Tech

In a letter to shareholders, Tinder's newly appointed CEO Bernard Kim announced that Tinder's former CEO Renate Nyborg would be leaving the company. In his letter, Kim outlined his "observations" from 62 days on the job. Kim said that Tinder has fallen short on product execution, attracting new users, and getting people to spend money even as it has continued to add new bells and whistles to its app in recent quarters. These additions include an integration with Spotify called "Music Mode," which allows people to share a music "Anthem" on their profile and "Blind Date," a feature that pairs people based on interests before revealing their photos. The letter went with the dating application monster's profit for the three months finishing off with June, which sent Match Group stock down 2...

If you have old gadgets and wires filling up a drawer, you are not alone. Decades of the tech sector's pressure to "innovate or die" have led to a long list of useful and flashy household tech products—but many of these same devices also have a need to be replaced at almost the same rapid rate that new technology emerges. The result of this so-called planned obsolescence, combined with a limited number of options to repair older devices over the years, is a tsunami of electronic waste, also known as e-waste. And the fallout from it extends far beyond the headache of figuring out what to do with the clutter tucked away inside your home. "Planned obsolescence just makes it worse," said Jim Puckett, executive director of BAN Basel Action Network, an e-waste watchdog group based in Seattle. "P...

The parent company SNAP of Snapchat posted worse revenue growth results than it had expected, and its shares tanked more than 25% in after-hours trading on the news. Speaking last month, Snap warned investors that the economy had worsened faster than it expected, and said its revenue growth would likely be at the low end of its previous guidance. On Thursday, the company said revenue grew just 13% to $1.1 billion during the quarter. Snap also posted a quarterly net loss of $422 million, compared to a $152 million loss in the same quarter last year. And daily active users grew 18% year-over-year to more than 347 million, a five percentage-point slowdown in growth rate from the year prior. In a letter to financial backers on Thursday, the organization highlighted "a progression of critica...

A judge on Tuesday ruled that Twitter's lawsuit against Elon Musk over their $44 billion acquisition agreement should go to a five-day trial in October. The decision came at the end of the first hearing in the case over whether to expedite the proceedings. When it filed the suit last week, days after Musk moved to terminate the Twitter purchase deal, Twitter requested a four-day trial in September. Musk's legal team opposed the motion. Tuesday's hearing featured sharply worded arguments from both sides — including Twitter's lawyer at one point referring to Musk as a "committed enemy" — setting the stage for what is almost certain to be a contentious legal battle. Twitter's lead counsel William Savitt showed up cocked and locked against Musk toward the beginning of the consultation as he...

An unusually bright, suspended black hole has been discovered in a nearby new universe, according to a new research based on observations relayed by ESO's Very Large Telescope. Astronomers have discovered a new type of black hole, one that does not emit high levels of X-ray radiation like most black holes. Called a "dormant stellar-mass black hole," this phenomenon had not been "unambiguously detected outside our galaxy," according to the team of US and European Southern Observatory's researchers involved in the study. The recently identified dark opening, called VFTS 243, is something like multiple times the mass of our sun, and it circles a warm, blue star weighing multiple times the sun's mass, making it part of a parallel framework. "It is staggering that we scarcely know abou...

Elon Musk is reportedly trying to get out of a contract to sell Twitter. In this context, Twitter is unwilling to give in. Musk moved to terminate a $44-billion acquisition agreement with Twitter on Friday, alleging that the social media company breached the deal by failing to hand over data he says he needs to evaluate the number of bots and spam accounts on the platform. However, Twitter's legal representatives hit back in a letter to Musk's lawyers Sunday, calling his claims "invalid" and demanding that Musk follow through with the takeover. "Mr. Musk's and the other Musk Parties' purported termination is invalid and wrongful, and it constitutes a repudiation of their obligations under the Agreement," reads the letter from William Savit, a lawyer at Wachtell, Rosen, Lipton and Katz—w...

The UK competition regulator announced Wednesday that it was launching an antitrust investigation into Microsoft's proposed $68.7 billion acquisition of video gaming giant Activision Blizzard. The probe will focus on whether the deal may substantially lessen competition—or create expectations that it might. Microsoft has previously said it expects antitrust officials to scrutinize how the deal, announced in January, may affect competition in the video game industry, app stores and even labor markets. "We expect and believe it's suitable for controllers to investigate this obtaining," Lisa Tanzi, corporate VP and general direction at Microsoft, said in a proclamation Wednesday. "We have been clear about how we intend to maintain our gaming business and why we accept the arrangement will ...

SpaceX's satellite-based internet service, Starlink, has now been given authorization to expand, and will service aircraft, ships, automobiles, RVs and other mobile units. The company has moved to expand its customer base by first providing internet service for roughly $100 per month, primarily to homes in areas that have poor or no ground-based internet service. The company has hundreds of thousands of subscribers around the world. Now, the Elon Musk-led company is likely to begin providing its Starlink service to commercial airlines, possibly beginning with Hawaiian Airlines, which signed a deal in April with SpaceX saying it planned to bring complimentary Starlink services to some of its jets. The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday gave SpaceX permission to expand it...

NetEase appears to be in trouble. The Chinese gaming company postponed the release of a video game that was expected to be released on mainland China this week after its social media accounts were blocked for reportedly politicizing a comment. "Diablo Immortal," which was scheduled to be delivered on Thursday, has been delayed until additional notification, as indicated by a declaration on NetEase's (NTES) Chinese site on Sunday. The title was co-made by NetEase and Blizzard Entertainment, a division of Activision Blizzard (ATVI).   NetEase didn't give motivation to the last-minute postponement, yet proposed in its proclamation that it was making specialized updates to the game. The organization didn't share another delivery date, and declined to remark further regarding this...

Amid a push to pass landmark antitrust legislation, Big Tech is bringing out its heaviest hitters to influence the members whose votes could decide the bill's fate. Google CEO Sundar Pichai will travel to Washington next week to meet with US lawmakers, two people familiar with the plans said. Pichai's excursion comes after Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook was spotted meandering the Senate last week. (Apple didn't answer inquiries on Cook's visit at that point.) It likewise follows a report by Politico that Amazon (AMZN) CEO Andy Jassy has straightforwardly called numerous individuals from Congress to communicate resistance to the bill. In an explanation, an Amazon representative told CNN that Jassy "meets with policymakers on the two sides of the passageway in regards to strategy gives that co...