 2021, Twitter launched an in-app tipping feature that people can use to send money to creators, but it needs to be connected to a third-party payment processor to work. If Elon Musk’s vision for the social network comes true, though, Twitter may have a payment system of its own. 

Twitter’s new owner and temporary CEO has discussed his plans for the social network in a Spaces Q&A for advertisers. One of the things he revealed is that he envisions a future wherein users can connect their bank accounts to Twitter, enabling them to send money to each other. While it will likely take a long time before we see that happen, if it actually does, The New York Times has confirmed that the company filed registration paperwork to process payments with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) last week. 

In the Spaces discussion, Musk spoke about the feature in relation to creators. He talked about how the website needs to enable monetization for creators to entice them to post their work on the platform. “Now we can say that, okay, you’ve got a balance in your account, do you want to send money to someone else within Twitter?” the executive said. He also discussed how users will be able to take money out of Twitter by linking their bank accounts, hinting at a system similar to PayPal, which he helped found. The company might even offer an “extremely compelling money market account,” as well as debit and credit cards, if things work well. 

This is but one of the changes Musk has planned for the social network. The $8-a-month Twitter Blue subscription that gives users access to instant account verification was one of the very first changes he implemented after taking over the company. Twitter will still verify government entities, celebrities, publishers and other public figures with a second gray “official” checkmark, but the big blue checks are now reserved for paying subscribers. This unpaid checkmark started rolling out yesterday before Twitter stopped its deployment and pulled it back to focus on “government and commercial entities” first.

 

FTX won’t be rescued by its biggest rival. One day after announcing a proposed deal to buy the cryptocurrency exchange, Binance said it didn’t like what it found in the company’s books. “As a result of corporate due diligence, as well as the latest news reports regarding mishandled customer funds and alleged US agency investigations, we have decided that we will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX,” Binance tweeted on Wednesday afternoon. “Our hope was to be able to support FTX’s customers to provide liquidity, but the issues are beyond our control or ability to help.”

The abandoned takeover bid caps off a tumultuous week for FTX. On November 2nd, Coinbasepublished a report that revealed that the cryptocurrency exchange was facing a liquidity crisis. In response to the article, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced that the company would sell about $529 million worth of FTX’s FTT token, a move that wiped out the value of the cryptocurrency and launched a public spat between the competing exchanges.

Even when the acquisition was first announced, the likelihood of it moving forward seemed uncertain at best, with Zhao stressing at the time that the deal was non-binding. “This is a highly dynamic situation, and we are assessing the situation in real time. Binance has the discretion to pull out from the deal at any time.” he said on Tuesday. By the following morning, The Wall Street Journal and Coinbase came out with separate reports claiming Binance was strongly leaning toward abandoning the rescue.

Less than an hour later, Bloomberg reported that the US Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating FTX to determine if the company had mishandled customer funds. It’s worth noting here that the Department of Justice and SEC are also investigating Binance.

 

President Joe Biden says that Elon Musk’s dealings with countries outside of the United States are “worthy of being looked at.” Speaking to reporters, Biden didn’t elaborate on if some kind of of investigation was underway, but suggested the Tesla and Twitter CEO deserved further scrutiny.

“I think that Elon musk’s cooperation and/or technical relationships with other countries is worthy of being looked at,” Biden said. “Whether or not he is doing anything inappropriate – I’m not suggesting that. I’m suggesting it’s worth being looked at, and that’s all I’ll say.”

It’s unclear exactly which of Musk’s relationships Biden was referring to, but he’s not the first official to raise Musk’s ties to other countries as a potential concern. Senator Chris Murphy has said the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) should investigate the “national security implications” of Musk’s deal to buy the company. Murphy and others have pointed to major investments from Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Other critics have noted that Tesla’s business dealings in China could make it difficult for Musk to make content decisions that affect the country, or that government officials could pressure him to turn over data. The Washington Postreported in June that “some U.S. intelligence analysts and White House officials are among those concerned about the potential for arm-twisting by China if Musk gets hold of Twitter.”

