Techmeme
January 18, 2023, 1:40 PM

Top News

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Memo: Microsoft plans to lay off 10,000 employees through March 31, reducing headcount by less than 5%, and will take a $1.2B charge to facilitate the move  —  [Editor's Note: Timing of layoffs corrected since original post.]  —  Citing a need to “align our cost structure with our revenue …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Apple announces an updated HomePod with a similar design to the original from 2018, Matter support, and more, available now for $299, shipping February 3  —  It will be sold alongside the HomePod Mini, the smaller version of the speaker introduced in 2020, and features support …
Hartley Charlton / MacRumors:
Apple enables a temperature and humidity sensor on the HomePod mini and reintroduced HomePod, helping users create automations to do household tasks  —  The reintroduced HomePod offers a temperature and humidity sensor, but Apple is also enabling the feature on the HomePod mini.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple indefinitely postpones its lightweight AR glasses due to technical difficulties and is instead planning a lower-cost MR headset for 2024 or 2025  —  Apple Inc. is still planning to unveil its first mixed-reality headset this year, but an even more important follow-up product …
CoinDesk:
Analysis: 196 members of the new Congress accepted donations from Sam Bankman-Fried or other FTX senior executives, including Kevin McCarthy and Chuck Schumer  —  The session began with 196 U.S. lawmakers who took direct contributions from Sam Bankman-Fried and other former FTX executives …
Rohan Goswami / CNBC:
FTX identifies ~$5.5B in “liquid” assets for recovery, including $415M in “unauthorized third-party transfers” possibly tied to a hack found after its collapse  —  - FTX has identified about $5.5 billion worth of digital assets for recovery, a number that includes $415 million in “hacked crypto.”
David Yaffe-Bellany / New York Times:
Erin Woo / The Information:
Source: Twitter manager Siddharth Rao told employees that daily revenue was 40% lower than a year earlier and more than 500 top advertisers have paused spending  —  A senior Twitter manager told employees that the company's daily revenue on Tuesday was 40% lower than the same day a year ago …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Samsung Galaxy S23, S23 Plus, and S23 Ultra specs allegedly leak, showing 6.1, 6.6, and 6.8-inch screens, Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the Ultra's 200MP sensor, and more  —  Spec sheets for all three devices in Samsung's upcoming flagship smartphone lineup, the Galaxy S23 series, appear to have leaked online.
Billy Perrigo / TIME:
Investigation: starting in November 2021, OpenAI contracted Kenya-based Sama to label violent and toxic content, paying workers $2/hour, to improve ChatGPT  —  Content warning: this story contains descriptions of sexual abuse  —  ChatGPT was hailed as one 2022's most impressive technological …
Reuters:
The US Treasury's FinCEN unit labels crypto exchange Bitzlato as a “money laundering concern” related to Russian illicit finance; French police seize Bitzlato  —  The U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network on Wednesday said it has identified virtual …
Bloomberg:
Amazon begins laying off 18,000+ employees, impacting around 1% of its total workforce and 6% of its corporate staff, mostly in its retail and HR departments  —  Amazon.com Inc. is set to begin a round of layoffs ultimately affecting more than 18,000 employees in the largest job cull in its history …
Patrick McGee / Financial Times:
As Apple shifts from China, experts worry India will struggle with iPhone production due to supply chain issues, labor woes, a lack of automation, and more  —  The tech giant increasingly finds itself beholden to America's biggest geopolitical rival.  But is diversification even possible?
Abha Bhattarai / Washington Post:
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Circle, Hedera, and other crypto companies hope to resuscitate the industry's image after FTX and attract new investors  —  The World Economic Forum's annual gathering has become an unlikely destination for the crypto industry as it tries to raise its profile — and new funds
Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Twitter begins offering an annual Blue subscription for $84 on the web, saving 12.5% compared to a monthly subscription on the web and 36.4% over paying via iOS  —  Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter, one of his aims has been to build up its subscription business, launching …
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple updates its Mac mini with M2 and M2 Pro options, improved graphics performance, up to 32GB of RAM, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, and more, starting at $599  —  Apple today launched the new Mac mini lineup, available with M2 and M2 Pro chips inside.  The M2 Mac mini starts at a new lower price of $599.
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Is AI just hype?  —  Find out how top enterprises use Tribe to get real business results.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Zoho:
All new Zoho Workerly 2024  —  Staffing businesses around the world face a unique set of challenges when it comes to managing their temporary workforce.  With a constantly shifting job market and changing staffing needs …
Comprehensive.io:
Browse salary data from 3,000 startups for free  —  Click for FREE, immediate access to real-time compensation benchmarking data.  Paid version helps HR automate comp reviews and communicate total compensation to employees.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Henry Shukman, Lessons from an Authentic Zen Master
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Wed. 03/27 - Hulu Comes To Disney+; WWDC Gets A Date
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:40 PM ET, January 18, 2023.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks