Meme stock AMC Entertainment Holdings soared in premarket trading on Monday after a judge blocked the theater chain's

FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 24, 2023--

Elon Musk’s plan to build an “everything app” is underway. After rebranding Twitter to X, the tech billionaire encouraged users to rethink the “whole concept” of what the platform is. Before he even purchased Twitter in October 2022, Mr Musk said that buying the site was an “accelerant” to creating a super app akin to China’s WeChat, India’s PayTM and Indonesia’s GoJek. These apps offer users the ability to not just make posts, but also send and receive payments, watch and listen to content, and even access services like booking taxis or ordering food deliveries. Earlier this month, Mr Musk reportedly secured money-transmitting licenses in three US states, suggesting it is already preparing to become a payments business. Linda Yaccarino, who took over as the chief executive of Twitter last month, gave more details about what the new X app will become, tweeting on Sunday that the rebranding was part of the company’s goal to “transform the global town square” beyond a social network. “X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centred in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine,” she tweeted. “For years, fans and critics alike have pushed Twitter to dream bigger, to innovate faster, and to fulfil our great potential. X will do that and more. We’ve already started to see X take shape over the past 8 months through our rapid feature launches, but we’re just getting started.” X did not respond to a request for further information from The Independent about when such changes might take place. Shortly before his takeover of Twitter was complete, Mr Musk tweeted: “Twitter probably accelerates X by three to five years, but I could be wrong.” Mr Musk has had access to the X.com domain since 2000, during which time he was working on PayPal. Before rebranding Twitter, the website simply showed the letter ‘X’, but now redirects to Twitter.com. Earlier this year, Twitter changed its business name to X Corp to align with Mr Musk’s “everything app” vision, but social media experts have questioned whether such a concept could ever work outside of Asia. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” industry commentator Matt Navarra said at the time of Mr Musk’s takeover. “Super apps, as they are known in the industry, are not a new thing. They’ve been hugely successful in Asia, but have not really caught on elsewhere. Could Twitter form part of a super app that lets you buy goods, chat to friends, get news updates, book a taxi etc.? Sure. Can Elon Musk make it work? Possibly. Will Elon actually do it? Who knows. He seems to have commitment issues.” Others have raised concerns about whether ditching the Twitter brand and associated bird logo could further damage the platform’s reputation, which has been under heavy scrutiny since Mr Musk’s takeover last year. “By changing Twitter’s app name, Elon Musk will have single handedly wiped out over fifteen years of a brand name that has secured its place in our cultural lexicon,” Mike Proulx, a research director at advisory firm Forrester, told The Independent. “This is an extremely risky move because with ‘X,’ Musk is essentially starting over while its competition is afoot.” Read More Twitter rebrands to X as part of Elon Musk’s plan to create an ‘everything app’ Twitter no longer exists as a company Twitter rebrands to X as part of Elon Musk’s plan to create an ‘everything app’ DMs may come to Threads soon as app’s user base grows to one-fifth of Twitter’s Twitter in negative cash flow due to 50% drop in advertising revenue, says Elon Musk

China’s government has appealed to Japan not to disrupt the semiconductor industry after Japanese curbs on exports of chip-making technology took effect, adding to technology restrictions Washington and its allies on security grounds have imposed on Beijing on security grounds

Elon Musk has unveiled a new black and white “X” logo to replace Twitter’s famous blue bird as he follows through with a major rebranding of the the social media platform he bought for $44 billion last year

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 24, 2023--

In a radical rebranding, Twitter owner Elon Musk has begun the process of replacing Twitter's iconic bird logo with X.

Twitter has rebranded to X as part of Elon Musk’s plan to create an “everything app”. The tech billionaire, who took over the platform in October 2022, launched the new logo over the weekend after crowdsourcing ideas for users. He also reportedly informed employees by email that Twitter would become X, as well as redirected the domain X.com to Twitter.com. Mr Musk said Twitter’s famous blue bird logo would eventually be phased out entirely. Linda Yaccarino, who Mr Musk hired to be the chief executive of Twitter last month, confirmed the switch in a series of tweets late on Sunday. “It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression,” she wrote. “Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square.” Ms Yaccarino described the app as the “future state of unlimited interactivity”, incorporating audio, video, messaging, payments and banking. “There’s absolutely no limit to this transformation,” she added. “X will be the platform that can deliver, well... everything.” Mike Proulx, research director at Forrester, said on Sunday that the move would further alienate Twitter’s original, and once fiercely loyal, user base. “On the one hand, you can make the argument he would be getting rid of an iconic brand. On the other hand, he is signalling it is a new day for what was once Twitter and that the company is heading in a different direction with a different user base.” Mr Musk said in a Sunday post he wanted to change Twitter’s logo and polled his millions of followers whether they would favour changing the site’s colour scheme from blue to black. He posted a picture of a stylized X against a black outer space-themed background. “And soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” he said. Under Mr Musk’s tumultuous tenure since he bought Twitter in October, the company has changed its business name to X Corp, reflecting the billionaire’s vision to create a “super app” like China’s WeChat. In April, Twitter’s legacy blue bird logo was temporarily replaced by Dogecoin’s Shiba Inu dog, helping drive a surge in the cryptocurrency’s market value. The company came under widespread criticism from users and marketing professionals when Musk announced early this month that Twitter would limit how many tweets per day various accounts can read. The daily limits helped Meta Platforms-owned rival service Threads, which crossed 100 million sign-ups within five days of its 5 July launch. Twitter did not respond to a request for comment about the latest changes. Additional reporting from agencies Read More TikTok is now most favourable single source of news in UK teenagers, research shows Apple’s next iPhone may include new battery technology, report suggests DMs may come to Threads soon as app’s user base grows to one-fifth of Twitter’s Battery breakthroughs are about to trigger a transport revolution

