Techmeme
January 18, 2023, 12:45 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:
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.
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 …
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 identifies crypto exchange Bitzlato as a “money laundering concern” related to Russia; Bitzlato has been seized by French police  —  The U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network on Wednesday said it has identified virtual …
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 and other crypto companies are hoping to rehabilitate the industry's image after FTX and find 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
Wall Street Journal:
Investigation and documents: over 600 US police entities have access, without oversight, to a database on 150M+ money transfers in the US and over 20 countries  —  Law-enforcement agencies across the U.S. have direct access to over 150 million transactions housed at an Arizona nonprofit
More: PYMNTS.com and ACLU
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

Soxton:
Fast, affordable law for startups  —  Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better.  We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts.  Join the waitlist for early access!
F5:
Accelerate AI Adoption at F5's AI Virtual Summit  —  Learn how to architect, secure, and scale AI for production with real-world insights from industry leaders on June 23.  Register now to save your spot.
Zoho:
10 essential project management reports every team should use  —  Let's be honest about how projects usually go sideways.  A task gets blocked and nobody notices.  A dependency changes and nobody updates the plan.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Hard Fork:
'Hard Fork' Live Part 2: Dylan Field on Standing Out in the A.I. Era
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
A Hollywood Manager Explains the New Rules of Show Biz
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Training Data:
Simulating Humans at Scale: Simile's Joon Sung Park
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Invest Like the Best:
Kareem Amin - The Unusual Approach to Company Building
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Grit:
Why 80% of the Fortune 100 Chose Qualtrics | Ryan Smith
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:45 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

Richard Lawler / The Verge:

Earlier Picks