Techmeme
September 28, 2023, 12:15 PM

Top News

Financial Times:
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
Source: Epic Games announced in a staff memo that it is laying off about 900 employees or 16% of its workforce  —  The job cuts were announced in a memo to staff, said the person, who asked not to be named disclosing information that's not yet public.  —  Based in Cary, North Carolina …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Raspberry Pi 5 launches with 64-bit quad-core Arm Cortex-A76 processor, up to 8GB of RAM, two 4K HDMI ports with HDR, available in October for $60 for 4GB model  —  Despite doubts that the Raspberry Pi 5 would launch this year, the latest version of the microcomputer has arrived with some notable upgrades at a $60 starting price.
Mia Sato / The Verge:
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Reddit removes the ability to opt out of ad personalization based on Reddit activity but says users will still have opt-out controls in “select countries”  —  Reddit said Wednesday that the platform is revamping its privacy settings with an aim to make ad personalization and account visibility toggles consistent.
RT Watson / The Block:
Coinbase says it has gained approval from the Bermuda Monetary Authority to offer non-US retail users perpetual futures trading  —  - Coinbase has gained approval to offer non-U.S. retail users perpetual futures trading from the Bermuda Monetary Authority.  — About 75% of global crypto …
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
Google patches a zero-day in Chrome that was exploited by a commercial spyware vendor, just two days after it was reported by Google's Threat Analysis Group  —  Google has rushed to patch a zero-day vulnerability in Chrome that was exploited by a commercial spyware vendor.
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan plans to retire in March 2024; Ryan joined Sony in 1994, just before the first PlayStation debuted  —  Jim Ryan, president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, is stepping down after almost 30 years with the company.
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
The US and Japan warn that the China-backed BlackTech hacking group is breaching network devices, including Cisco's, to install backdoors on corporate networks  —  US and Japanese law enforcement and cybersecurity agencies warn of the Chinese ‘BlackTech’ hackers breaching network devices …
Camomile Shumba / CoinDesk:
Report: Bank for International Settlements and French, Swiss, and Singaporean central banks successfully tested cross-border wholesale CBDC trading using DeFi  —  The Bank for International Settlements alongside the central banks of France, Singapore and Switzerland tested out using wholesale CBDC to conduct cross border trading.
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple launches a Wallet feature in the UK using the country's Open Banking API, showing users their current account balances, deposits, and payment history  —  Apple is soft launching a new iPhone Wallet app integration today that is powered by the United Kingdom's Open Banking API.
Erin Woo / The Information:
Sources: X is cutting ~50% of its global team devoted to limiting disinformation and election fraud, less than a month after saying it would expand the team  —  Elon Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter, is cutting around half of the global team devoted to limiting disinformation and election fraud …
Samrhitha Arunasalam / Reuters:
OpenAI says ChatGPT can now browse the web, available first to Plus and Enterprise users, and the chatbot is “no longer limited to data before September 2021”  —  ChatGPT users will now be able to surf the web, Microsoft-backed (MSFT.O) OpenAI said on Wednesday …
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Paris-based Mistral AI makes its first LLM, Mistral 7B, that it claims outperforms open models with up to 13B parameters, free to use without restrictions  —  The most popular language models out there may be accessed via API, but open models — as far as that term can be taken seriously — are gaining ground.
Bloomberg:
A review of 115 warrants for Google's location and search data in five US states shows investigators are increasingly using the data to solve nonviolent cases  —  Investigators increasingly use warrants to obtain location and search data from Google, even for nonviolent cases—and even for people who had nothing to do with the crime.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Google unveils the Fitbit Charge 6, with a physical side button, integration with Google services like YouTube Music, and more, available on October 12 for $160  —  Fitbit is back with the Charge 6 — and on paper, this one feels like the most Fitbit-y Fitbit since Google actively began folding the company into its ecosystem.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Meta debuts the $500 Quest 3, featuring a 30% higher resolution than the Quest 2, double the processing power, new lenses, a thinner design, and new controllers  —  - New mixed-reality headset to start at $500, a $200 increase  — Apple to launch rival device, Vision Pro, early next year
The Verge:

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Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
Matt Tamanini / The Streamable: