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

Dell Technologies Inc is laying off 6,650 workers, or 5 percent of its worldwide workforce, as it faces challenges with a downturn in the market for personal computers and prepares for a global recession.

Dell’s decision aligns it with a slew of U.S. firms on Monday, ranging from Goldman Sachs Group Corporation to Alphabet Inc, that already have fired thousands this year to weather a demand slump caused by high rising prices and increasing interest rates.

Dell had already implemented cost-cutting measures such as a hiring freeze and travel restrictions because it coped with a post-pandemic slump in PC sales, which also comprise more than half of its earnings.

Also Read: Twitter to start charging developers for API access

However, those actions are “no longer sufficient,” according to Jeff Clarke, the co-Chief Operating Officer, as he stated in a memo to the workforce.

“What we know is market conditions continue to erode with an uncertain future,” Clarke said. Dell expects to book costs related to the layoffs in its fiscal fourth quarter, which ends in January.
Source: reuters.com

HP Inc has also announced job cuts of up to 6,000 people. As per a research company IDC, the PC, as well as tablet market, will decline by 2.6 percent in 2023 after experiencing fast expansion during the global epidemic due to working remotely.

“It was only a matter of time before the wave of tech layoffs reached Dell’s shores, given how sensitive the company is to both consumer and corporate confidence,” said Susannah Streeter, markets analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown.
Source: reuters.com

As of January 28, 2022, Dell had approximately 133,000 staff members, with approximately one-third located in the United States.

Bloomberg News announced the news of the job cuts earlier today.

Dell’s stock was unchanged before the bell.

Also Read: Samsung, Google & Qualcomm team up on mixed-reality platform

According to preliminary findings from industry expert International Data Corp. (IDC), personal computer deliveries will drop dramatically in the final quarter of 2022. According to IDC, Dell experienced the greatest decline within and between major corporations, with a 37 percent drop when compared to the same period in 2021. PCs account for approximately 55 percent of Dell’s earnings.

In 2022, the technical sector declared 97,171 job cuts, an increase of 649 percent compared to the previous year.

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

Why is Meta shutting down Echo VR?

The critically acclaimed virtual reality game Echo VR will be going down in August, Meta announced last week. Since then, previous Meta consulting CTO John Carmack and Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth have both provided additional information about the shutdown.

The multiplayer VR-based game’s developer, Ready At Dawn, said on Tuesday that the game will be ending on August 1st, 2023 in a piece on Medium. According to the statement, gamers can play to their hearts’ content for the time being, buy the game, and re-download it.

However, the article stated that following that, the game’s servers and services would be turned off. Echo Points can still be used by players up until that point, but there will be “no refunds on in-app purchases, DLC, and in-game currencies,” according to the post.

The creator of Echo VR, Ready at Dawn, has given a clue that it would be concentrating on the future. The Echo VR development team stated in a blog post on the closure that “by no means was this decision made lightly.

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But it was made for many good reasons and chief among them is the studio coming together to focus on our next project. We can’t say anything about it yet, but we are all excited and need all hands on deck.”

According to UploadVR, Bosworth stated in an Instagram AMA that while the player base of Echo VR was “loyal as all get out,” it has decreased to the “low ten thousand.” He noted, “Unfortunately, keeping things alive takes work.

This is not like a return on investment money standpoint; it’s just those resources could be put to other uses that I think will be useful to the now tens of millions of people who are in VR.” Additionally, he said that certain “regulatory constraints” in Meta make maintaining the game more expensive.

The servers for Echo VR will continue to run until 1st August at 1 PM ET, after which time they will cease to exist entirely. While one would have thought that Meta would make it playable in a way similar to how Velan Studios is making Knockout City available, Bosworth appears to be ruling that out.

Echo VR has rapidly risen to the level of an e-sport in recent years. According to the Oculus website, Echo VR may be used with the Meta’s Oculus Quest, Quest 2, Meta Quest Pro, and Rift S devices.

Also Read: Why Apex Legends Mobile is shutting down?

After donning their headsets, participants are transported into a zero-gravity arena where they engage in robotic combat using a combination of gaming prowess and athletic prowess. According to The Verge, the game was one of the centerpieces of the Oculus Quest and Rift S launches.

Following the launch of the Meta Quest (formerly Oculus Quest) and Rift S, Facebook acquired Ready At Dawn in 2020, establishing Echo VR as one of the company’s flagship games

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.

