Technology

Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind beloved public television series Sesame Street, will be creating childrenTV programs for Apple .

The partnership will involve multiple shows, including live action and animated series, as well as a show with puppets. The deal does not include Sesame Street.

I&m guessing that many (most all) of you watched Sesame Street on the public TV network PBS, where it still airs — but in 2015, Sesame Workshop made a five-year dealwhere episodes are broadcast on HBO months before they make it to PBS.

Apple, meanwhile, continues to make one big content deal after another — just this week, it placed a series order for Little America, an anthology show about immigrants from Big Sick writers Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon, as well as Office producer Lee Eisenberg and Master of None producer Alan Yang.

Unless you count unscripted efforts like Carpool Karaoke and Planet of the Apps, none of these announced shows have actually launched yet. Apple reportedly plans to launch the first wave of its original content initiative in March of next year, presumably as part of a new subscription streaming service.

And while italso been reported that Apple is focused on funding family-friendly shows (as opposed to the edgier fare that you might find on Netflix or HBO), this is time itannounced programming created specifically for kids.

Instagram is ready to compete head-on with YouTube. Today at a flashy event in San Francisco, the company announced it will begin allowing users to upload videos up to one hour in length, up from the previous one-minute limit. And to house the new longer-form videos from content creators and the general public, Instagram is launching IGTV. Accessible from a button inside the Instagram homescreen, as well as a standalone app, IGTV will spotlight popular videos from Instagram celebrities.

The launch confirms TechCrunchscoops over the past month outlining the features and potential of IGTVthat we said would arrive today, following the WSJreport that Instagram would offer videos up to an hour in length.

&Ittime for video to move forward, and evolve,& said Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom onstage at the event. &IGTV is for watching long-from videos from your favorite creators.& Just before he took the stage, Instagrambusiness blog outed details of IGTV.

Kevin Systrom onstage at the IGTV launch

How IGTV Works

IGTV will let anyone be a creator, not just big-name celebrities. People will be able to upload vertical videos through Instagramapp or the web. Everyone except smaller and new accounts will be able to upload hour-long videos immediately, with that option expanding to everyone eventually.

The IGTV app will be available globally on iOS and Android sometime today, as well as in the Instagram app through a TV shaped button above Stories. &We made it a dedicated app so you can tap on it and enjoy video without all the distraction,& Systrom explained.

In IGTVdedicated app or its in-Instagram experience, viewers will be able to swipe through a variety of longer-form videos, or swipe up to visit a Browse tab of personally recommended videos, popular videos, creators they&re following and the option to continue watching previously started videos. Users will also get callouts from the IGTV button alerting them to new content.

IGTV will also let creators develop Instagram Channels full of their different videos that people can subscribe to. Creators will be able to put links in the description of their videos to drive traffic elsewhere.

No Commercials In IGTV…Yet

&Thereno ads in IGTV today,& says Systrom, but he says it&obviously a very reasonable place [for ads] to end up.& He explained that since creators are investing a lot of time into IGTV videos, he wants to make that sustainable by offering them a way to monetize in the future. Instagram isn&t paying any creators directly for IGTV videos either, like Facebook did to jump-start its flopped Facebook Watch video hub. With 1 billion users on Instagram, IGTV could be popular with creators not only trying to earn money but grow their audience. Instagram is expected to build out a monetization option for IGTV creators, potentially including ad revenue shares. The big user base could also attract advertisers. eMarketer already expects Instagram to earn $5.48 billion in U.S. ad revenue in 2018. Facebook shareholders loved the sound of more premium ad inventory that businesses crave as they shift spend away from television. Facebookshare price is up over 2.2 percent today to nearly $202.

Instagram has evolved far beyond the initial simplicity of just filtering and sharing photos. When it launched, mobile networks, screens and cameras weren&t ready for longer-form video, and neither were users. As more families cut the cord or teens ignore television altogether, though, Instagram has an opportunity to become the TV of mobile. YouTube may always have a wider breadth of content, but through curation of creators and publishers& video content, Instagram could become the reliable place to watch something great on the small screen.

Tesla is suing a former employee for $1 million, alleging the man hacked the companyconfidential and trade secret information and transferred that information to third parties, according to court documents. The lawsuit also claims the employee leaked false information to the media.

The lawsuit against the former process technician Martin Tripp was filed Wednesday in Nevada. Tesla declined to comment on the lawsuit,which was first reported by CNBC.

The lawsuit only lists the legal team representing Tesla. Efforts to reach Tripp have so far been unsuccessful.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made allegations of sabotage and filed lawsuits against former employees claiming theft before, at least one of which was dropped after the parties reached an agreement and no wrongdoing was discovered. Earlier this week, Musk sent an email, which CNBC first reported on, about a factory fire and referenced possible sabotage. Another email from Musk alleged that he had discovered a saboteur at the company.

Two years ago, an investigation into possible sabotage was launched at Muskother company, SpaceX, after a rocket exploded while being fueled up.

And in Muskview, sabotage is a forever looming and real threat.

Musk tweeted Wednesday that &there is more,& referring to sabotage at the company. &There is more, but the actions of a few bad apples will not stop Tesla from reaching its goals,& he tweeted. &With 40,000 people, the worst 1 in 1000 will have issues. Thatstill ~ 40 people.&

According to the lawsuit, Tesla has only begun to understand the full scope of Trippillegal activity. The lawsuit claims Tripp has &admitted to writing software that hacked Teslamanufacturing operating system (&MOS&) and to transferring several gigabytes of Tesla data to outside entities.&

The confidential data includes &dozens& of photographs and a video of Teslamanufacturing systems. Tesla alleges that Tripp wrote computer code toperiodically export Tesladata off its network and into the hands of third parties. And the lawsuit says Tripp made false claims to the media about the information he stole.

&For example, Tripp claimed that punctured battery cells had been used in certain Model 3 vehicles even though no punctured cells were ever used in vehicles, batteries or otherwise,& Tesla claims in the lawsuit. &Tripp also vastly exaggerated the true amount and value of ‘scrap& material that Tesla generated during the manufacturing process, and falsely claimed that Tesla was delayed in bringing new manufacturing equipment online.&

Tesla appears to be referring to a Business Insider storyon June 4 about internal documents showing thecompany expects that as much as 40 percent of the raw materials used in battery and driving unit production would need to be scrapped or reworked.

Tesla claims that Tripp, who was hired in October 2017 at the companymassive battery factory near Reno, committed these acts out of retaliation for being reassigned to a different job.