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January 11, 2024, 4:55 AM
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Top News

Jesse Hamilton / CoinDesk:
US SEC Chair Gary Gensler concedes that losing in court after rejecting Grayscale's spot bitcoin ETF left the agency with little choice but to approve such ETFs  —  The SEC chair said a court forced his hand and that the agency's decision to greenlight a spot bitcoin ETF doesn't signal support of that or any other digital asset.
Reuters:
The US SEC approves spot bitcoin ETFs from BlackRock, Grayscale, ARK 21Shares, Bitwise, WisdomTree, Fidelity, VanEck, Invesco, Valkyrie, Hashdex, and Franklin  —  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has approved 11 spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds, including those of Grayscale …
Sarah Wynn / The Block:
The US SEC is working with the FBI to investigate the false X post on January 9 about approving spot bitcoin ETFs; the agency approved 11 of them on January 10
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google reorganizes its Devices & Services teams working on the Pixel, Fitbit, and Nest; Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman are leaving Google  —  Google is reorganizing the Devices & Services teams responsible for Pixel, Nest, and Fitbit hardware.
Nico Grant / New York Times:
Sources: several hundred employees from Google's core engineering division received notices that their roles were eliminated and lost corporate access  —  The company, which has been working to trim expenses, laid off employees who worked on core engineering, the Google Assistant product and hardware such as the Pixel phone.
Louise Matsakis / Semafor:
Google lays off hundreds of staff working on Assistant and says the restructuring would help improve Assistant as the company explores integrating newer AI tech  —  Google is laying off hundreds of people working on its voice-activated Google Assistant software and eliminating a similar number …
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
OpenAI debuts a GPT Store for paid users to share and find custom chatbots and plans to start sharing revenue in Q1; users have already made 3M+ chatbots so far  —  The store will feature a bot leaderboard, and will eventually introduce payments.  —  OpenAI has launched an online store …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
OpenAI launches ChatGPT Team, a new subscription plan for teams of up to 149 people, for $30 per user per month, or $25 per user per month billed annually  —  OpenAI is launching a new subscription plan for ChatGPT, its viral AI-powered chatbot, aimed at smaller, self-service-oriented teams.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
X quietly removes the ability for paying subscribers to set an NFT as a profile picture, a feature Twitter launched in January 2022 for Twitter Blue subscribers  —  On Tuesday, Elon Musk's X wrote about a grand vision for the company in 2024, which includes launching peer-to-peer payments and more AI-powered tools.
Dominic-Madori Davis / TechCrunch:
PitchBook: female-founded US companies raised $44.4B out of $170.59B in VC funding in 2023; companies with all-female founding teams raised ~$3.1B, down 39% YoY  —  Female-founded companies in the U.S. raised $44.4 billion out of the $170.59 billion in venture capital allocated last year.
Bloomberg:
Sources: OpenAI is in talks with CNN and Fox Corp. to license their text, video, and image content; Time “is in discussions with OpenAI” about a content deal  —  - Startup has said it's in discussions with dozens of publishers  — Negotiations come as OpenAI faces New York Times lawsuit
The Verge:
Twitch CEO Dan Clancy confirms plans to cut 500+ jobs, or ~35% of its staff, and says its workforce was oversized for its business' size, after March 2023 cuts  —  Twitch is laying off more than 500 employees, or around 35 percent of its staff, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy announced this morning.
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Memo: Amazon Studios SVP Mike Hopkins says the company would cut “several hundred roles” in its Prime Video and MGM Studios units; both had cuts in early 2023
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Netflix says its ad tier has 23M+ MAUs globally, up from 15M+ in November 2023, and 85% of customers on the ad tier are streaming for over 2 hours per day  —  Netflix is seeing strong growth of its advertising-based plan, having recently eclipsed 23 million global monthly active users, president of advertising Amy Reinhard said.
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
The US ITC files its opposition to Apple's motion for the Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 sales ban to remain paused for the duration of the company's appeal  —  The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) today formally opposed Apple's motion for the Apple Watch sales ban to remain paused for the duration of Apple's appeal.

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:55 AM ET, January 11, 2024.

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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

Financial Times:
OpenAI hopes the Disney deal boosts Sora, which has high costs and limited traction; Sensor Tower: users average 13 minutes per day on Sora vs. 90 on TikTok

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

More News

John Timmer / Ars Technica:
Harvard spinout QuEra, a quantum computing startup, plans to release an error-corrected quantum computer with 10,000 physical and 100 logical qubits by 2026
Maria Sherman / Associated Press:
Luminate's 2023 report: the global music industry passed 4T streams in 2023, a new record and up 34% YoY; Taylor Swift accounted for one in every 78 US streams

Earlier Picks

New York Times:
How RISC-V, the US-developed, open-source chip instruction set architecture, became a central tool for Chinese companies and governments, leading to US concerns
Threads: @sung.kim.mw.  X: @bgurley, @donal888, @om, @basche42, and @anaswanson.  Forums: Slashdot
Karen Gilchrist / CNBC:
With ~50% of adults set to vote in 2024, the WEF's Global Risks Report 2024 ranks AI misinformation and disinformation ahead of war, climate change, and more
Kat Bailey / IGN:
Valve plans to add an “AI disclosure section” to Steam, asking developers to describe how their games use AI content and to let gamers report illegal AI content
Gene Maddaus / Variety:
SAG-AFTRA signs a deal with AI voiceover company Replica Studios, requiring consent to create voice replicas for use in video games and safe storage of assets
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