Flickr is deleting users’ photos, Spotify says it’s buying podcast producers; and the latest emoji update aims to represent people with disabilities and remove the stigma and taboos surrounding periods.
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Flickr has started deleting free users’ photos and videos that exceed the 1,000-item limit. While there are minor exceptions, like if your additional images fall under a Creative Commons license, users won’t be able to upload more pictures until they’re under the limit. People on LinkedIn have been spreading the word: Backup your photos. If you haven’t done this already, visit your Camera Roll on Flickr and download them. Flickr, which was acquired by SmugMug last year from Verizon, says storing tens of billions of photos is “staggeringly expensive.”
Also trending on LinkedIn – Spotify’s latest efforts to become the Netflix of audio took another step this week as after it acquired podcast producers Gimlet Media and Anchor. Spotify has said it plans to spend up to $500 million this year on more podcasting acquisitions, but the terms of this specific acquisition were not disclosed. It’s safe to say, however, that it’s likely one of the largest podcast industry acquisitions to date. Gimlet boasts a large library of fiction and non-fiction shows, while Anchor is known for its easy-to-use podcast creation tech, and according to several reports, had 15 billion hours of content on its platform in Q4.
And lastly, a lot of chatter on Twitter about a series of new emojis has been confirmed by Unicode, the organization that manages the distribution of emojis. The headliner for the February 2019 emoji release is a blood-drop-shaped emoji, introduced after research from Plan International UK found nearly half of 18-34-year-old women believed a period emoji would make it easier for them to talk about their periods with female friends and partners. Other emojis also include graphics illustrating disability and accessibility, such as prosthetic limbs and hearing aids.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network.