INTERNET, Everywhere / George Town, Cayman Islands--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 24, 2023--

Scientists have discovered one of the strangest exoplanets ever that is so light and fluffy that it is actually being compared to candyfloss (or cotton candy if you are American). The planet is called WASP-193b and is 1,232 light-years away and was discovered by researchers at the University of Liège in Belgium. The findings of their study, led by astronomer Khalid Barkaoui has been published on arXiv. The planet, which is believed to be a so-called gas giant is nearly 50 per cent bigger than Jupiter and is orbiting a Sun-like star named WASP-193, which the scientists believe is up to 6 billion years old. Although this star is slightly bigger than our sun it is still said to have the same temperature but compared to Earth, WASP-193b orbits its star just every 6.25 days. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter By studying the planet, Barkaoui and his team were able to determine that its density was around 0.059 grams per cubic centimetre. Earth's density per cubic centimetre for comparison, is 5.51 grams whereas candyfloss has a density of 0.05 grams. There are few other examples of a planet like this existing but its close proximity to a star may give an indication as to how it came to exist as its heat is likely to have warmed up the planet's puffy atmosphere, which is mostly made up of hydrogen and helium. This state of the planet is only set to last for around a few ten million years as the temperatures and winds emitted from the star are only likely to strip back the atmosphere further. Due to this scientists cannot fully recreate or determine what is causing WASP-193b's unique atmosphere but is it likely to be a continued source of study to try and determine the cause of this phenomenon. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Time travel, or just an illusion? Eagle eyed art lovers have spotted what appears to be a satellite in a four-century old painting of Jesus Christ. The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are depicted in the ‘Glorification of the Eucharist’, a painting by Ventura Salimbeni from 1595. But in the background is something surprising – a blue sphere with spikes sticking out of it, which some people have interpreted as Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the Earth in 1957. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Steve Mera, chairman of the Manchester Association of Paranormal Investigation & Training (MAPIT) and a paranormal specialist and lecturer, said at a conference: “You start to find a lot of religious connotation linked in with the UFO phenomenon. “This painting [the Eucharist] was painted in the 1600s and nobody ever really knew what that was a painting of, until we kind of looked at Sputnik, which was the first satellite to pass round the Earth,” he said. “What is really, really interesting is it is surprisingly similar to Sputnik, even to the point there is a little nodule there (on Sputnik) and the exact same nodule on the side there [on the object in the painting].” Clearly, Salimbeni wouldn’t have known about Sputnik. Or would he…? Mera added: "Did they somehow have knowledge of future events?" Well, we can probably assume not. Instead, experts think the ball is a representation of the so-called celestial sphere (or the universe), while the spikes indicate God’s power over it. But for conspiracy theorists, it’s yet another win for time travel. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Stereophonics frontman Kelly Jones has spoken about the growing use of artificial intelligence in music saying that “art should come from people”. The 49-year-old lead singer of the rock band which formed in Wales in 1992 also questioned the move towards multiple songwriters on a release. Jones spoke to Times Radio at Latitude Festival in Henham Park, Suffolk, on Sunday after he played with his new band Far From Saints. The Welsh musician said he had not realised until attending the Ivor Novello Awards that AI technology is being increasingly used to “finish off people’s songwriting”. He also said: “I’m not against forward-thinking technology and how things are progressing, but I think art should come from people, I mean the basics of it anyway. “I think art has always been somebody’s expression, a real person’s expression from a heart, from a head. “If you’re going to start an idea, then a computer finishes it, I mean, it’s OK, but it’s just about algorithms and things like that, it’s not my personal feeling on where it should come from. “I’m not really into 10 songwriters on a song. “It’s like if you’re making painting, you’ve got 10 painters chucking paint on a canvas, I mean, whose f****** painting is it anymore?” Far From Saints have been touring festivals after releasing Let’s Turn This Back Around earlier this year. Jones, who set up his new band with Patty Lynn of The Wind And The Wave, said since the pandemic and the UK’s break from the European Union it has become harder to make money from music. He said: “It’s kind of a nightmare with… Brexit and all that sort of stuff. “So it’s a very different place since Brexit, since Covid, since all of that stuff. “So it’s not easy to make a living of it if you’re a brand new kid coming out onto the street, ‘just let’s get in a van and go make music’ – it’s kind of hard.” There has been a mixed response to the technology in the music business, with country star Dolly Parton voicing concerns about AI while Black Eyed Peas member Will.i.am has taken an optimistic view on new music software. Last month, Parton told a press event: “I think I’ve left a great body of work behind. “I have to decide how much of that high-tech stuff I want to be involved because I don’t want to leave my soul here on this Earth.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live TikTok is now most favourable single source of news in UK teenagers, research shows Talk of AI dangers has ‘run ahead of the technology’, says Nick Clegg Eurostar passengers can avoid UK passport checks by having faces scanned