Silicon Valley Tech News Roundup of the Week – May 16th

Big tech in H-1B court lawsuit

Big tech led by Google and including Apple, IBM, Twitter, Microsoft, eBay, and Amazon (among others) filed a brief in U.S. District Court in Washington, DC to have the federal court throw out a lawsuit by the American technology workers.

The plaintiffs claim they were replaced by H-1B workers and that the work H-1B workers’ spouses do is illegal. In 2015, the spouses of H-1B visa workers were allowed to work using their H-4 visa if the H-1B worker is in the process of obtaining the green card. Furthermore, the suit claims the H-4 visa rule was introduced illegally through executive action during the Obama presidency rather than through Congress.

The big tech brief states: “These highly sought-after workers boost innovation in the United States … driving the economy and helping to ensure American competitiveness on the global stage.” Likewise, the companies claim they employ between 90.000 and 100.000 H-4 visa workers. Since many of the H-4 visa holders are women from India, the companies feel it would diminish the progress made in the workforce gender disparity.

Is Twitter working on a subscription service?

The news about the Twitter subscription service comes courtesy of Jane Manchun Wong. She reverse-engineers popular apps to determine what features tech companies are working on. On Saturday, she tweeted the subscription service called Twitter Blue would cost $2.99 per month and the company might also be working on a tiered subscription model. Some of the features would include the option to undo tweets and create bookmark collections.

Twitter launched another feature earlier in May called “Tip Jar.” It enables users to send and receive money.

Google I/O starts on May 18th

Last year, because of the pandemic, Google canceled the Google I/O conference. This year’s virtual event starts on May 18th, 1:00 PM ET/10:00 AM PT, with the keynote.

Tech journalists are expecting an extensive update on Android 12 and its features with new updates on Google services and software. This month, the company also confirmed the planned launch of new smart home products at this year’s developer conference. Pixel 5A news might not be forthcoming. Although according to the company, the phone should be available later in the year in the U.S. and Japan.