Tragedy and Mutiny at HQ Trivia

In May 2018, I reported for TMO on a popular new quiz app.  HQ Trivia raked in users and soared up the App Store chart. Since then, tragedy has struck. CEO Colin Kroll was found dead, aged just 34. Techcrunch reported that current CEO, Mr. Kroll’s co-founder Rus Yusupov, is battling plummeting ratings and a staff mutiny.

By February 2019, HQ’s staff was fed up. Two sources confirm that 20 of the roughly 35 employees signed a letter asking the board to remove Yusupov and establish a new CEO. With HQ’s download rate continuing to sink, they feared he’d run the startup into the ground. One source suggested Yusupov might rather have seen the whole startup come crashing down with the blame placed on the product than have it come to light that he played a large hand in the fall. The tone of the letter, which was never formally delivered but sources believe the board knew of, wasn’t accusatory but a plea for transparency about the company’s future and the staff’s job security.

macOS 10.15 Will Allow Users to Have iPad as External Display

macOS 10.15 will have a new feature allowing users to send a window to an external display. That display could be an iPad, as well as a standard external display, reported 9to5Mac. The reported feature, nicknamed ‘Sidecar’, seems to be Apple’s version of Luna Display. The new version of macOS is expected to be unveiled at WWDC in June.

According to people familiar with the development of macOS 10.15 – the next major version of Apple’s desktop OS – the new system will have a feature that allows users to send any window of any app to an external display. The external display can be an actual external display connected to the Mac or even an iPad. The new feature – called “Sidecar” internally – can be accessed via a simple menu. This new menu will be opened by hovering over the green “maximize” button in a Mac app window for a split second.

New Leica Ad Celebrates Photojournalism

Leica is a well-known camera brand, and today it released a five minute ad that celebrates photojournalism. Called ‘The Hunt’ it shows all of the stress, fear, drive, and life-threatening situations photojournalists face as they tell their stories. It was created by Brazilian agency F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi. We see scenes of an oppressive regime in China, an African warlord, conflict in the Middle East, and more. Although the photographers in the ad aren’t real, they do represent conditions that can happen in the real world.

Leaked Facebook Documents Show how Mark Zuckerberg Plays Dirty

Leaked Facebook documents that include emails, chats, presentations, spreadsheets, and meeting summaries show how Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook’s board and management team played dirty.

Zuckerberg, along with his board and management team, found ways to tap Facebook’s trove of user data — including information about friends, relationships and photos — as leverage over companies it partnered with.

In some cases, Facebook would reward favored companies by giving them access to the data of its users. In other cases, it would deny user-data access to rival companies or apps.

Basically, everything Facebook has said in public, they are doing the exact opposite in private.