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January 4, 2024, 1:30 PM
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Top News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft unveils a Copilot keyboard key, shipping in new PCs and laptops from its partners, the first major change to the PC keyboard layout in nearly 30 years  —  Microsoft wants 2024 to be “the year of the AI PC,” and it's kicking things off with a significant change to the keyboard on new laptops and PCs.
Sarah Martin / The Guardian:
The CEO of collapsed crypto fund HyperVerse, introduced to investors in 2021, doesn't appear to exist; Chainalysis: consumers lost $1.3B to HyperVerse in 2022  —  Exclusive: Steven Reece Lewis was introduced to investors with an impressive list of qualifications and achievements, but no organisation cited can find any record of him
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
LastPass now requires users to set a master password with a minimum of 12 characters, after enforcing the requirement for new accounts or resets in April 2023  —  LastPass notified customers today that they are now required to use complex master passwords with a minimum of 12 characters to increase their accounts' security.
Miles Kruppa / Wall Street Journal:
Perplexity, which offers an AI-based “answer engine” with ~10M MAUs to compete with Google, raised $74M at a $520M valuation from IVP, Jeff Bezos, and others  —  Perplexity, with a fraction of Google's users, raised the largest sum by an internet search startup in recent years
Liam Proven / The Register:
Software design pioneer and Pascal creator Niklaus Wirth, who devised nine programming languages and won the Turing Award in 1984, dies at 89  —  Evangelist of lean software and devisor of 9 programming languages and an OS was 89  —  OBIT Swiss computer scientist Professor Niklaus Wirth died …
Wall Street Journal:
As Google restricts third-party cookies for 1% of Chrome users, marketers, adtech companies, and publishers say Google has not done enough to prepare the market  —  Search giant plans to remove a technology seen as critical to the digital-ad industry  —  Google is going forward …
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Qualcomm unveils the Snapdragon XR2 Plus Gen 2, an update to the XR2 Gen 2 used in Meta's Quest 3, offering 4.3K resolution at 90fps per eye, up from 3K per eye  —  The new chipset is designed as a step up from the XR2 Gen 2 in the Meta Quest 3, capable of rendering high-resolution visuals like the ones promised by Apple's Vision Pro.
The Information:
Sources: OpenAI offered some media companies $1M to $5M per year to license their news articles for AI model training, a tiny amount even for small publishers  —  OpenAI has offered some media firms as little as between $1 million and $5 million annually to license their news articles for use …
Alex Cranz / The Verge:
Dell announces the $1,299+ XPS 13, the $1,699+ XPS 14, replacing the XPS 13 Plus, and the $1,899+ XPS 16, offering Intel Core Ultra 7 and 9 and up to a 4TB SSD  —  This might not be the biggest shake-up of the Dell XPS lineup ever, but between some bigger laptops and a total revamping of the XPS portfolio, it feels like a big deal.
Josh Eidelson / Bloomberg:
The US NLRB rules that Alphabet illegally refused to negotiate with a group of YouTube Music contract workers employed by Cognizant after they voted to unionize  —  - YouTube Music staff voted to join Alphabet union last year  — Google to appeal, says workers are employees of Cognizant
Ana Swanson / New York Times:
The White House awards $162M in federal grants to Arizona-based Microchip Technology to expand its Oregon and Colorado facilities, the second CHIPS Act award  —  The Biden administration said its second grant under a new program would help Microchip Technology expand its facilities in Oregon and Colorado.
Bloomberg:
Sources: TikTok aims to grow TikTok Shop US' merchandise volume tenfold to $17.5B in 2024 and plans to launch TikTok Shop in Latin America in the coming months  —  - ByeDance's video app is fast expanding beyond advertising … The 2024 merchandise volume goal for the US version of TikTok Shop …
The Information:
TikTok plans to raise TikTok Shop's US seller fees from 2% to 8% over the next few months; a source says TikTok has started reducing some merchant subsidies

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:30 PM ET, January 4, 2024.

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.

From Mediagazer

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Arkansas PBS severs ties with the PBS network, the first state public TV system to do so since Congress cut CPB funds, citing the annual $2M+ membership cost

Sam Roberts / New York Times:
Arthur L. Carter, who started a Connecticut newspaper in 1981, bought and sold The Nation, and founded the New York Observer in 1987, has died at 93

Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:
Disney's Zootopia 2 surpasses $1B at the global box office, the fastest PG-rated film to do so after just 17 days in release

More News

Nicole Carpenter / Polygon:
Kim Kardashian says her Glu Mobile-developed game, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, will shut down on April 8; between 2014 and 2016, the game made $156M in sales
Paul Sandle / Reuters:
Layered Reality announces Elvis Evolution, an AI, AR, and holographic-based show, launching in London in 2024 before traveling to Las Vegas, Tokyo, and Berlin

Earlier Picks

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch:
In a letter to a group of victims of its October 2023 breach, 23andMe blames them, saying that “users negligently recycled and failed to update their passwords”
Macauley Peterson / Blockworks:
Etherscan, the leading block explorer for Ethereum that was founded in 2015, acquires Solscan, a block explorer for Solana founded in 2021
Todd Shields / Bloomberg:
SpaceX launches its first six Starlink satellites capable of offering mobile phone service as part of its Direct to Cell service in partnership with T-Mobile US
Stephen Nellis / Reuters:
Intel spins out Articul8, an AI company backed by DigitalBridge and others; executives did not share the deal's value or if Intel would retain a majority stake
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