News

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki steps down after nine years

On Thursday, Susan Wojcicki, the Chief Executing Officer of YouTube, announced her departure in a blog post after nine years in charge of the world’s most popular online video website.

chief product officer of YouTube, Neal Mohan, will take over as CEO, she officially confirmed. Wojcicki is currently 54 and was originally a senior vice president for brand promotion at Google prior to actually taking over as Chief executive officer of YouTube in the year 2014. Wojcicki worked briefly at Intel as well as Bain & Company prior to joining Google.

“Today, after nearly 25 years here, I’ve decided to step back from my role as the head of YouTube and start a new chapter focused on my family, health, and personal projects I’m passionate about,” said Wojcicki.
Source: theguardian.com

Susan Wojcicki will be recalled as Google’s first owner, despite being among the highly regarded female executives in this male-dominated technology sector.

Also Read: German airport websites hit by suspected cyber attack

Wojcicki loaned the garage of her Menlo Park, California which is the home to Co-founders of Google Larry Page & Sergey Brin for 1,700 USD per month fairly soon after they integrated their web browser into a firm in 1998.

Page and Brin both were 25 at the time and spent five months refining their search engine in Wojcicki’s garage prior to actually shifting Google into a larger and official office and afterward convincing their previous landlord to consider working for them.

“It would be one of the best decisions of my life,” Wojcicki wrote in the announcement of her departure.
Source: theguardian.com

she will indeed remain with YouTube momentarily to assist in the shift of management, and in the long run had also consented with Chief Executive Officer, Sundar Pichai, to consider taking an advisory position all over Google & Alphabet, providing “counsel and guidance”.

Also Read: Elon Musk Forced Algorithm Change to Help Boost His Tweets

Susan Wojcicki is the newest in a long line of highly advanced Technology executives to leave their positions, with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos stepping down from his position in 2021, CEO of Pinterest Ben Silbermann having left in 2022 as well as Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg resigning in 2022. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal was also fired in 2022 as an aspect of Elon Musk’s takeover of the firm.

YouTube has been dealing with the recent resurgence of TikTok, a brief video app that surpassed the Google-owned video streaming service in screen time at the end of 2022.

Suhani Jain

I am a student pursuing my bachelor’s in information technology. I have a interest in writing so, I am working a freelance content writer because I enjoy writing. I also write poetries. I believe in the quote by anne frank “paper has more patience than person

German airport websites hit by suspected cyber attack

A day after a significant IT malfunction at Lufthansa left thousands of travellers stuck, the webpages of seven German airports were reportedly targeted by a probable cyber attack on Thursday, according to the ADV airport organisation. Düsseldorf, Nuremberg, and Dortmund were among the airports that were impacted, although the websites for Germany’s three largest airports—Frankfurt, Munich, and Berlin—were unaffected.

Due to a technological malfunction, numerous German airport websites are no longer accessible. According to reports, the disruptions might be caused by cyber attack. The website issues have not interfered with airport operations, indicating that the IT problem appears to be limited to the online environment.

Also Read: Google Staff in Zurich Stage Walkout Over Job Cuts

Passengers will be impacted by further outages in the days ahead, particularly as other airports experience strikes. Even though websites occasionally experience problems and even go offline, it is unusual for several airport websites to do so at the same time.

It is assumed that these failures are the consequence of cyber attack directed at airport infrastructure given their proximity in time and form. None of these interruptions has, as of yet, affected airport operations. Before any flights are impacted by the outage, airport officials are working fast to address the problems and restore service to the websites.

The website breakdowns, which could cause operational hiccups in the upcoming days, occur just one day before a significant one-day walkout. A one-day airport employee strike has been organised for tomorrow, February 17, and will run the entire day.

Tourists are advised against flying tomorrow in Germany as the walkouts are expected to cause significant delays at airports throughout the nation. Tomorrow’s flights out of Frankfurt and Munich have been cancelled by Lufthansa due to the strikes, causing major issues and lost reservations for travellers.

On the list of airports where a strike is anticipated, DUS is the only one impacted by the website outage. Yet, the strike’s large number of cancelled flights will undoubtedly create a domino effect that will affect almost all German airports.

For the next few days, this will cause airline disruptions across the nation and many neighbouring nations. The only thing that will fuel this upcoming storm is the website outages.

Also Read: Elon Musk Forced Algorithm Change to Help Boost His Tweets

The airports hit by the website disruptions are not the only ones this week to experience such setbacks. An IT issue on February 15, had a significant impact on the operations of the Lufthansa Group. All of the company’s airlines had delays as a result of the malfunction.

