WebProNews

Year: 2023

  • WhatsApp Launches Worldwide Proxy Support

    WhatsApp Launches Worldwide Proxy Support

    WhatsApp is making it easier for users to stay connected despite disruptions, with worldwide proxy support.

    WhatsApp is the most used messaging platform globally, and is used as a primary means of communication for many. Because of this, as well as its end-to-end encryption support, WhatsApp is often a prime target for governments and oppressive regimes.

    “Our wish for 2023 is that these internet shutdowns never occur,” the company writes in a blog post. “Disruptions like we’ve seen in Iran for months on end deny people’s human rights and cut people off from receiving urgent help. Though in case these shutdowns continue, we hope this solution helps people wherever there is a need for secure and reliable communication.”

    The company’s “solution” to ensure users can stay connected is the launch of worldwide support for proxy connections.

    “Choosing a proxy enables you to connect to WhatsApp through servers set up by volunteers and organizations around the world dedicated to helping people communicate freely,” the blog continues. “If you have the ability to help others connect, you can learn how to set up a proxy here.”

    WhatsApp assures users that the service will still offer the same level of security and end-to-end encryption, even if users opt to connect via a proxy.

    “Connecting via proxy maintains the high level of privacy and security that WhatsApp provides,” the company adds. “Your personal messages will still be protected by end-to-end encryption — ensuring they stay between you and the person you’re communicating with and are not visible to anyone in between, not the proxy servers, WhatsApp, or Meta.”

    The announcement is good news for privacy advocates, journalists, and anyone else who needs to communicate under difficult circumstances or government oppression.

  • FTC Wants to Eliminate Noncompete Agreements

    FTC Wants to Eliminate Noncompete Agreements

    The Federal Trade Commission has proposed a rule that would ban noncompete clauses in the US labor market.

    Noncompete clauses are a common part of many employment agreements, barring an individual from working for a competing company when their employment ends. The FTC believes that eliminating such agreements would add some $300 billion per year to workers’ earnings.

    “The freedom to change jobs is core to economic liberty and to a competitive, thriving economy,” said Chair Lina M. Khan. “Noncompetes block workers from freely switching jobs, depriving them of higher wages and better working conditions, and depriving businesses of a talent pool that they need to build and expand. By ending this practice, the FTC’s proposed rule would promote greater dynamism, innovation, and healthy competition.”

    At a time when tens of thousands of workers are being laid off, eliminating noncompete agreements would expand employment opportunities for 30 million Americans, many of them in the industries hardest hit by layoffs.

    “Research shows that employers’ use of noncompetes to restrict workers’ mobility significantly suppresses workers’ wages—even for those not subject to noncompetes, or subject to noncompetes that are unenforceable under state law,” said Elizabeth Wilkins, Director of the Office of Policy Planning. “The proposed rule would ensure that employers can’t exploit their outsized bargaining power to limit workers’ opportunities and stifle competition.”

    The new rule, which is open for public comment, would apply to employees, as well as “independent contractors and anyone who works for an employer, whether paid or unpaid. It would also require employers to rescind existing noncompetes and actively inform workers that they are no longer in effect.”

  • Amazon’s Layoff Plans Grow to 18,000

    Amazon’s Layoff Plans Grow to 18,000

    Amazon layoff plans have grown to nearly twice their original scope, with the company now planning on laying off 18,000 workers.

    Reports surfaced in November that Amazon was planning to lay off as many as 10,000 employees. Like many in the tech industry, the company was looking for ways to weather the economic downturn.

    Fast-forward two months, and CEO Andy Jassy has written a blog post notifying employees of the company’s intention to lay off 18,000 workers, not 10,000. Jassy says recent reviews revealed the need to lay off more individuals than was previously planned.

    “Today, I wanted to share the outcome of these further reviews, which is the difficult decision to eliminate additional roles,” Jassy writes. “Between the reductions we made in November and the ones we’re sharing today, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles. Several teams are impacted; however, the majority of role eliminations are in our Amazon Stores and PXT organizations.”

    Jassy says he initially planned to publicly reveal the increased scope of the layoffs only after the individuals impacted were notified. However, news of the layoffs was leaked, with The Wall Street Journal breaking the story, causing Jassy to publicly acknowledge the plans.

    “We typically wait to communicate about these outcomes until we can speak with the people who are directly impacted,” “However, because one of our teammates leaked this information externally, we decided it was better to share this news earlier so you can hear the details directly from me. We intend on communicating with impacted employees (or where applicable in Europe, with employee representative bodies) starting on January 18.”

