Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon, wants all employees back in the office starting in 2025. For over a year now, workers have been asked to come to the office three days a week. Soon, Amazon will require folks to be in the office five days each week. People will only be able to work from home if they have a really good reason. Some tech employees are not happy about big companies like Amazon wanting everyone back in the buildings.
A big tech company called Cisco has had to let go of thousands of workers recently. Cisco makes networking tools and technology. In February and again now, Cisco had to reduce its total number of employees. Even though Cisco said it had a very good year recently, it still needed to cut around 10,000 jobs total. I wonder how this affected people working at Cisco? Let me know if you used to work for Cisco and what happened.
Apple just came out with new iPhone 16 models. The iPhone 16 Pro Max seems pretty cool based on hands-on reviews. It has upgraded cameras, a faster chip, and new features for the virtual assistant Siri. Apple also added abilities powered by artificial intelligence. But is all the new stuff enough to make people want to trade in older iPhones?
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Snap made a new pair of glasses called Spectacles that can add computer graphics to the real world. The glasses look big but offer developers a middle ground between smart glasses and headsets for augmented reality. The Spectacles cost $99 per month for companies to try out.
Some people found a way to make money from Citi Bike, the bike share program in New York City. By quickly moving bikes between stations, they could get cash rewards from the company running Citi Bike. But this “station flipping” technique was stopped once companies learned about it.
Users with Apple devices can now update to the new iOS 18 software. The update lets people customize their home screens more. It also makes it easier to text Android users and view photos. But don’t expect super-advanced artificial intelligence yet.
After the new Photos app arrived on iOS 18, some people preferred the older version. That’s why an app called Photon Library was created – it brings back the familiar look and features of Apple’s photos software from before the update.
Discord said secure messaging is coming to its video and audio calls. This means even Discord won’t know what people discuss, for more private conversations on the platform.
Mozilla is ending its experiment by running a server on Mastodon, a social network similar to Twitter. People have until December 17th to download their info or move to another Mastodon provider before Mozilla.social shuts down.
At a tech conference, comedian John Mulaney poked fun at tech culture in San Francisco and artificial intelligence. His jokes helped lighten the mood at the end of a multi-day event for the software company Salesforce.
Sam Altman will step down from an oversight committee at the artificial intelligence company OpenAI. The committee was created by OpenAI to govern important safety decisions. It will now operate independently from the company.
United Airlines will offer free inflight WiFi using internet satellites from SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company. Passengers won’t have to pay for internet access starting in 2025 once United upgrades its planes to connect to Starlink.