Twitter to start charging developers for API access

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

Twitter will stop providing free access to the Twitter API on February 9 and instead will release a paid version as the mini-blogging platform owned by Elon Musk tries new ways to profit from the platform.

The Twitter Developer account announced in several tweets that the company will be discontinuing assistance for both the legacy v1.1 as well as the latest v2 Twitter APIs. It did not say how much it intends to begin charging for API usage right away.

The change comes after Twitter suddenly changed the conditions of its API over the past weeks, the API seems to have been used by many famous Twitter service users, including Tweetbot and Twitterrific. The majority of third-party Twitter applications have discontinued their mobile apps.

“Twitter data are among the world’s most powerful data sets. We’re committed to enabling fast & comprehensive access so you can continue to build with us,” the Twitter Dev account said Thursday. “Over the years, hundreds of millions of people have sent over a trillion Tweets, with billions more every week.”
Source: techcrunch.com

In light of recent modifications which saw Twitter shutter third-party customers, several other application developers became wary of how they progressed development atop the Twitter API. This new change may force some devs to give up their brands or pass the expense on to their consumers.

Also Read: Why major advertisers are leaving Twitter?

Large numbers of developers use the Twitter API for a variety of purposes, including monitoring Twitter accounts and providing alerts. These are enjoyable side projects for those who are unwilling to pay service charges for something which they are not monetizing.

Then there’s yet another type of Twitter API user, the researchers. Twitter’s latest revelation could have an influence on research in a wide range of sectors, such as hateful speech and online harassment.

Academic institutions frequently use Twitter to understand human behavior in various regions. Limiting free API usage could also deter companies from developing methods to detect the dissemination of false information on Twitter.

Ever since its founding, Twitter has had an odd relationship with developers. But, even though there was an inconvenience, both parties benefitted from the relationship.

Also Read: What Does Twitter 200 Million User Email Leak Actually Mean?

Third-party companies were frequently the ones releasing new services and features for Twitter, and the social media platform helped by not charging people for API usage.

Twitter has even aimed to improve relationships with developers in recent times by introducing new programs such as the Twitter toolkit for app discovery. Several of these initiatives have been halted under the new administration.

Suhani Jain

Why Apex Legends Mobile is shutting down?

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

For years, Need for Speed, FIFA, and Apex Legends have been produced by Electronic Arts and its affiliates for consoles, personal computers, and mobile devices. Since its release last year, the battle royale shooter Apex Legends Mobile has gained popularity.

In fact, it most recently took up the Google Play Store’s prize for the best overall game. However, the game has struggled to maintain its momentum in terms of user growth and popularity.

Apex Legends Mobile is sadly being discontinued by the corporation, and it hasn’t even been around for a year. For the following three months, gamers can still access the game and fight their final battles. Additionally, the company has decided to stop working on Battlefield Mobile, a move that suggests mobile FPS games aren’t as popular as they once were.

Also Read: The iPhone may get a microLED display. What does that mean?

Apex Legends Mobile was first released in May 2022 by Lightspeed & Quantum Studios, a Tencent company, and Respawn Entertainment, which is owned by EA. It was made more accessible by the game’s ability to play Apex on devices other than computers and gaming consoles. Just before its first anniversary, on May 1st of this year, Apex’s developers declared a suspension for the mobile edition in a recent post.

The official shutdown is scheduled to begin at 7 PM ET. According to The Verge, gamers will not be able to make any more in-app purchases after Tuesday at 4 PM ET. Unfortunately, the creators have no intention of issuing refunds for any already placed transactions. It is recommended that users use any remaining in-game currency and play the game as much as possible while it still exists.

Players enthusiastically embraced the release of Apex Legends Mobile, according to EA’s announcement. The future battle royale game had two mobile-only legends (characters) and frequent updates that enhanced the characters’ skills and introduced new game modes, but it was shut down due to the content stream falling short of quality standards.

Also Read: Why are so many tech companies laying people off right now?

The decision to shut down Apex Legends Mobile ultimately came down to money because the company’s finances were being negatively impacted by the rapid spike and decrease in player numbers. After a certain point, investing further in fresh Apex Legends Mobile content to draw and keep players became unfeasible for EA and its partners.

We can probably safely predict that the firm won’t start extensively promoting mobile shooters anytime soon. Therefore, before the doors permanently close, be sure to stay in touch with all of your Apex Mobile pals on other platforms in the upcoming three months.

The studio expresses its continued optimism for “mobile as a platform” in a blog post and states that it “looks forward to new opportunities to serve players there in the future.” Players can use their existing Syndicate Gold to play the game without any problems, but they won’t be able to perform any in-app purchases that cost real money.