    Amazon’s layoffs are sure to raise concerns over the state of the economy, as the company is engaging in mass layoffs during what is normally its businesses season.

  • Meta Fined Another $414 Million Over Online Ads

    Meta Fined Another $414 Million Over Online Ads

    The European Union has once again fined Meta, this time to the tune of $414 million, over forcing ads on individuals.

    Meta uses its user agreement contracts to force individuals to accept ads based on their activity. According The Wall Street Journal, EU regulators have determined that Meta cannot force users to accept the ads, and that users should have the ability to opt out of them.

    As part of the decision, the EU is fining Meta $414 million and giving the company three months to make the necessary adjustments and stop forcing behavioral ads on its users.

    Meta has already said it disagrees with the decision and will appeal the decision and fine.

    “We strongly believe our approach respects GDPR, and we’re therefore disappointed by these decisions,” a spokesman said.

    Should the decision and fine be upheld, it will be a major shift in online advertising for companies within the EU bloc.

  • Adobe CEO: Pandemic Was Inflection Point For Everything Being Digital

    Adobe CEO: Pandemic Was Inflection Point For Everything Being Digital

    “What the pandemic and the current health situation has done is that it has created yet another inflection point for everything being digital,” says Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen. “The importance of digital in the marketplace is going to be sustainable for decades. You’re not going to put the genie back in the bottle as it relates to engaging digitally and creating content digitally.”

    Shantanu Narayen, Chairman and CEO of Adobe, discusses how the pandemic has created another “inflection point” in the move toward digital transformation:

    Digital Transformation Is A $120 Billion Opportunity

    It was a good quarter all around. All of our businesses performed exceedingly well. On the Creative Cloud and the Document Cloud, not only did we have a great acquisition. in other words, new customers adopting the platform, but we really focused on engagement and demonstrating the value of our products to our customers. Even our retention levels came back to pre-COVID levels which we believe is a really good sign.

    What’s happening in the world is the businesses that we’re in, namely creativity and enabling people to tell their story, what’s happening with documents and accelerating document productivity, and what’s happening associated with every single enterprise needing to engage with their customers digitally, when you add all of this up we think it’s over a $120 billion of an addressable market opportunity for Adobe.

    Pandemic Was Inflection Point For Everything Being Digital

    What the pandemic and the current health situation has done is that it has created yet another inflection point for everything being digital. What we will have to continue to monitor is what happens in the spending environment. But as it relates to the overall need for the kinds of solutions that Adobe provides as well as the importance of digital in the marketplace I think that’s going to be sustainable for decades. You’re not going to put the genie back in the bottle as it relates to engaging digitally and creating content digitally.

    We believe that we’re in this third phase of what is happening in the enterprise. Traditionally, businesses first focused on automating the back office, and then they focused on automating the front office for knowledge workers. It’s absolutely clear that the biggest imperative that exists in the enterprise today is how do you engage with customers? This is a category that we call Customer Experience Management.

    Customer Insight Is Key To Your Digital Transformation

    If you’re an enterprise today and you’re thinking about digital transformation, what’s top of that stack in terms of where you have to invest is to make sure that you have insight into what your customers are doing. How are they engaging with you? What’s the profile? How do you deliver the personalized experience?

    We really believe that what you’re seeing in the enterprise spend environment is that the companies that are focused on this next generation of delivering customer engagement, the customer experiences, and the insight associated with how to take the most advantage of that data, they’re going to be the secular winners moving forward.

    Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen: Pandemic Was Inflection Point For Everything Being Digital
  • Salesforce Is Laying Off 10% of Its Workforce

    Salesforce Is Laying Off 10% of Its Workforce

    Salesforce has become one of the first major companies to announce layoffs in the new year, with plans to cut 10% of its workforce.

    Layoffs became a major fixture of the tech industry during the latter half of 2022, with tens of thousands of workers laid off. Salesforce has rung in the new year by informing employees that 10% of them will be let go.

    The layoffs mark the latest in a string of setbacks the company has experienced, including the loss of co-CEO Bret Taylor and Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield.

    A copy of CEO Marc Benioff’s email to employees was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission:

    Date: January 4, 2023 Subject: Important Company Update

    As one ‘Ohana, over the last 23 years, Salesforce has built the #1 CRM that drives incredible customer success across every line of business for every industry around the world. We have never been more mission-critical to our customers. We have an unparalleled ecosystem, with thousands of partners and millions of Trailblazers building their companies on our platform.

