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Musk Removes Giant, Flashing X Sign after Furore

Workers install lighting on an "X" sign atop the downtown San Francisco building that housed what was formally known as Twitter, now rebranded X by owner Elon Musk, Friday, July 28, 2023. (AP)
Workers install lighting on an "X" sign atop the downtown San Francisco building that housed what was formally known as Twitter, now rebranded X by owner Elon Musk, Friday, July 28, 2023. (AP)
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Musk Removes Giant, Flashing X Sign after Furore

Workers install lighting on an "X" sign atop the downtown San Francisco building that housed what was formally known as Twitter, now rebranded X by owner Elon Musk, Friday, July 28, 2023. (AP)
Workers install lighting on an "X" sign atop the downtown San Francisco building that housed what was formally known as Twitter, now rebranded X by owner Elon Musk, Friday, July 28, 2023. (AP)

The company formerly known as Twitter removed a towering, blinking X from atop its San Francisco headquarters Monday after the rebranded tech firm tangled with city officials over the controversial sign.

The X, installed on the roof of the company's downtown office last week, was part of owner Elon Musk's bid to rebrand the troubled social media giant to the 24th letter of the alphabet, AFP said.

But local residents had complained about the brilliant flashing lights emitting from the sign at night. Some also complained about safety, suggesting the sign -- which had loomed over the building's edge -- did not appear securely anchored to the roof.

San Francisco's Department of Building Inspection and City Planning received 24 complaints about the sign, including concerns about its "structural safety and illumination," agency communications director Patrick Hannan told AFP.

"This morning, building inspectors observed the structure being dismantled," Hannan said.

The owner of the property where X is renting offices will have to pay the cost of permits to install and remove the sign, as well as the cost of the city's investigation, according to Hannan.

A building inspector following up on a complaint first went to the tech firm's headquarters on Friday -- but was not allowed onto the roof to check the sign, according to the complaint posted on a city website.

Instead, an X representative told the inspector that the structure was "a temporary lighted sign for an event," the complaint showed.

A second attempt by an inspector to check the sign was also rebuffed on Saturday, according to the city.

The city sent X a notice of violation warning that it needed proper permits for the sign.

When contacted by AFP about the complaint, X replied with an automated message saying it would respond "soon."

Backlash
Musk has brushed off the backlash to the sign and to the rebrand in general, responding with a laughing emoji to one X user's post about the city being at odds with him over the new sign.

The billionaire killed off Twitter's globally recognizable bird logo early last week as he rebranded the company he hopes to turn into a super-app inspired by China's WeChat, which would function as a social media platform and also offer messaging and payments.

Since Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion last October, the platform's advertising business has collapsed as marketers soured on Musk's management style and mass firings at the company that gutted content moderation.

In response, he has moved toward building a subscriber base and pay model in a search for new revenue.

Workers last week were stopped while removing the Twitter sign and blue bird logo from the headquarters due to a lack of proper permits. It was also gone Monday.

A group of former Twitter employees who lost their jobs when Musk took over said in a federal civil suit filed against the company in May that the billionaire made it clear that he did not intend to pay expenses such as rent or severance packages.

An attorney for Musk was overheard crudely insulting San Francisco at one point, contending it was unreasonable for landlords to expect Twitter to pay rent given living conditions, the suit maintained.

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Technology

PlayStation at 30: How Sony's Grey Box Conquered Gaming

The little grey box sold 102 million units. Richard A. Brooks / AFP
The little grey box sold 102 million units. Richard A. Brooks / AFP
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PlayStation at 30: How Sony's Grey Box Conquered Gaming

The little grey box sold 102 million units. Richard A. Brooks / AFP
The little grey box sold 102 million units. Richard A. Brooks / AFP

Japanese electronics giant Sony is set to celebrate 30 years since it launched the PlayStation console, the little grey box that catapulted the firm into the gaming big league.
PlayStation was Sony's first foray into the world of video games and when it hit the shelves in Japan on December 3, 1994, the company needed to sell one million units to cover its costs, AFP said.
In the end, the gadget became a legend, selling more than 102 million units, helping to launch many of the industry's best-loved franchises and positioning Sony as a heavyweight in a hugely lucrative sector.
"PlayStation changed the history of video games," said Hiroyuki Maeda, a Japanese specialist in video game history.
"It truly transformed everything: hardware, software, distribution and marketing."
One of the keys to its success was broadening the appeal of a pastime that had often been dismissed as a hobby for children.
From the off, the firm was clear that it wanted to trash this image.
In part this stems from Sony's rivalry with Nintendo, which was already a dominant player in the sector by the mid-1990s, but whose games skewed young.
Sony 'humiliated'
The original PlayStation can trace its history to a falling out between the two great Japanese firms.
They had partnered in the late 1980s to develop a version of the Super Nintendo console with an in-built CD player.
But Nintendo suspected Sony were using the project as a way to muscle into the gaming sector and abruptly cancelled the partnership in 1991.
"Sony found itself in a humiliating position," said Maeda, so pushed ahead with the project by itself.
The hardware proved to be revolutionary, CD-ROMs being cheaper and storing much more data than the cartridges used by Nintendo and other consoles.
And to further distinguish itself from Nintendo, Sony courted a young adult audience with fighting games like "Tekken", out-and-out horror with "Resident Evil" and "Silent Hill", and military titles like "Metal Gear Solid".
Its advertising also followed a more grown-up path.
Hollywood auteur David Lynch was drafted in to direct ads for the PS2 launched in 2000 -- conjuring a nightmare vision of floating heads and talking ducks certainly not meant for younger audiences.
"The older audience obviously had better purchasing power than children," said Philippe Dubois, founder of M05, a French association that aims to preserve digital heritage.
The PS2 is still the most successful console in history, having sold more than 160 million units.
'New sensations'
Over the past 30 years, the competition has intensified and the technology has been honed.
While Sega and other rivals have fallen by the wayside, Microsoft has entered the fray with its Xbox, and Nintendo is still on the scene with its Switch console.
But the industry is enduring tough times.
A surge in popularity and investment during the pandemic has subsided and Sony's PlayStation division recently laid off hundreds of workers.
Plenty of analysts are also predicting that cloud gaming will soon render consoles obsolete.
Sony appears undaunted though, recently launching an upgraded version of its PS5 with a marketing push that highlighted new AI features.
Bloomberg has reported that the Japanese firm is also planning a new hand-held version of the PlayStation, which would once again pit it against old rival Nintendo, undisputed king of portable devices.
However, for the purists, few innovations were as great as the original console's ability to handle 3D graphics.
The technology was instrumental for the appeal of classic games such as "Tomb Raider" and "Final Fantasy VII".
"We discovered sensations, emotions that we hadn't experienced with earlier consoles," said French YouTuber and PlayStation enthusiast Cyril 2.0.
He said he had collected almost every title released for the PlayStation in Europe -- some 1,400 -- and insisted the formula for success was not complicated.
"For consoles, games are still the most important thing," he said.