Medium lays off third of staff, blaming reliance on ads

Medium CEO and Twitter co-founder Ev Williams says a "broken system" of ad-driven media on the internet led to the pullback.

Medium CEO Ev Williams said the publishing platform will close its New York and Washington DC offices.

Photo by Mike Windle/Getty Images

Medium, the web-publishing site run by Twitter co-founder Ev Williams, is laying off a third of its staff because ad-supported digital media is a "broken system," Williams said in a blog post Wednesday.

Twitter adds PGA Tour to roster of sports live streams

Twitter will be showing more of golf champ Rory McIlroy's swings as part its new live-streaming deal with the PGA Tour.

Photo by Ross Kinnaird, Getty Images

Golf fans can now do more than just follow the PGA champion Rory McIlroy's tweets on Twitter, they can actually see him play live on the social network.

Twitter said Thursday it's adding the PGA Tour to its expanding live-streaming sports lineup. Twitter's coverage will begin with the CareerBuilder Challenge on Jan. 19 and conclude with the season-ending PGA Tour Championship.

 

Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher celebrated in 'Bright Lights'

Mother-daughter relationships can run the gamut from "Gilmore Girls" to "Mommie Dearest." But the bond between Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds feels particularly loving and playful, as portrayed in a new documentary.

"Bright Lights: Starring Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher," which will premiere Saturday on HBO, takes fans into the daily lives and witty, banter-filled relationship of the two Hollywood stars who died within a day of each other in late December.

 

No Russian attempt to hack Vermont power grid found

Someone browses the internet on his work laptop. The laptop connects to a potentially malicious IP address. Nothing happens.

It's a garden variety internet risk. Just part of being a 21st century digital citizen.

On Friday evening, however, a similar and apparently benign event led to a report that Russian hackers may have penetrated the US electrical grid through a Vermont utility. The report, written by The Washington Post and summarized by CNET News, said Burlington Electric Department had found code associated with Russian hackers on an employee's computer. Initially the Post reported the hackers had penetrated the grid, but then said the code was isolated to a single employee laptop.

 

LG's G6 phone will lose the modular gimmick

The LG G5 featured a snap-on construction that let you attach different modules to the bottom of the phone. It flopped.

Photo by Jason Cipriani/CNET

LG is backing away from what made its previous top-of-the-line phone unique.

The company last year launched the G5, which ventured off the beaten path of phone design: Owners could swap out its bottom "chin" for other parts that added a camera grip or a souped-up speaker. In a sea of similar-looking phones, LG hoped that its unusual approach would turn heads.