    However, the environment remains challenging and our customers are taking a more measured approach to their purchasing decisions. With this in mind, we’ve made the very difficult decision to reduce our workforce by about 10 percent, mostly over the coming weeks.

    I’ve been thinking a lot about how we came to this moment. As our revenue accelerated through the pandemic, we hired too many people leading into this economic downturn we’re now facing, and I take responsibility for that.

    Within the next hour, employees who are initially affected by this decision will receive an email letting them know. Our leadership will reach out directly to these employees, and provide clarity for their teams about changes within their organizations.

    For those who will be leaving Salesforce, our priority is to fully support them, including by offering a generous package. In the U.S., affected employees will receive a minimum of nearly five months of pay, health insurance, career resources, and other benefits to help with their transition. Those outside the U.S. will receive a similar level of support, and our local processes will align with employment laws in each country.

    The employees being affected aren’t just colleagues. They’re friends. They’re family. Please reach out to them. Offer the compassion and love they and their families deserve and need now more than ever. And most of all, please lean on your leadership, including me, as we work through this difficult time together.

    I’m grateful for every single one of you who has contributed to our continued success as a company, and the hard work and sacrifices you have made to generate success for our hundreds of thousands of customers. You’ve built our company — for all of our stakeholders — and you’ve shown incredible resilience every step of the way.

    With gratitude, Marc

  • Microsoft Leveraging ChatGPT to Help Bing Take On Google

    Microsoft Leveraging ChatGPT to Help Bing Take On Google

    Google may be hesitant to deploy a ChatGPT-like version of its search engine, but Microsoft sees it as a way to better compete.

    According to The Information, via Reuters, Microsoft is working with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into a version of Bing in the hopes it will prove a greater challenge to Google’s search dominance. OpenAI and Microsoft have a long history of cooperation and partnership, with Microsoft investing in the AI company and gaining exclusive access to some of its technology.

    Google has already decided to play it much more cautious, calling ChatGPT and similar technologies a “reputational risk.” Given its dominance in the search industry, Google has to be much more careful about the results it provides.

    Read more: How Microsoft Is Outmaneuvering Google

    Microsoft clearly believes being second-place in the industry gives it more room to maneuver and take risks that Google is unwilling to take.

    The company’s approach is not unlike its approach to gaining Netflix as an advertising customer. While Google played it safe, hesitating to commit to Netflix’s needs, Microsoft showed an almost startup-like aggressiveness and willingness to do whatever was needed to secure the contract.

    Should Microsoft’s efforts to integrate ChatGPT into Bing prove successful, it could well be a way for Microsoft to make major headway against Google.

  • Twitter Will Allow Political Ads On the Platform

    Twitter Will Allow Political Ads On the Platform

    Twitter is doing an about-face, relaxing its stance on political ads to be more aligned with television.

    Twitter has had a policy of no political ads for some time, but the company is struggling to keep advertisers following Elon Musk’s takeover of the company. The company’s Safety Account announced the change in a tweet:

    Moving forward, we will align our advertising policy with that of TV and other media outlets. As with all policy changes, we will first ensure that our approach to reviewing and approving content protects people on Twitter. We’ll share more details as this work progresses.

    Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety), January 3, 2023

    Anyone who previously looked to the platform as a way to escape the mind-numbing onslaught of political ads on TV now have one more reason to make the move to Mastodon.

  • Oracle Poised to Be Big Cloud Winner in 2023

    Oracle Poised to Be Big Cloud Winner in 2023

    Oracle is poised to be a big winner in the cloud industry in 2023, thanks to a combination of factors, including its “modest valuation.”

    Oracle is not one of the cloud market’s Big Three — AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud — but has nonetheless made significant headway in the market, including scoring major contracts and poaching customers from its larger rivals.

    According to Seeking Alpha, Monness, Crespi, Hardt analyst Brian White said the company was “well positioned” going into 2023. In particular, the company was a “steady hand in a treacherous market,” seeing less of a stock decline than many in the tech industry.

    “In our view, no company is immune to an economic downturn; however, we believe the tailwind of the Oracle Cloud and the stock’s modest valuation provide some downside protection,” White wrote to clients.

    Oracle’s stature was also boosted by its inclusion in the $9 billion multi-vendor Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC), the successor to the abandoned Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contact.

    White called it a “prestigious win” and says it shows just how much progress Oracle has made in the cloud market.

