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Netflix adds spatial audio support for hundreds of movies and shows

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Netflix is introducing two new benefits exclusively for its premium subscribers: rolling out support for spatial audio across the streaming platform’s top 700 titles and increasing the number of download devices from four to six. Announced via a press release, both new features are available globally today and come at no additional cost to premium-tier Netflix subscribers who pay $19.99 / month for 4K HDR and other perks.

Netflix first introduced the feature in July last year across a limited number of the platform’s original titles. Now, spatial audio will be available across 700 titles, including The Watcher, Wednesday, and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, and will be added to new titles as they’re released, including You, Your Place or Mine, Luther: The Fallen Sun, and Tour de France. To see the full list of titles currently available to watch with spatial audio, just type “spatial audio” into the search bar on Netflix.

Spatial audio is intended for built-in stereo speakers and best optimized for laptops and tablets

Spatial audio is a feature that can emulate immersive surround sound through stereo speakers or headphones across a range of devices — including TVs, computers, tablets, and smartphones — without requiring any specialist audio equipment. Spatial audio likely won’t benefit users who do use multichannel surround sound systems, but the feature should provide a noticeable improvement for folks who don’t have access to professional audio equipment.

Regarding how best to listen to spatial audio content, Netflix has disclosed the following guidance:

Spatial audio is intended for built-in stereo speakers on any device receiving a stereo stream. It also provides a more immersive experience on headphones. Spatial audio is primarily optimized for laptops and tablets. It’s also noticeable on TVs (up close) and phones with stereo speakers (usually when in landscape mode).

Premium tier subscribers can also now download Netflix content onto two additional devices, increasing the total number of download devices from four to six. “With people more connected than ever through multiple devices, we’ve learned through research that members would like the option to download Netflix series and films to watch offline on more devices, particularly as they travel and switch between devices,” said Netflix.

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GitHub takes down repository containing Twitter’s source code

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Microsoft-owned GitHub took down a repository by a user named “FreeSpeechEnthusiast” that contained proprietary source code to Twitter after the social network filed a DCMA takedown request. The username certainly seems to be a jab at Twitter owner Elon Musk, who has claimed to be a “free speech absolutist” many times.

On Friday, Twitter filed a petition in the District Court of Northern California asking GitHub to take down the code and also help it find the perpetrator. The subpoena asks GitHub to disclose name(s), address(es), telephone number(s), email address(es), social media profile data, and IP address(es) linked with “FreeSpeechEnthusiast”.

The development comes days before March 31, when Musk will supposedly make Twitter’s algorithm related to the recommendation open source.

It’s not clear what part of Twitter was leaked on GitHub and for what duration. GitHub’s DCMA takedown blog just mentioned it took down the repository containing “Proprietary source code for Twitter’s platform and internal tools.”

The code-hosting site didn’t say if any users were able to access the repository before the company took it down. We have asked for a comment and will update the story if we hear back.

Twitter might be concerned about copies of the code that might not be present on GitHub. Twitter’s internal investigation suggested that the people who were responsible for the leak left the company last year, as per a report from the New York Times. The story also suggested that the social network’s executives got to know about the code leak only recently.

The company is facing a tough time after Musk’s takeover last year. Recent reports suggest that the Tesla CEO now values Twitter at $20 billion — less than half of the $44 billion he paid for the social network. According to a report from the New York Times, Musk also wrote an email to employees to announce a new stock compensation program that said Twitter could be worth $250 billion one day.

To get Twitter’s finances in better shape, Musk has taken radical steps for cost-cutting including mass layoffs and relaunching a new subscription program that offers verification as one of the benefits. According to data from analytics firm Sensor Tower, Twitter has managed to just get $11 million out of this new service. For comparison, Twitter registered $1.17 billion in revenue for Q2 2022.

At a recent conference, Musk said that time on users’ Twitter is poorly monetized.

“The average amount of time that people spend on Twitter per day that 250 million [monthly active users] is around half an hour or so. So what we have is — the thing that’s I think most interesting — is there are about 120 to 130 million hours of human attention per day on Twitter,” he said

“Every single day on, average, which is — I think it comes to a really interesting point which is to — just it’s startling how poorly monetized that is — because you have to say like how valuable is that attention 100 to 130 million hours of human attention per day of people that read — so these are the generally the smartest people in the world, the most influential people in the world.”

As expected, when we reached out to Twitter, we got a poop emoji.

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Activist investor Elliott ditches director nomination plans for Salesforce

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Activist investor Elliott Investment Management won’t be proceeding with plans to nominate its own directors to Salesforce’s board, citing improved performance and a clearer “focus on value creation” from the enterprise software company.

Elliott — one of five activist investors within Salesforce’s ranks — announced ahead of Salesforce’s recent Q4 earnings that it was pushing several of its own candidates toward the Salesforce board after a turbulent 2022 for the company. However, after a return to financial form for Salesforce, beating growth forecasts and announcing more shareholder returns, it seems this has been enough to convince Elliott that Salesforce has corrected course.

In a joint statement today, the companies said that in light of Salesforce’s recently announced “profitable growth framework” dubbed “New Day,” alongside its strong fiscal year 2023 and a slew of additional “transformation initiatives,” Elliott won’t pursue its director nominations.

“I have great respect for Marc [Salesforce co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff] and his team, and I have become deeply impressed by their strong ongoing commitment to profitable growth, responsible capital return and an ambitious shareholder value creation plan,” Elliott managing partner Jesse Cohn noted in a press release.

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First Citizens to acquire Silicon Valley Bank

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First Citizens BankShares has agreed to buy Silicon Valley Bank, the California lender that served as lifeblood of thousands of startups and whose collapse sent shockwaves through the financial sector, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said on Monday.

The deal includes the purchase of about $72 billion assets of Silicon Valley Bank at a discount of $16.5 billion. About $90 billion in securities and other assets of the California-based lenders will remain “in receivership of disposition” by the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

The announcement comes weeks after the FDIC seized control of Silicon Valley Bank on March 10 after a run on deposits made the lender insolvent. The 17 former branches of Silicon Valley Bank will open as First Citizens Bank on Monday, the FDIC said.

“In addition, the FDIC received equity appreciation rights in First Citizens BancShares, Inc., Raleigh, North Carolina, common stock with a potential value of up to $500 million,” the FDIC said in a statement.

Before the collapse, the Silicon Valley Bank was the 16th largest bank in the U.S. Its meltdown was the largest bank failure in the U.S. since the 2008 financial crisis.

More to follow.

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