Gulf of America appears in Google Maps

#Google Corporation has begun the renaming of the Gulf of #Mexico to the Gulf of #America, with the updated name already displayed in Google Maps.

"In the US, the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) has officially updated ‘Gulf of Mexico’ to ‘Gulf of America,’" the company said in a statement published on its blog. "As we announced two weeks ago and consistent with our longstanding practices, we’ve begun rolling out changes to reflect this update," the company explained, specifying that "people using Maps in the US will see ‘Gulf of America,’ and people in Mexico will see ‘Gulf of Mexico.’ Everyone else will see both names."

Microsoft, Google, Meta, other tech companies slash more than 21,000 jobs this year

Microsoft said today it is laying off 1,900 employees. It joins dozens of other tech companies, including Google, Amazon, TikTok and Meta, in slashing tech jobs. It's the latest sign that Silicon Valley is still trying to adjust from the boom times of the pandemic. NPR's Bobby Allyn reports.

So far, in 2024, over 75 tech companies have laid off over 21,000 employees.

The tech industry has been shedding jobs for years now. Last year marked one of the worst in recent memory, with some 260,000 techies losing their jobs. This year isn't expected to be anywhere near that total, but the layoffs haven't stopped. The way executives are defending the continuation of job cuts may sound familiar. And no, it's not AI.

The biggest driver of the recent tech layoffs we've been seeing is still companies trying to correct for their overhiring during the pandemic surge given that the high-interest-rate environment and tech downturn have both lasted longer than initially expected.

Estimates that just about 20% of the job losses in tech have been explained away by artificial intelligence, with tech companies trimming and reshuffling staff and investing more in automation. The big focus is on generative AI, which is the next gold rush in Silicon Valley. And while the economy is improving, sticky inflation and still historically high interest rates are dampening the outlook.

The majority of U.S. adults will turn off cookies to manage privacy online

Key stat: 67% of US adults turn off cookies or website tracking to protect their privacy, putting it second only to changing social media privacy settings, according to a May 2023 Pew Research Center survey.

Beyond the chart:

This data is particularly relevant as cookies are being phased out. The start of 2024 marked the deprecation of third-party cookies for 1% of Google Chrome users, with cookies scheduled to go away completely by the end of the year.

As third-party cookies fade, advertisers need to find ways to reach users without making them feel violated online, like incentivizing users to share first-party data.