Iger is back, Trump is back, Ye is back, and Elon Musk, well, he never leaves the news cycle.
Ex-Disney CEO Bob Iger is back at the helm of the Mouse House in an announcement that surprised everyone, including Disney executives and some employees who thought Iger’s email announcing the change came from a hacked account, according to the Wall Street Journal. The outgoing Bob — Bob Chapek — wasn’t even quoted in Disney’s official announcement.
Elon Musk brought Trump, Ye, and others back to Twitter, despite previously saying that “no major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen” before a new content moderation council “with widely diverse viewpoints” had a chance to convene. Trump has yet to tweet, but Ye returned with an is-thing-on??? mic test followed by the Jewish greeting for peace.
Stay tuned, as we continue to update this list with the most important news of today: Monday, November 21st, 2022.
Bob Iger steps back in as Disney CEO, replacing Bob Chapek
After missing the onset of the pandemic, Iger returns to a very different company than the one he left, and he’s expected to select yet another successor.
Ubisoft is back to releasing games on Steam, including Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
It’s been a bit since Ubisoft put big games on the service.
- AThis is the Twitter account Elon Musk should be worried most about losing.
Apple’s Phil Schiller, who runs the App Store, has deactivated his verified Twitter account. If Schiller has soured on how Elon Musk is running Twitter, that is potentially very bad news for Musk.
Don’t believe me? Then listen to Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth:
“Failure to adhere to Apple’s and Google’s guidelines would be catastrophic, risking Twitter’s expulsion from their app stores and making it more difficult for billions of potential users to get Twitter’s services. This gives Apple and Google enormous power to shape the decisions Twitter makes.”
Elon Musk is laying off even more Twitter workers
The latest round of layoffs affects Twitter’s sales teams.
- R“Horizon Workrooms is bad.”
If you haven’t listened to this week's episode of The Vergecast yet or read Adi Robertson’s review of the Meta Quest Pro headset, that line about sums it up.
On the other hand, can you afford to miss Meta’s Notorious B.I.G. “VR concert experience” on December 16th?
It’s unclear exactly what that will be like, but this blog post makes the point that maybe Meta could have focused on living artists. It points out several who already perform VRChat, and other platforms that succeed in ways the Horizon environments haven’t yet.
- EAlexa isn’t pulling its weight.
Internal documents obtained by Insider indicate that Amazon’s Alexa division made up the “vast majority” of the over $3 billion that the company lost across its “Worldwide Digital” department, which includes Alexa, Echo devices, Prime Video, and other products.
Amazon confirmed layoffs affecting thousands of employees on its hardware and services teams last week, and the company’s CEO says to expect even more job cuts next year.
Amazon is gutting its voice-assistant Alexa.[Business Insider]
Nov 20, 2022James Vincent and Sean Hollister
Elon Musk says he’s letting Donald Trump back on Twitter
He justified the decision based on the results of a personal Twitter poll. “The people have spoken,” Musk decreed.
- NReddit’s software community is laughing at Elon.
Musk posted an image from his late-night Twitter “code review” and… well, at least we got this very funny Reddit thread out of it.