  • Twitch Addresses Major Outage

    Twitch Addresses Major Outage

    Twitch has addressed a major outage that impacted virtually all users and made it impossible to watch streams.

    The issue manifested Tuesday, with the company acknowledging the outage on its status page:

    Investigating – We have received reports of impacted services. This could manifest in chat not working, login difficulties, search impaired, etc. We’re looking into the issue.

    During the outage, users were unable to access streamers’ pages, and were met with “error loading followed channels” errors, according to The Verge.

    Twitch says the issue has been resolved.

  • Shopify Unveils ‘Chaos Monkey 2023,’ Limiting Meetings and Slack

    Shopify Unveils ‘Chaos Monkey 2023,’ Limiting Meetings and Slack

    Shopify is aiming to disrupt the workplace with a new initiative called “Chaos Monkey 2023,” one that limits meetings and Slack usage.

    Like many companies, Shopify is working to adjust to a post-pandemic economy, one that may be on the verge of a recession. The company is hoping “chaos engineering” will help it be more nimble and better able to move forward.

    “Chaos engineering is the practice of experimenting with a system to build confidence in that system’s ability to withstand turbulent conditions in production,” the company said in internal documents viewed by Business Insider. “It’s also known as chaos monkey, and at Shopify, we apply this practice not just in building great products for our merchants – but in everything we do.”

    As part of its new strategy, the company has ended meetings involving more than two people, and all meetings on Wednesday. Large meetings, of 50 or more staff, will be restricted to a specific time-frame on Thursdays.

    In addition, the company de-populated all of its public Slack channels, removing all employees from them, deleting chat history, and lowering their limits to 150 people per channel. The company is evidently moving the bulk of its communication to Workspace by Meta, with Slack only serving as a direct message platform.

    “We’ve forced our async work into Slack – it’s bloated, noisy, and distracting,” said COO and Vice President of Product Kaz Nejatian. “We have endless channel updates mixed with broad announcements and pineapple on pizza debates.” 

    The company acknowledges the plan is disruptive, which is exactly what executives are hoping for.

    “All of this feels chaotic, which is kind of the point,” Nejatian said.

    After laying off 1,000 employees in July, only time will tell if Chaos Monkey 2023 helps the company achieve its goals.

  • Apple Drops Out of the $2 Trillion Club

    Apple Drops Out of the $2 Trillion Club

    Apple’s valuation has dropped below $2 trillion for the first time since mid-2022, after its stock price dropped 3% Tuesday.

    Apple became the first US company to cross $2 trillion in valuation in August 2020, with Microsoft and Google following suit. The company then hit $3 trillion in January 2022.

    As CNBC points out, Apple has not been immune to the economic downturn in the wake of the pandemic. iPhone 14 orders have been lower than expected, and the company has reportedly begun the process of scaling back production on a range of products, including MacBooks, AirPods, and the Apple Watch.

  • South Korea Fines Tesla $2.2 Million for Short-Changing EV Ranges

    South Korea Fines Tesla $2.2 Million for Short-Changing EV Ranges

    Tesla has been fined $2.2 million for not disclosing conditions in which the range of Tesla EVs may be less than advertised.

    According to Reuters, the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) has leveled the fine against Tesla for exaggerating the “driving ranges of its cars on a single charge, their fuel cost-effectiveness compared to gasoline vehicles as well as the performance of its Superchargers.”

    In particular, the KFTC says Tesla EVs’ range can drop by 50.5% in cold weather, something that was not disclosed in the company’s advertising.

    The fine is the latest setback for the US-based EV company, amid falling stock prices over concerns about Musk’s leadership.

  • Apple Increasing Battery Replacement Cost for Most iPhones

    Apple Increasing Battery Replacement Cost for Most iPhones

    The majority of Apple iPhone users will have to pay significantly more for battery replacements on iPhone 13 and older models.

    First noticed by 9to5Mac, Apple made the announcement on a support page. According to the outlet, the price for out-of-warranty battery replacements for all iPhone models, aside from the iPhone 14, will increase by $20.

    From now until the end of February, Apple will perform battery replacements for $69. Beginning March 1, however, the price will be $89.

  • Epic CEO: Fortnite Is Returning to iOS in 2023

    Epic CEO: Fortnite Is Returning to iOS in 2023

    Fortnite fans may be in for a nice surprise, with Epic CEO Tim Sweeney saying the game may come back to iOS in 2023.

