Tech Digest daily roundup: Donald Trump’s YouTube account reinstated
YouTube has reinstated Donald Trump’s account following a two-year suspension from the video-sharing platform. The move follows similar decisions taken by Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and Elon Musk-owned Twitter. The former US president was banned from posting YouTube videos in January 2021, with YouTube saying at the time that his channel had broken its rules over the incitement of violence. But his account is now back online, according to YouTube’s press account. “Starting today, the Donald J. Trump channel is no longer restricted and can upload new content,” Google-owned YouTube wrote on Twitter. BBC
Elon Musk says Twitter will now send all journalists an automatic poop emoji when they make a press request to the social media platform. The billionaire tweeted out the new policy, saying “[email protected] now auto responds with (emoji).” An email sent by The Independent to the Twitter press team on Sunday instantly received a poop emoji in return. Mr Musk, who already has no press team at Tesla, fired the press team at Twitter during massive layoffs after he bought the company for an eye-popping $44bn last October. Independent
Virgin Orbit has begun drawing up detailed contingency plans for its insolvency days after halting its operations and furloughing its workforce. Sky News has learnt that the commercial space satellite venture founded by Sir Richard Branson‘s Virgin Group is working with Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) and Ducera, two restructuring firms, on fallback plans in the event that it cannot secure new funding. The decision to line up the advisers underlines the parlous nature of Virgin Orbit’s finances, even as it continues talks with a small number of prospective investors about providing sufficient funding to restart its operations. Sky News
The second-generation HomePod is one of the most inconsistent speakers I’ve tested. In large open-plan spaces it sounds great. But sit in the wrong place, such as directly facing a sofa that is positioned against a wall in a medium-sized living room, and the HomePod can sound entirely dominated by baggy, booming bass, which is extremely disappointing for a £299 speaker. You cannot natively play music to it from Android or Windows, so only all-Apple households should even consider it and it needs an Apple Music subscription to get the best out of it. The Guardian
Compared to Maps for Android and iOS, Google makes relatively few visual updates to the Maps website. Google Maps is now testing a sidebar on the web that provides convenient access to recently viewed places. For some, Google Maps on the web now sports a navigation rail on the left edge that features a hamburger button that opens the same drawer as before and two tabs that open your list of “Saved” places and “Recents.” What’s even more convenient is how recently viewed places — including locations and cities — will also appear in the sidebar. 9to5Google
The U.S. Copyright Office has weighed in on who owns AI-generated work in the era of ChatGPT. This week, the federal agency published new guidance about AI and copyright law, saying it is open to granting ownership to AI-generated work on a “case-by-case” basis. “The Office will consider whether the AI contributions are the result of ‘mechanical reproduction’ or instead of an author’s ‘own original mental conception, to which [the author] gave visible form,'” said Shira Perlmutter, director of the Copyright Office. Mashable