Musk was also widely criticized for tweets suggesting that “the will of the people” should decide whether parts of Ukraine taken over by Russia should become part of Russia. He later threatened to stop paying for Starlink internet for the Ukrainian government, but later walked back the comments.

 

Elon Musk is trying, once again, to sell his vision of Twitter’s future to the company’s advertisers. Musk, who by all accounts has yet to address Twitter’s remaining staff as a group, joined an hour-long “town hall” to take questions from advertisers and share more about his plans for the platform.

The company’s advertising business has taken a significant hit in recent days as a number of major brands have pulled back from the platform and activists have called for a boycott. Musk said last week that these actions had caused a “massive drop in revenue” for Twitter.

In his talk on Twitter Spaces, Musk tried again to reassure advertisers that their brands would be safe on the platform. He said that ads appearing next to hate speech “isn’t great” and pitched the newly launched Twitter Blue as a way to decrease hate speech on the platform. Under the new Twitter Blue, brands will need to pay for the blue check like all other accounts, Musk said. He added that anyone impersonating a brand would be permanently banned from the service.

He also said that he hopes to make Twitter ads a lot more relevant, and wants to integrate ads into recommended tweets. The goal, he said, was to “drive sales in the short term and protect the demand in the long term.”

Notably, he struck a much different tone than in recent tweets when he threatened “a thermonuclear name and shame” for advertisers boycotting the platform. “I understand if people kind of want to give it a minute and see how things are evolving,” he said. “We’ve been more rigorous about clamping down on bad content and bots and trolls, not less. So my observation of Twitter over the past few weeks is that the content is actually improving, not getting worse.” He added that brands and advertisers should be more active on the platform and that if they see something they don’t like they should “reply to one of my tweets and I’ll do my best to respond.”

Musk also talked more about his philosophy on content moderation, though he didn’t share any concrete changes to Twitter’s policies or how its moderation council might function. “We have to be, I think, tolerant of views we don’t agree with, but those views don’t need to be amplified,” he said.

He also stated that he has plans to make Community Notes, the crowd-sourced fact checking feature that used to be known as Birdwatch, a more central part of the platform. “This is really gonna help in improving the accuracy of what’s said in the system.” He also suggested that Community Notes would have an impact on the visibility of content on Twitter. “It’s analogous to the way sort of Page Rank works in Google, where the the prominence of a webpage is proportionate to how much weight other prominent web pages give that web page. I think it’s a game changer.”

 

If you use an iPhone and a Windows PC, syncing photos is about to get a lot easier. The feature Microsoft announced last month that adds iCloud Photos to the Windows Photos app begins rolling out today. Microsoft says it will be available to all Windows 11 users by the end of November.

Previously, if iPhone users wanted to transfer images to their Windows PCs, they had to either plug in their iPhone with a USB cable or use the iCloud web app in a browser – a dated and clunky setup, though the site is undergoing some much-needed changes soon. Microsoft’s new feature gives you an integrated view of all your iCloud photos through the Windows 11 Photos app.

To use the new feature, you’ll need to ensure your Windows Photos app is up-to-date. Then, you’ll need to install the iCloud for Windows app from the Windows Store, sign in, and choose to sync your photos.

iCloud Photos integration is part of Microsoft’s broader initiative to make its software the “most open,” removing friction points between rival services. For example, the Windows maker launched Apple Music on Xbox consoles last month, and Apple TV and Music apps are coming to Windows 11 next year. Microsoft’s desktop OS also supports Android apps and Linux instances, and its Phone Link app syncs Android phone messaging and notifications with your desktop.

