Twitter Letting You ‘Unmention’ Yourself; Walmart Orders Canoo Delivery EVs; YouTube Rolls Out P-I-P on iOS; Rivian Trimming Staff by 5%

With all the drama about the Musk deal, here’s something Twitter users can actually use…a feature that lets you ‘unmention’ yourself. BGR.com reports that it gives you the ability to lave a conversation. That way, if you are mentioned, and start getting notifications and responses, you can cut it off without seeing the things for days. Under Mentions, tap the 3 dots on a Tweet that mentions your username. Then, just tap ‘leave this conversation.’ That’s it. The court will decide if Elon Musk gets to leave his Twitter purchase convo, and how much it will cost him. I’m betting it will be more than the $1 billion break up fee, with Twitter pointing to the lasting damage he has done to their brand…and stock price.

Walmart has announced a deal to buy 4500 EV delivery vehicles from Canoo. According to TechCrunch.com, they will even use some preproduction models to deliver online orders in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The deal gives Walmart and option to buy 10,000 units. Canoo had been cautioning it might not have enough cash on hand to stay in business, so this likely gives them a nice injection of funds. I say likely, since no financial terms were revealed. Canoo uses a multi-purpose architecture as do several other makers building EVs, to the platform can carry a delivery van or be built out as a family fan. Walmart is also working with automated vehicle startup Gatik as well as drone makers and continues to use employees to deliver after shifts, too. The company says this gives them the ability to reach 80% of the US population with same day delivery on many items.

Youtube has starting rolling out picture-in-picture support for all US iOS users. Macrumors.com says this will let iPhone and iPad users close the YouTube app when watching a video, and continue watching the video in a small pop-up window while using the main screen for other tasks. The feature had previously only been available to YouTube premium subscribers in the US. Elsewhere, users will still have to pay for a premium subscription to access the PIP feature. All US users should have the feature by the end of this week, as long as you have iOS or iPad Os 15 or higher. 

Rivian, the electric truck maker, is going to lay off as many as 700 employees…about 5% of their 14,000 strong workforce. According to engadget.com, these will mainly be non-manufacturing positions in ‘areas where Rivian has expanded too quickly.’ Apparently, there are teams with duplicate functions, so some redundant positions will get the chop. Rivian is still shooting for around 25,000 EVs produced this year. they are shooting for an eventual production of 600,000 per year. In addition to the plant in Normal, Ill, Rivian plans a second factory in Georgia…to be up and running by 2024.