Frankfurt Airport (FRA) was closed to all arrivals as a result of the inconvenience. This resulted in the cancellation of thousands of flights and hundreds of travellers’ travel plans. With all the flight cancellations and delays, the German air transit business is heading towards what appears to be a weekend to remember.

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

Elon Musk Forced Algorithm Change to Help Boost His Tweets

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Suhani Jain

As per Platformer, Elon Musk made Twitter Corporation professionals work late on Sunday to change his social network’s algorithm and take priority in his tweets, giving rise to a flood of them appearing in users’ feeds on Monday.

Billionaire Twitter owner Elon Musk is believed to be dissatisfied with the number of individuals who saw his Super Bowl Twitter post.

According to Platformer, as a consequence of Musk’s requirement, Twitter exempted Musk’s Twitter posts from filters intended to enhance the quality of consumers’ timelines and artificially increased those by a factor of 1,000. On the day after Super Bowl, users on Twitter made complaints about receiving an influx of the owner’s tweets.

Also Read: Elon Musk to unveil Tesla’s ‘Master Plan 3.’ What to expect for us?

Musk explained his group in person late on Sunday night. Around 80 individuals were brought into it to assist with the project, which had quickly already become the firm’s primary concern. Employees worked all night to explore specific theories as to why Musk’s Twitter posts weren’t attaining quite so many persons as he assumed they should and also to test alternative solutions.

James Musk sent an important message to Twitter staff at 2:36 on Monday morning.

“We are debugging an issue with engagement across the platform,” wrote Musk, a cousin of the Twitter CEO, tagging “@here” in Slack to ensure that anyone online would see it. “Any people who can make dashboards and write software please can you help solve this problem? This is high urgency. If you are willing to help out please thumbs up this post.”
Source: theverge.com

Musk’s affirmation of his backing for the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday gained tremendously less involvement than a similar message from US Vice President Joe Biden. According to the report, the firm has become increasingly interested in and also infuriated by his interaction figures, which have begun declining in recent weeks.

Also Read: Twitter to start charging developers for API access

Musk seems to have almost 129 million followers on Twitter, while Joe Biden has 37 million. Before actually taking the business private in a 44 billion USD agreement in October, Tesla Corporation CEO Elon Musk stated that he wanted to equalize the playing field as well as reduce bias in the structure.

Twitter did not reply instantly to an emailed inquiry for clarification. Musk tweeted regarding Twitter as well as its features just after the report was published, but he did not address its material. He had previously tweeted a meme implying that his tweets would be forced-fed to Twitter users. He also stated that the algorithm was being tweaked by the company.

Suhani Jain

Google Staff in Zurich Stage Walkout Over Job Cuts

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Sandhya Gupta

In Zurich, approximately 250 employees of Alphabet Inc.’s Google protested the company’s decision to lay off around 6% of its workforce by walking out on Wednesday.

As per union spokesman Dominik Fitze, the workers left their workstations before midday with the help of the Syndicom trade union and gathered outside one of the two Google locations in the Swiss city with placards.

They urged Google to speak with an employee committee about alternatives to layoffs and help for people from abroad whose residency is dependent on their employment, as required by Swiss law, Fitze added. In addition, he said, they want the corporation to promise not to make any more job layoffs.

Also Read: Google has rolled out Immersive View for Maps across five cities

Even while the protesters made up a relatively small part of Google’s 5,000 or so employees in Zurich, it is unusual for corporate workers at tech corporations to strike. It comes after comparable demonstrations by colleagues about the job layoffs earlier this month in New York and California.

A Google spokesperson noted, “We know this is an uncertain time for our employees and we are working hard to share updates as soon as we can in line with local labor law. However, given the ongoing process, we are not in the position to comment further on the matter.”

In response to the faltering global economy and increasing inflation, Alphabet said in January that it will be laying off more than 12,000 employees, following other tech behemoths including Meta, Amazon, and Salesforce Inc.

Affected employees in the US received notification right away, but in Europe, it has taken longer because of stricter local employment rules that, in some situations, call for a consultation procedure.

Fitze stated that because the workers in Zurich had not yet received notice, it is unknown how many of them lost their jobs.

In 2018, Google employees in numerous places around the world staged a strike in protest of how the company handled complaints of sexual misconduct. Google revealed in January 2023 that it will be eliminating 6% of positions globally and has let go of about 12,000 workers.

Also Read: Amazon Subsidiary Zappos Lays Off Around 20% of Staff

Numerous former staff flocked to Twitter to discuss their fate in the wake of this statement.

As a result of the unexpected layoffs, several people also expressed their hurt. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, was even called upon to resign by online users, former workers, and others. A short time after the Google Layoffs, reports of a probable compensation reduction for Pichai also started to circulate.

