Month: February 2023

Enlarge (credit: SOPA Images / Contributor | LightRocket)

In the middle of the night, Twitter made an announcement that disappointed a wide range of developers whose research, bots, and apps depend on free access to the platform’s API to function. Twitter announced in a tweet that starting on February 9, Twitter “will no longer support free access to the Twitter API.” Instead, many developers will have to either pay to access public data or abruptly shut down their projects.

Twitter has not yet shared how much its new “paid basic tier” will cost, and the company has only vaguely promised “more details on what you can expect next week.” Thousands of small developers may have to shut down free tools like @ThreadReaderApp or @RemindMe_ofThis, The Verge reported, impacting hundreds of thousands of followers who rely on small developers to build tools that help maximize their engagement with the platform.

Entrepreneur and developer Tom Coates joined many developers protesting Twitter’s announcement. Coates tweeted that, while “it is not unreasonable to want to find a way to charge those developers who extract more value than they contribute” to Twitter, “one week’s notice and no indication of pricing shows Twitter is chaotic and unreliable. No one’s going to build a business on that.”

Enlarge (credit: SOPA Images / Contributor | LightRocket)

In the middle of the night, Twitter made an announcement that disappointed a wide range of developers whose research, bots, and apps depend on free access to the platform’s API to function. Twitter announced in a tweet that starting on February 9, Twitter “will no longer support free access to the Twitter API.” Instead, many developers will have to either pay to access public data or abruptly shut down their projects.

Twitter has not yet shared how much its new “paid basic tier” will cost, and the company has only vaguely promised “more details on what you can expect next week.” Thousands of small developers may have to shut down free tools like @ThreadReaderApp or @RemindMe_ofThis, The Verge reported, impacting hundreds of thousands of followers who rely on small developers to build tools that help maximize their engagement with the platform.

Entrepreneur and developer Tom Coates joined many developers protesting Twitter’s announcement. Coates tweeted that, while “it is not unreasonable to want to find a way to charge those developers who extract more value than they contribute” to Twitter, “one week’s notice and no indication of pricing shows Twitter is chaotic and unreliable. No one’s going to build a business on that.”

Enlarge / A look at the games available in the PlayStation Plus Collection, which will no longer be offered to PS5 subscribers as of May.

For over two years now, PlayStation Plus subscribers who owned a PS5 got access to the PlayStation Plus Collection, a set of 19 legacy PS4 games available for free download and play via the console's backward compatibility. This week, Sony announced that it will be ending this subscriber benefit in May. Current PS5 owners will have until then to redeem their free games, which will remain available on their account as long as they stay subscribed to any of PlayStation Plus' multiple tiers.

Hundreds of legacy PS4 games are still available for download as part of the higher-end PlayStation Plus "Extra" and "Premium" tiers (starting at $14.99/month or $99.99/year). That list includes many of the titles that were part of the PlayStation Plus Collection, including almost all of Sony's first-party titles. But the PlayStation Plus Collection was also available at the cheapest "Essential" pricing tier ($9.99/month or $59.99/year).

The PlayStation Plus Collection served as a valuable introduction to legacy PlayStation franchises for PS5 owners who never owned a PS4. Sony said in an earnings release last night that such users made up a full 30 percent of the PS5's monthly active users, suggesting that "the acquisition of new users is progressing," as the company put it. Players who did upgrade from a PS4 to a PS5, meanwhile, are spending significantly more time and money on the new console on average, according to Sony.

Enlarge / True Anomaly's satellites (not pictured) will spy on each other, using thrusters, radar, and multi-spectral cameras to approach within a few hundred meters. (credit: Getty Images)

Former US Air Force major Even “Jolly” Rogers is worried about a space war. “Conflict exists on a continuum that begins with competition and ultimately leads into full-scale conflict like what you’re seeing in Ukraine,” he says. The US, he adds, is already “in active competition with Russia and China for freedom of action and dominance of the space domain. And it’s evolving very quickly.”

So on January 26 last year, the former US Air Force major incorporated True Anomaly, Inc to “solve the most challenging orbital warfare problems for the US Space Force,” he later tweeted.

According to a recent filing with the US Federal Communication Commission (FCC), True Anomaly is now gearing up for its first orbital mission. In October, True Anomaly hopes to launch two Jackal “orbital pursuit” spacecraft aboard a SpaceX rocket to low earth orbit. The Jackals will not house guns, warheads, or laser blasters, but they will be capable of rendezvous proximity operations (RPO)—the ability to maneuver close to other satellites and train a battery of sensors upon them. This could reveal their rivals’ surveillance and weapons systems or help intercept communications.