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.

ChatGPT creator made a free tool for detecting AI-generated text

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

The firm behind the renowned ChatGPT, OpenAI, has launched free software, that it claims can differentiate between text written by humans & text created by AIs. In a press statement, it warns that the classifier is not yet fully reliable.

So, we should not use it as a main decision-making tool. As per OpenAI, it can be useful in determining whether an individual is intending to pass off the obtained text as human-written text.

The tool which is known as a classifier is easy to use, but you require a free OpenAI account to begin using it. Simply insert text into a box, press a button, and it will show you if the content is very unlikely, unlikely, unclear if it is, possibly, or likely generated by AI.

Also Read: China’s Baidu to launch ChatGPT-style bot in March

In its press release, OpenAI says it trained the model powering the tool using “pairs of human-written text and AI-written text on the same topic.”
Source: theverge.com

However, It includes a variety of concerns regarding how to use the tool. The firm stated some drawbacks above the text box:

A requirement of a minimum of 1,000 characters, or roughly 150-250 words, is placed.

The classifier may not always be correct; it can classify both AI-generated as well as human-written text incorrectly.

AI-generated content can be easily edited to avoid detection by the classifier.

Since it was trained mainly on English text written by grownups, the classifier is susceptible to errors when reading text written by kids or text written in a language other than English.

The firm also claims that it will occasionally imprecisely but confidently Identify human-written content as AI, particularly if it deviates greatly from any of the training data. It emphasizes that the classifier is currently a work in progress.

Also Read: BuzzFeed will use ChatGPT bots instead of writers

OpenAI is not the first to create a tool that could detect ChatGPT-created text. Some websites such as GPTZero, created by a student named Edward Tian to identify AI plagiarism, appeared nearly quickly after the chatbot hit the internet.

One area where OpenAI is concentrating its efforts with this detection technology is education.

According to the press release, identifying AI-generated text has been a main concern among educators, as education systems have reacted to ChatGPT by prohibiting or embracing it. According to the firm, it is interacting with educators in the United States to learn what they perceive from ChatGPT in their schools and is asking for feedback from anybody associated with education.

Suhani Jain

Is Apple really coming out with a foldable iPad?

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

As per Ming-Chi Kuo, a Supply chain analyst, Apple could launch a foldable iPad as soon as the next year. Kuo anticipates that it will be joined by a redesigned iPad Mini, which will go into large-scale production in the initial days of 2024.

Kuo didn’t reveal much new information about the rumoured iPad foldable, but he did say it will have a carbon fibre kickstand manufactured by Chinese component producer Anjie Technology.

“I’m positive about the foldable iPad in 2024 and expect this new model will boost shipments and improve the product mix,” he tweeted.
Source: theverge.com

A 2024 launch date is much sooner than the most notable foldable iPad estimation, made by Ross Young who is a Display Supply Chain Consultant analyst last February. He claimed that Apple is working on a foldable iPad/MacBook combination with an approximately 20-inch foldable display, however, it will not be released until 2026.

Afterwards, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman revealed that Apple is looking into a dual-screen foldable, with the bottom half of the screen serving as a virtual keyboard whenever the gadget is utilized as a MacBook-style carrying case.

Also Read: Is 2023 the year for Apple to launch its mixed-reality headset?

Gurman did not provide a specifically planned release estimation but did say in October that Apple’s folding iPad could arrive eventually a bit late in the decade.

This is not the first occasion where Kuo has placed a timeline on an Apple foldable prediction. About two years ago, he predicted a foldable iPhone would be available in 2023.

However, it appears that this gadget will be much smaller, with a display size of 7.5 to 8 inches. Gurman even claims that Apple has addressed the release of a foldable device having a display size roughly comparable to the 6.7-inch iPhone 12 Pro Max.

Considering the recent absence of rumours about a foldable iPhone, it’s difficult to envision it launching in 2023, as Kuo predicted previously.

Also Read: Why are so many tech companies laying people off right now?

Shortly, Kuo predicts a decline in iPad deliveries of between 10 per cent and 15 per cent year on year in 2023. Given the increase in sales appreciated by most customer technology firms amid the covid shutdowns, as well as the declines many have recently suffered, a drop in tablet deliveries this year would not be surprising.

Finally, Kuo predicts that Apple’s next iPad will be the iPad Mini. He anticipates that a new model will go into manufacturing in the first quarter of 2024, following its last refresh in 2021.

Suhani Jain

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