Netflix Ads By Year’s End; TikTok New ‘Friends’ Tab; Trading Halted Then Started for Crypto Tokens; Testing Car With No Brake Pads

Netflix is apparently wasting no time. That ad-supported, cheaper subscription is apparently going to drop by 4th quarter of this year. The New York Times reports that word of it came out in a note to employees. Also in the note_ Netflix intends to start cracking down on password sharing. That had also been rumored, and it’s apparently true. The platform is making the changes due to losing some 200,000 subscribers the first quarter of this year. Right now, the most popular subscription plan is $15.49 a month. 

TikTok is replacing the ‘Discover’ tab with a ‘Friends’ tab in the menu at the bottom of the app. According to TechCrunch.com, the platform hasn’t said how soon the rolling change will be pushed out to everyone. The change was announced in a Tweet: “As we continue to celebrate community and creativity, we’re bringing a Friends Tab to more people over the coming weeks, which will allow you to easily find and enjoy content from people you’re connected with, so you can choose even more ways to be entertained on TikTok.” 

As cryptocurrencies continue to take a dive or ‘correct,’ in the trading euphemism, Binance had to suspend withdrawals of LUNA and UST after both crashed Tuesday morning. CoinDesk says trading was resumed after a brief stoppage, which Binance claimed was necessary doe to ‘network slowness and congestion.’ UST was at 70 cents at that time…it recovered later to 90 cents. LUNA’s reserves dipped down by 85% from the prior day, while UST was down 41%. These investments aren’t US Treasury Bonds, folks….just put in what money you could literally burn. 

With all the attention on EVs and batteries, a French carmaker is testing out brakes without pads. It doesn’t get the headlines, but dust from brake pads produces over 20% of freeway pollution. According to thenextweb.com, the concept car is made by DS Automobiles, the luxury arm of Citroen. The braking system utilizes only electric regenerative brakes. The car uses two electric motors to stop the car with up to 600kW of power. If everything tests out, we could see cars move to this, and eliminate that 20% of pollution on freeways from brake pad dust.