 

It’s a great day to be a Switch fan. If you missed Nintendo’s latest Indie World Showcase, the company announced on Wednesday that Rogue Legacy 2 and A Little to the Left would be available to download later today. Both indies came out earlier this year to critical acclaim and are well worth your time if you enjoy smaller experiences. The former is the sequel to 2013’s Rogue Legacy and improves on its predecessor in nearly every way, with a new art style and tighter gameplay. Meanwhile, A Little to the Left is a cozy and relaxing game for those who enjoy tidying up.

Looking to the weeks and months ahead, there are a handful of other notable indie games heading to the platform. At the start of next month, roguelike deck builder Incscryption arrives. It was one of the most critically acclaimed games of 2021. If a card game that’s infused with horror elements sounds appealing to you, I would try to go into Incscryption knowing as little as possible. December will also see the release of Sports Story. The follow-up to the Golf Story was first announced in 2020 and was supposed to arrive on Nintendo Switch that same year. To say fans of the original have been patiently waiting ever since would be an understatement.

In 2023, Switch owners can also look forward to Desta: The Memories Between, the next game from Monument Valley creator Ustwo arriving. Nintendo shared a new look at the turn-based dodgeball game. Between those games and a handful of others, Nintendo Switch fans have a lot to look forward to in the near future.

 

Following a false start over the weekend, the new Twitter Blue has arrived. Priced at $8 per month in the US, the service grants subscribers access to instant account verification and an accompanying blue checkmark that shows up on their profile page and alongside their tweets. As of the writing of this article, the subscription isn’t available on Android. It’s also unclear when Twitter Blue will arrive outside of the markets where the service was already available before today.    

The other perks Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk announced would be part of the package, including the ability to see half as many ads and post longer videos, also aren’t available yet, with the subscription prompt listing those as “coming soon.” Notably, the signup form lists the $8 monthly price as a “limited-time offer.” 

Since finalizing his takeover of the company nearly two weeks ago, Musk has positioned paid account verification as a way to make Twitter sustainable and increase trust in the platform. However, when it briefly began rolling out the new Twitter Blue on Saturday, many were quick to point out the service was likely to have the opposite effect since almost anyone could pay for verification and then theoretically change their account name to impersonate another user. After a handful of verified “blue-check” users changed their accounts to impersonate Musk, he announced users who were impersonating others would need to explicitly specify they were running a parody account or face a permanent suspension.   

Twitter’s verification situation became murkier early Wednesday when the social media website briefly began attaching an “Official” label to some major accounts, including those belonging to celebrities, large publications and politicians. After a few hours, Musk said he had “just killed” the deployment. “Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in the coming months,” he tweeted shortly after. “We will keep what works and change what doesn’t.”

 

Sony has revealed another selection of games that will be available to PlayStation Plus subscribers on the Extra and Premium tiers. The headliner for many folks is one of the most beloved games of all time, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (a game from Microsoft-owned Bethesda Softworks, fact fans). The special edition of the classic 2011 RPG includes updated visuals and other features.

Subscribers will soon be able to play three of Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy-branded games at no extra cost: Rainbow Six Siege (both the PS4 and PS5 versions), The Division 2 and Ghost Recon Breakpoint. Several Kingdom Hearts games are on the way as well. You’ll get access to Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX (a remastered collection of four games), Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue,Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory and the most recent mainline entry in the series, Kingdom Hearts III.

On top of that, you’ll be able to check out Oddworld: Soulstorm – Enhanced Edition (which features a new game mode) and space shooter Chorus. PS4 and PS5 versions of both games will be available. Also on the docket are classic indie walking sim What Remains of Edith Finch, puzzle title The Gardens Between, Earth Defense Force: World Brothers, Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain and Onee Chanbara Origin.

There are some worthy PS3 titles coming to the Premium lineup this month, in the form of five more Ratchet & Clank games. You’ll get access to Ratchet & Clank, Ratchet & Clank 2: Going Commando, Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, Ratchet & Clank: Deadlocked and Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. 

These games will be available on November 15th. It’s a pretty solid batch of additions to PS Plus Extra and Premium. Perhaps these titles will help Sony gain back some of the PS Plus subscribers Sony has lost in recent months.