    Fortnite has been absent from the App Store since Epic and Apple’s legal squabbles. Epic decided to stop paying Apple’s App Store fees, resulting in Fortnite being banned from the App Store and sparking a legal fight between the two companies. After Apple largely won the legal battle, it appears Epic may finally be ready to make peace and try to get Fortnite back on Apple’s platform.

    Sweeney tweeted about the possibility on the last day of 2022:

  • COVID Accelerated Digital Transformation, Says DocuSign CEO

    COVID Accelerated Digital Transformation, Says DocuSign CEO

    “We have seen significant acceleration since the COVID-19 pandemic,” says DocuSign CEO Dan Springer. “A significant portion of that (increase) was due to increased use cases from customers driving that digital transformation faster with services like DocuSign. We don’t see customers going back. Once they’ve got the benefits from that efficiency in their business, the better customer experience, and the better employee experience, they’re going to stay in a digitally transformed world.”

    Dan Springer, CEO of DocuSign, discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digital transformation and he says that businesses are not going back to a manual world:

    COVID Pandemic Accelerated Digital Transformation

    We’ve been really pleased with the growth we’ve had since going public a few years. We have also seen significant acceleration since the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s obviously a horrible pandemic and our number one priority has been the health and wellbeing of our employees so we can take good care of our customers. As you can see in our Q1 earnings we did see an acceleration of our bookings to 59 percent.

    Traditionally, if you look at the billings-type metric they have been in the mid-30s’. A significant portion of that (increase) was due to increased use cases from customers driving that digital transformation faster with services like DocuSign.

    Companies To Stay In This Digitally Transformed World

    One of the things we’ve seen with the pandemic impact is that it has really accelerated the path that companies were already on to drive that digital transformation. We don’t see companies after the pandemic settles down going back and saying they want more paper and more manual processes.

    Once they’ve got the benefits from that efficiency in their business, the better customer experience, and the better employee experience, they’re going to stay in a digitally transformed world. They are going to use DocuSign and other fantastic services to do that.

    The Future Is Going To Have eSignature At The Center

    We really think that the future is going to have eSignature at the center of what we call the overall Agreement Cloud. Companies want to be more agreeable. They want to be easier to do business with and be easier to do business for. They’re going to not just use DocuSign for signature but all of the other components of preparing agreements and managing those agreements digitally once they’ve been created. That’s why we’re excited about our very robust future.

    We just past a billion dollars in revenue (for DocuSign eSignature). We are only four percent penetrated today and we’re six times larger than the next biggest player in the space. There’s not a lot of penetration yet in that core business. Notary is still predominantly done manually. We are making investments there. We believe we can bring the same ease of use that we brought to eSignature we can bring to notary.

    AI To Power The DocuSign Agreement Cloud

    Much bigger than that, even expanding upon the opportunity of eSignature is that broader Agreement Cloud opportunity. We think this is the next big cloud opportunity. You are going to see companies increasingly say I don’t just want to do the workflow and signature. I also want to drive the creations of those agreements. I want to think about artificial intelligence and search capability to manage my agreements. This would enable me to actually manage my business and make my company more agreeable.

    Those are some of the investments we’re making. That’s why we just finished the acquisition of Seal Software last month so we can bring additional artificial intelligence and analytic capability to help people run their businesses better.

    COVID Accelerated Digital Transformation, Says DocuSign CEO Dan Springer
  • California Landlord Sues Twitter for Not Paying Rent

    California Landlord Sues Twitter for Not Paying Rent

    California Property Trust is suing Twitter for $136,250, saying the company has stopped honoring its rental agreement.

    Since buying the company, Elon Musk has been aggressively cutting costs and scaling back expenses. Unfortunately, one of the ways he has been doing that is by reneging on agreements and leaving bills unpaid.

    According to Engadget, Twitter stopped paying rent, leaving California Property Trust little choice but to sue in order to get paid. This isn’t the only instance of Twitter defaulting on its rental agreements, with the company reportedly defaulting on agreements for all of its global offices.

    Similarly, Twitter is also being sued for refusing to pay for charter flights Musk took in his first days at Twitter..

    The news is just the latest example of Musk’s erratic behavior since taking over the social media company.

  • Amazon Is Shutting Down the Consumer Version of Wickr

    Amazon Is Shutting Down the Consumer Version of Wickr

    Amazon has announced it is shutting down Wickr Me, the consumer version of its ultra-secure messaging app.

