Techmeme
January 22, 2023, 4:50 PM

Top News

New York Times:
Emails and sources: Google fired 16% of its ~400-person Fuchsia OS team, Research cut jobs in lower traction areas, and Cloud cut operational and other roles  —  The layoffs amount to about 6 percent of the global work force at the company, the latest tech giant to make cuts after a pandemic hiring spree.
Aaron Tilley / Wall Street Journal:
Apple's lean hiring may help the company avoid layoffs; Apple's workforce grew ~20% from 2019 to 2022, Amazon's grew 100%, Meta 94%, Alphabet 57%, Microsoft 53%  —  The iPhone maker's workforce grew 20% in the past three years, a far slower pace than rivals  —  Tech Layoffs Pile Up as Bosses Reverse Course
Jez Corden / Windows Central:
Microsoft has laid off the entire teams behind the virtual reality platform AltspaceVR, which will shut down in March, and the Mixed Reality Tool Kit framework  —  HoloLens, Virtual Reality, and Mixed Reality are all but dead at Microsoft.  —  What you need to know
The Daily Dot:
CommuteAir took down a 2019 copy of the US No Fly List, after a researcher said they found it on an unsecured server and that it had 1.5M+ entries, many aliases  —  One of the most sensitive U.S. government documents was left online.  —  An unsecured server discovered by a security researcher …
Wall Street Journal:
A look at Mittens, a ruthless Chess.com bot with a kitten avatar introduced on January 1 that is driving more people than ever to play in the site's history  —  A ruthless bot with an innocuous avatar is driving chess players crazy  —  The heels of the chess world have included Soviet grandmasters …
Eric Wallerstein / Wall Street Journal:
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Q&A with Netflix co-CEOs Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos about shared leadership, what role Reed Hastings may play, adding FAST channels, the ad tier, and more  —  So that's what an orderly transfer of power looks like.  —  While Disney chief Bob Iger ousted every potential threat …
Nilesh Christopher / Rest of World:
Creators from India's hinterland are going viral on YouTube Shorts and running into copyright issues for “fact channels” that add context to other users' videos  —  A new generation of creators found success on YouTube Shorts.  Now, YouTube is after them for violating its community guidelines.
Keri Blakinger / The Marshall Project:
How some US incarcerated people use contraband mobile phones to educate themselves, make TikToks, find love, publicize prison conditions, earn money, and more  —  Despite the security concerns of administrators, incarcerated people use phones to hustle, make TikToks or publicize prison conditions.

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More News

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