Earlier Pichai accepted complete accountability for the layoffs. He said that the corporation overhired during the pandemic when demand was extremely strong.

In the email he sent to Google employees, Pichai stated, “Over the past two years, we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.”

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

15-Inch MacBook Air Rumored to Launch in April

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Suhani Jain

Ross Young and Bloomberg have both up until recently speculated on the prospect of something like a 15-inch MacBook Air. Bloomberg, in general, and especially, has suggested earlier that a release within the early summer of this year is possible. Back in December, Ross Young confirmed the spring 2023 release.

Young clarified that the 15-inch MacBook Air remains on the path for a summer release in a tweet to his Super Followers, according to 9to5Mac.

“15.5-inch MacBook Air started panel production this month,” Young said. “We would expect an early April launch.”
Source: 9to5mac.com

Also Read: Is Apple really coming out with a foldable iPad?

During this point, we have not yet noticed anything additional about the MacBook Air with a 15-inch display. Even so, you would think it’d be a replica of the 13-inch MacBook Air, although with a larger screen.

13.6 inches & 15.5 inches will be the two sizes in which the Macbook Air will be available by Apple. the MacBook Air was sold in two different sizes earlier by Apple which was 11 inches & 13 inches, but somehow it ultimately pared down the lineup and removed the smaller size.

Ming-Chi Kuo, a reliable apple analyst has also explained the rumored 15-inch MacBook Air, and although he claims that it will not be called a “MacBook Air,” however simply a “MacBook.” as per the analyst. The 13-inch MacBook Air just arrives with an M2 configuration but the M2 & M2 Pro configurations will be obtainable in the new 15-inch MacBook

Bloomberg reports that, in addition to the significantly bigger screened MacBook Air, Apple is working on a 12-inch MacBook. This machine, on the other hand, is not anticipated to be available till the end of 2023 or slightly earlier in 2024.

The year before, the MacBook Air received a significant remodel, with a design equivalent to the new Macbook Pros, including a display notch as well as sleeker edges. This new model has been extremely well recognized, and we hope it will be carried over to the latest 15-inch MacBook.

Also Read: Amazon Subsidiary Zappos Lays Off Around 20% of Staff

The sleeker bezels, in general, and especially, could perhaps mean that somehow the 15-inch MacBook Air provides a bigger screen in a more compact size. The 13-inch MacBook Air’s screen was increased from 13.3 inches to 13.6 inches whilst also preserving the same overall footprint during its redesign last year.

Suhani Jain

Amazon Subsidiary Zappos Lays Off Around 20% of Staff

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Suhani Jain

As per individuals associated with the job cuts as well as a Zappos memo obtained by The Wall Street Journal, Zappos fired more than 300 of its workers the previous month, representing approximately 20 percent of the firm’s workforce in Las Vegas.

The Zappos job cuts were part of a larger round of cutbacks at Amazon which are anticipated to impact over 18,000 staff members, according to the Wall Street Journal. Those who are also the latest in a string of shifts by Zappos’ lifelong parent corporation that, according to individuals associated with the companies, have largely crumbled Mr. Hsieh’s legacy.

In the early 2000s, Mr. Hsieh led Zappos from its starting as just an online shoe business to its selling to Amazon in 2009 for 1.2 billion USD, & he remained in charge of it independently till his death at the age of 46 in November 2020. He has been well-known as a leading pioneer via his greatest book “Delivering Happiness,” in addition to being a famous and successful downtown Las Vegas developer.

Also Read: Dell to slash about 6,650 jobs in latest tech job cuts

As per individuals associated with the businesses, one of the massive modifications at Zappos is the departure of a longstanding Zappos executive and Mr. Hsieh’s right-hand man for many years Tyler Williams, who resigned from the firm during the latest round of layoffs.

In an email to employees in January, existing CEO Scott Schaefer named the layoffs “extremely difficult news,” echoing views expressed by many other tech titans following recent layoffs.

“As we enter 2023, we are still facing an uncertain economy which required us to continue to take a hard look at our business, and respond in a way that ensures we are set up for long-term success,” he wrote to employees.
Source: wsj.com

According to individuals associated with the industries, Mr. Hsieh was willing to sell the company to Amazon upon the condition that the firm will function independently, even though Amazon is much more engaged in Zappos as well as its management decisions than it was when Mr. Hsieh managed the company. Zappos is presently financially viable, even if it has yet to meet all of the growth set targets by Amazon, according to the company.

Also Read: Google has rolled out Immersive View for Maps across five cities

An Amazon spokeswoman said, “We’re proud of everything Zappos has accomplished since joining forces with Amazon in 2009, and we continue to support their ongoing commitment to delivering the best possible customer experience.”
Source: wsj.com

Suhani Jain

Follow Us