    Amazon acquired Wickr in June 2021. Wickr is a messaging app that offers end-to-end encryption and does not require a phone number or other identifying information to register. Its security and privacy make it a popular option among government agencies, such as US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), but also among criminals.

    With mounting criticism over how Wickr is used, Amazon has decided to suspend new signups for Wickr Me and ultimately shut the service down altogether:

    At Wickr, we’ve served a diverse set of customers that range from the boardroom to the battlefield. Since AWS acquired Wickr in 2021, we’ve listened closely to our customers to better understand their requirements for end-to-end encryption. After careful consideration, we will be concentrating Wickr’s focus on securing our business and public sector customers’ data and communications with AWS Wickr and Wickr Enterprise, and have decided to discontinue our consumer product, Wickr Me. As a result, we will not accept user registrations for Wickr Me after December 31, 2022, and will discontinue Wickr Me on December 31, 2023.

  • Fixie.ai CEO: AI Will Lead to ‘The End of Programming’

    Fixie.ai CEO: AI Will Lead to ‘The End of Programming’

    Matt Welsh, CEO of Fixie.ai, has made the bold prediction that AI will lead to “the end of programming.”

    Many companies are working to improve AI systems to the point where they can tackle complex problems, such as computer programming. While progress has been made, there are still significant limitations. Despite that, Welsh believes the time is coming when AI systems will revolutionize the software industry.

    Writing in January’s Communications of the ACM, Welsh makes the case that AI will ultimately replace software altogether, in most situations at least:

    I believe the conventional idea of “writing a program” is headed for extinction, and indeed, for all but very specialized applications, most software, as we know it, will be replaced by AI systems that are trained rather than programmed. In situations where one needs a “simple” program (after all, not everything should require a model of hundreds of billions of parameters running on a cluster of GPUs), those programs will, themselves, be generated by an AI rather than coded by hand.

    Welsh believes the definition of software engineers will fundamentally change, with an emphasis on AI training models:

    So I am not just talking about things like Github’s CoPilot replacing programmers.1 I am talking about replacing the entire concept of writing programs with training models. In the future, CS students are not going to need to learn such mundane skills as how to add a node to a binary tree or code in C++. That kind of education will be antiquated, like teaching engineering students how to use a slide rule.

    The engineers of the future will, in a few keystrokes, fire up an instance of a four-quintillion-parameter model that already encodes the full extent of human knowledge (and then some), ready to be given any task required of the machine. The bulk of the intellectual work of getting the machine to do what one wants will be about coming up with the right examples, the right training data, and the right ways to evaluate the training process. Suitably powerful models capable of generalizing via few-shot learning will require only a few good examples of the task to be performed. Massive, human-curated datasets will no longer be necessary in most cases, and most people “training” an AI model will not be running gradient descent loops in PyTorch, or anything like it. They will be teaching by example, and the machine will do the rest.

    Welsh’s predictions are certainly among the most optimistic regarding AI’s future. Nonetheless, at the pace with which the technology is improving, his predictions are certainly not outside the realm of possibliity.

  • Verizon Shuts Down Its 3G Network

    Verizon Shuts Down Its 3G Network

    Verizon has joined T-Mobile and AT&T, finally shutting down its 3G network as of December 31, 2022.

    Verizon is the last of the three nationwide carriers in the US to sunset its 3G network. AT&T shut down its legacy network in February 2022, with T-Mobile following suit between March and July 2022.

    According to Fierce Wireless, Verizon has sent customers a letter outlining the change:

    “Starting the day before your December 2022 bill cycle begins, if you are a Verizon customer using a 3G CDMA or 4G phone device that does not support our newer network technologies, your line will be suspended without billing and will lose the ability to call, text, or use data.”

    All three carriers have been keen to shutter their 3G networks to help free up spectrum for newer tech, but Verizon finally shuttering its 3G network marks the end of an era.

  • Dark Sky Weather App Is Officially Dead

    Dark Sky Weather App Is Officially Dead

    The highly-rated Dark Sky weather has reached the end of its life, with January 1, 2023 marking the end of its path.

    Apple purchased the Dark Sky weather app in early 2020. The app gained popularity by offering hyperlocal weather information. Apple purchased the app to incorporate its features into the iOS Weather app.

    Fans of the app can still access the website for a couple more months, according to the company blog:

    As previously announced, the Dark Sky iOS app will no longer be available beginning on December 31st, 2022 and, as of this date, already purchased versions of the app will no longer provide weather data. The Dark Sky API and website will continue to function until March 31st, 2023.