News
Twitter Plans To Charge $19.99 Per Month For Verification
After acquiring the social media platform for $44 billion, Elon Musk has issued a deadline to introduce a paid verification scheme.
In one of his first directives since the takeover, Elon Musk aims to change Twitter Blue, the optional $4.99 per month subscription service, into a more expensive add-on that verifies users with the familiar blue check mark.
If the current plan goes ahead, users will have 90 days to upgrade to the new monthly fee or lose their existing verification completely. Musk has made plenty of noise about revamping Twitter over the last few months and is rumored to have issued a November 7th deadline for this particular change, with employees facing being fired if the feature isn’t in place by that date.
Twitter’s new owner has been in charge for less than a week so far, but has already changed the site’s homepage. When logged-out users visit the root domain, they are redirected to the Explore page that shows trending tweets and the latest news stories. The outspoken Tesla founder is planning mass layoffs of Twitter middle managers and engineers who haven’t recently contributed to the site’s codebase, with cuts expected to begin happening this week.
Also Read: Dubai Is Set To Become A Metaverse & Blockchain Hub
The original Twitter Blue subscription launched almost a year ago as a way to view articles without ads, as well as giving subscribers an undo function for Tweets. The service hasn’t been particularly popular, and ad revenue still constitutes the vast majority of the platform’s revenue.
Musk is keen to grow the subscription model to the point where it accounts for half of Twitter’s revenue — let’s see how the controversial Tesla CEO fares over the coming months.
News
Noon And Yango Switch On Robot Deliveries In Dubai
The rollout folds autonomous couriers into noon’s rapid-delivery network as the UAE tests everyday autonomy.
Noon and Yango Group have signed an agreement to put autonomous robot deliveries into commercial use in Dubai, turning Yango’s earlier pilots into a daily service for noon Minutes orders. The launch in Sobha Hartland is the first full integration of Yango Autonomy’s electric robots with a major e-commerce network in the region, with wider deployment planned across Dubai and, later, other GCC markets.
Residents can choose a robot at checkout, track it in the app and unlock its compartment once it arrives. The hardware runs on Yango’s AI navigation and routing stack, which plans paths, avoids obstacles and yields to pedestrians. The units had already covered more than 1,500 kilometers during previous Dubai pilots, a test bed that demonstrated their ability to operate in mixed pedestrian environments and dense residential streets.
The rollout adds a contactless option to noon’s last-mile network and is positioned as extra capacity during peak periods. “Partnering with Yango Group lets us bring a future-ready delivery option straight to our customers,” said Ali Kafil-Hussain, noon’s Chief Business Officer. Noon has used Minutes to set rapid-delivery expectations in UAE cities; autonomous units now slot into that same high-frequency model.
Regulatory clearance from Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority underpins the move. The RTA authorized Yango’s robots to operate on public walkways and in neighborhoods, smoothing the shift from controlled trials to commercial work. Dubai has framed autonomous mobility as part of its smart-city buildout, and the partners lean on that agenda to accelerate integration.
Also Read: Uber And WeRide Roll Out Driverless Robotaxis In Abu Dhabi
For Yango, the partnership is an anchor for its autonomy platform in the Gulf. Islam Abdul Karim, Yango’s Middle East regional head, said the aim is to make autonomous delivery an “everyday, reliable service” for UAE communities. The company views operational data from early districts as the basis for scaling into more communities and, eventually, cross-border rollouts.
The move lands as Gulf retailers search for faster fulfilment and lower-emission logistics. Autonomous couriers remain a small share of last-mile delivery, but Dubai’s approvals and early usage data give the partners a clearer path to turn pilots into durable infrastructure.
