Welcome to the Tech Mem Ride Home for Friday, April 21st, 2023.

I'm Brian McCullough today.

More, I don't know, Twitter things are happening.

Google is consolidating its AI efforts.

We now have a hint about what that startup humane might be creating.

The US wants to get a jump start on 6G technology and pour one out for poor Buzzfeed

news.

Here's what you miss today in the world of tech.

Oh boy, Well, Twitter has been removing the blue check marks as promised, except for when they don't.

There's a whole list of celebrities like LeBron James who apparently still have the checkmarks,

though a lot of them say they're not paying for it.

Twitter apparently offered LeBron and others complimentary subscriptions to keep the blue check.

Elon has even tweeted that he's personally paying some subscriptions on behalf of people.

But some folks like the author Stephen King say they don't want the blue check mark, don't want to pay for it, and

are requesting that the check mark come down because they don't want to be associated with it.

Other people are pointing out that their blue check marks have come down, but when they did, never once did Twitter email

them and be like, hey, we're taking away your blue check mark.

Would you maybe like to pay for it?

Here's a link to sign up.

Like there's apparently been no solicitation attempts on

Twitter's behalf, which is weird if this is in theory an attempt to make a new revenue stream,

right? Also, the confusion this is causing is already beginning.

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