Tech Tok: Chief twit Musk tweets Twitter into turmoil

In just the last three days, Musk has dissolved Twitter board and made himself the sole director, signalling more layoffs ahead.

Hyderabad: Seldom has the takeover of any social media platform been so chaotic and so much in the news. And the man behind it being Elon Musk, he has made sure that his $44 billion-takeover of a firm that has around 240 million daily active users gets all the attention it can.

But whatever has happened after that, especially after Musk walked into the Twitter HQ in San Francisco, carrying what looked like a porcelain bathroom sink, with a picture captioned ‘…let that sink in.’, has been nothing short of pandemonium.

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Musk, who has since fired the company’s board of directors and made himself the board’s sole member, himself got Twitterati to be part of the chaos at the Twitter HQ by hinting that users would have to pay $20 for the supposedly haloed blue tick. “The whole verification process is being revamped right now,” Musk tweeted on Sunday in response to a user who asked for help in getting verified.

Even as a global debate on whether users would accept the payment factor of it raged on, Saudi’s billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has triggered another debate over where Twitter was heading after he said he and his Kingdom Holding Company rolled over a combined $1.89 billion in existing Twitter shares, making them the company’s largest shareholder after Musk.

After last week’s layoff, including of CEO Parag Agrawal and other top executives, and indications of much larger scale shake-ups and layoffs, what lies ahead for Twitter is what is trending among the micro-blogging site’s tweets. Is the bird really free, like Musk tweeted, or will the bird fly ever again?

NEW LAUNCHES/FEATURES

iOS 16.2 might launch in mid-December

Apple’s upcoming major update to the iOS 16 operating system, iOS 16.2. might launch in mid-December with new features, alongside the iPadOS 16.2.

According to MacRumors, with iOS 16.2, users will be able to add a new Sleep widget option to their Lock Screen. There will be three widget choices: one that displays the amount of time the user spent in bed, another that displays a bar chart illustrating the quality of sleep and the larger widget that displays the amount of time spent in bed with a visual representation.

Freeform is a brand-new Apple application that was unveiled at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) that enables users to communicate with friends and coworkers on a single board with drawings, text, videos, pictures, and more. The application is currently accessible to developers and open beta testers and is likely to release in the middle of December along with iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2 and macOS Ventura 13.1.

Google rolls out Chrome OS update with ‘Save desk for later’

Google has released a Chrome OS 107 update, which includes a ‘Save Desk for Later’ feature in an effort to improve user experience.

According to 9to5Google, the new update introduces two improvements to Desks. The first one will allow users to quickly “Save desk for later” from the overview screen using the button above the left-most window. Upon clicking, the user will be redirected to the “Saved for later” screen, which can be accessed from the right of the “New desk” screen.

Users can also see a row of open favicons, assign it a name, and check its creation date. Upon tapping, the desk will be immediately launched and restored, it added.

In the Files app, the “Recent” view has been revamped with a new “Documents” filter, while the list below has been sorted by time period to make things easier to navigate.

 – Dennis Marcus Mathew with agency inputs