Elon Musk says he wants video chat, voice calls and encrypted DMs for Twitter 2.0, Amazon Alexa is on pace to lose $10 billion this year and Google wants to lay off 10,000 underperforming googlers
For all these tech news trending right now, welcome to Trending Hashtags. It’s Wednesday, November 23rd and I’m your host, Sameera Balsara,
Elon Musk told Twitter employees he wants video chat, voice calls and encrypted DMs for Twitter 2.0. According to the leaked recording The meeting was obtained by The Verge. The new owner said he would enlist the help of the founder of Signal, an encrypted instant messaging service. Musk also explained how Twitter could allow secure calls without giving out a user’s number, which is the case with Signal. It is not yet clear whether these communication features will be available to all users or through an $8/month Twitter Blue subscription.
The Amazon Alexa voice assistant unit is one of the hardest hit areas of the company’s current massive layoff plans, business Insider informed of. The Alexa division, which has been around for 10 years, has been unable to generate its own revenue stream and is set to lose $3 billion in the first quarter of 2022, double the losses of any other division. Business Insider says the division is on track to lose $10 billion this year. The Amazon Echo is one of the best-selling items on Amazon, but goals to monetize use of the device never materialized as users chose simple, non-monetizable items like Play Music, instead relying on the AI to buy them. Will ask for command. Pay for items using your voice, Insider said.
Due to pressure from activist hedge funds, Google is implementing a sort of stack ranking and performance improvement plan that could lead to 10,000 layoffs, Forbes reported, The performance system will lay off poorly performing employees and may deny bonuses and stock grants to others. According to The Information, Google managers have been asked to rank six percent of employees — representing 10,000 people — as low performers, compared to the traditional two percent. The activist hedge fund also claimed that the company’s workforce is “excessive” compared to previous hiring trends and that the search engine could be run efficiently with fewer high-paid professionals.
Major tax filing services including H&R Block, TaxAct and TaxSlayer are quietly transmitting sensitive information to Facebook when Americans file their taxes online. markup found, The data is sent through a widely used code called a meta pixel that includes names, email addresses, and often more sensitive information such as a user’s income, filing status, and dependents’ college scholarship amounts. This information may be used by Facebook to power its advertising algorithms and is collected regardless of whether the person using the tax filing service has an account on Facebook or another meta-proprietary platform. As of Monday, TaxSlayer and Ramsey Solutions had removed Pixel from their tax filing sites and TurboTax stopped sending usernames through Pixel at sign in. H&R Block’s site continues to gather information on health savings accounts and college tuition grants, but it says it is reviewing the findings for markups.
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