 

Kia has unveiled pricing for the 2023 EV6, and it’s decidedly more expensive than before — although you might not mind depending on what you were looking for. The new electric crossover starts at $49,795 when you include the $1,295 destination fee, or $7,100 more than the entry 2022 model. You do get more in the bargain, though. The automaker has dropped the cut-down Light trim with 232 miles of range and now starts with the Wind RWD variant, which delivers a claimed 310 miles. That could put the EV6 out of reach for some buyers, but is also an acknowledgment that Light ultimately existed to upsell customers to pricier versions.

Wind now costs $1,000 more than it did last year. You may not have much need to spend extra, at least, when that configuration includes a power liftgate, vehicle-to-device power ports, Meridian audio and ventilated leather seats. You also have the option of a tech package previously limited to the Wind AWD with blind spot and surround views, parking collision avoidance and a remote start parking aid.

Other trims mainly provide added performance and intelligence. The $52,400 Wind AWD adds its namesake 320HP dual motor system with 282 miles of range. Spend $52,700 on the GT-Line RWD ($57,400 for AWD) and you’ll get extras like navigation-based smart cruise control, more advanced highway driving assists and lane following help. And it’s now clear just how much you’ll pay for the range-topping EV6 GT — the performance-oriented car starts at $61,400 with a 576HP motor system, electronically-guided suspension, a limited-slip rear differential, higher-end brakes and 21-inch wheels mated to Goodyear Eagle F1 tires. Kia claims the GT can reach 60MPH in 3.4 seconds, so this is your pick if you want to shame sports cars at the local drag strip (and don’t mind the reduced 206-mile range).

You still have the Ioniq 5 if you want Hyundai’s latest EV tech in a (slightly) more affordable package. The Niro EV is an option, too. However, it’s evident the automaker is repositioning the EV6 as a more premium machine.

 

If you’ve ever bought a game on Stadia, Google’s soon-to-be-defunct cloud gaming service, it’s worth keeping an eye on your bank balance and credit card statements. As of today, Google is starting to process refunds for Stadia purchases. The first wave of refunds will include those for purchases of games, add-on content and subscriptions made through the Stadia store. However, the company is not refunding Stadia Pro subscription fees. 

Google says it will process the refunds automatically. It expects to issue most of them (including those for hardware purchases) by the time it shuts down the Stadia servers on January 18th. “We ask for your patience as we work through each transaction and ask that you refrain from contacting Customer Support as they will not be able to expedite your refund during this time,” the company wrote in an updated support article. 

If Google can’t issue a refund automatically to your original form of payment, it will email you via the Google account through which you made your purchase(s). Folks who have deleted their Google account and no longer have access to the original form of payment may have to get in touch with Stadia’s customer support team. 

If you’ve made 20 or fewer Stadia store transactions on your account, you’ll get one email for each successful refund, which will likely prove a bit annoying. If you’ve bought 21 or more games or addons, you’ll get one email summarizing all the successful refunds.

Elsewhere in the updated FAQ, Google notes that players will be able to transfer their save data from Stadia to other platforms in some cases, but it’s up to developers and publishers to support that. Ubisoft, Bungie, I/O Interactive, CD Projekt Red, Rockstar Games and Bethesda are working on ways to help players move their game progress to other platforms. Cyberpunk 2077 players can already export their save data to the PC version and sync it to consoles. Meanwhile, Ubisoft has said it will offer players who bought its products on Stadia PC versions of those games on top of the refunds they’ll get from Google (though you’ll of course need a powerful enough rig to run them).

Elsewhere, there was a disappointing update for those hoping that Google will unlock the Bluetooth functions on the Stadia Controller so it can more easily be used on other platforms. For now, the company hasn’t committed to doing so. It says you’ll still be able to use the peripheral by connecting it to another device via USB-A or USB-C.