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Techmeme
January 19, 2024, 8:20 PM

Top News

Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Apple opens pre-orders for the Vision Pro, which has an M2 chip with an 8-core CPU and a 10-core GPU, 16GB of memory, and 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage options  —  Apple today finally shared additional tech specs for its Vision Pro headset following the start of pre-orders in the United States.
More: Apple on YouTube, Apple on YouTube, Ars Technica, AppleInsider, Wired, 9to5Mac, MacRumors, Appleosophy, AppleInsider, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, MacRumors, Mashable, The Verge, TechSpot, Road to VR, Supercharged, MacRumors, Business Insider, Tom's Hardware, Cult of Mac, iMore, MacRumors, CNBC, Wccftech, 9to5Mac, MacRumors, Notebookcheck, and Fortune
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
Apple releases Vision Pro accessories, including a travel case, a battery pack, and a Light Seal, all for $199 each, and Solo Knit and Dual Loop bands for $99  —  Apple Vision Pro is now available for pre-order, and so are lots of accessories for Apple's first spatial computer.  The price for most things?
Hartley Charlton / MacRumors:
Bloomberg:
Microsoft says Russia-linked group Midnight Blizzard hacked some employee emails beginning in November 2023; the same group breached SolarWinds as early as 2019  —  - Nation-state spies previously conducted cyber-espionage on US  — Targeted breaches hit Microsoft executives, cyber team
Bloomberg:
Sources: Sam Altman has held talks to raise billions, including $8B to $10B from Abu Dhabi-based G42, to set up a network of factories to manufacture chips  —  - Push reflects concern about potential semiconductor shortage  — Project would involve working with major chipmaking companies
Piotr Lipinski / Reuters:
The EU Commission is seeking feedback on concessions Apple offered, including opening its Tap to Pay tech to third-party wallets for 10 years, to settle a probe  —  The European Commission is seeking feedback from rivals and customers on concessions Apple (AAPL.O) offered …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
X rolls out audio and video calling to Android, after launching on iOS in October 2023; all users can receive calls, but only Premium subscribers can place them  —  Elon Musk's own social network X is rolling out the ability to make audio and video calls directly from the app to its Android client.
Theo Wayt / The Information:
Flexport raised $260M from Shopify, one of its biggest shareholders; Shopify sold its logistics business to Flexport in exchange for equity in 2023  —  Flexport is raising $260 million from e-commerce software giant Shopify, one of its biggest shareholders, according to two people with direct knowledge …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Rabbit's $199 AI device R1 will use Perplexity AI's tech to answer user queries; the first 100,000 R1 buyers will get one year of Perplexity Pro for free  —  One of the standout gadgets of this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the rabbit r1, will use Perplexity AI's tech to answer user queries …
Dan Ladden-Hall / The Daily Beast:
Author Rie Kudan, this year's winner of Japan's prestigious Akutagawa Prize, reveals that ~5% of her book “quoted verbatim the sentences generated by” ChatGPT  —  One of the judges praised her winning book as being “flawless.”  —  At an award ceremony for one of Japan's …

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