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January 29, 2024, 1:50 PM
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| Bloomberg: |
Amazon drops its $1.4B acquisition of Roomba maker iRobot after clashing with EU regulators and will pay a $94M fee; iRobot has ~$500M in net losses since 2021 — - IRobot CEO steps down and company cuts workforce by 31% — Tech giant to pay $94 million to iRobot over deal termination
More: The Verge, About Amazon, The Messenger, The Information, NBC News, Thurrott, TechCrunch, Engadget, TechSpot, TechRadar, New York Times, Associated Press, Axios, Chain Store Age, Financial Times, Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, Android Headlines, and TechStartups
Threads: @firstadopter. X: @mattturck, @pitdesi, @ttoboyle, @progresschamber, @theo_wayt, @visu, @jamestitcomb, @bongcapital, @marketsneil, @pat_hedger, @jcbcp, @sarthakgh, @adamkovac, @edludlow, @linakhanftc, @matthewstoller, @laz_radic, @lewis_crofts, @diane_alter, and @bhalligan. LinkedIn: Emil Protalinski
| Rohan Goswami / CNBC: |
After Amazon ended its acquisition, iRobot plans to lay off 31% of its staff, or ~350 people, and says chair and CEO Colin Angle would step down; IRBT drops 5%+ — - Amazon and iRobot mutually agreed to call off their planned acquisition, writing that there was “no path” to regulatory approval and sending iRobot shares down 15%.
More: Ars Technica, PCMag, iRobot, The Guardian, Gizmodo, eeNews Europe, Fortune, Seattle Business Journal, TechCrunch, Tech Monitor, SiliconANGLE, Business Post, GeekWire, PYMNTS.com, Reuters, The Register, TechHive, The Boston Globe, Investor's Business Daily, New York Post, Tech Xplore, Techaeris, MobileSyrup, Neowin, The Robot Report, and NBC Bay Area
X: @geoffmanne, @geoffmanne, @bongcapital, @carnage4life, and @mattmday
Forums: Hacker News and r/technology
| Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media: |
Microsoft adds safeguards to its AI text-to-image tool Designer, after fake AI images of Taylor Swift went viral and a report of 4chan users misusing the tool — Following 404 Media's reporting, Microsoft has made changes to a tool people were using to make AI nudes of celebrities.
More: VentureBeat, NBC News, Thurrott, Windows Central, Ars Technica, New York Post, Gizmodo, Futurism, Gizmochina, NBC News on YouTube, Engadget, Neowin, Fortune, and Variety
| Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: |
Zoom announces an app for the Apple Vision Pro, featuring digital personas, 3D file sharing, “real-world pinning” of meeting participants, and more — As promised, Zoom will be available on Apple Vision Pro from day one. Ahead of Vision Pro's launch on Friday …
More: Zoom, TechCrunch, AppleInsider, Engadget, PCMag, The Verge, and The Apple Post
| Suzanne Vranica / Wall Street Journal: |
Amazon expects Prime Video's average hourly ad load to be 2 to 3.5 minutes, below traditional TV and most streaming services, and to reach 159M monthly viewers — Move prompts longtime subscribers to cancel Prime altogether, forgoing free shipping; ‘There is only one way to show them that this is not OK’
More: Washington Post, 9to5Mac, PCMag, Thurrott, Neowin, Fast Company, Gizmochina, KnowTechie, TechRadar, The Streamable, GameSpot, Gizmodo, TechHive, Bloomberg, TweakTown, The Verge, and Making Television Easy Again!. Forums: Hacker News
| Dawn Lim / Bloomberg: |
How Blackstone is building a ~$25B US data center empire after acquiring QTS, estimated to use 6GW of electricity when complete, equal to the needs of ~5M homes — The private equity giant says landlord QTS could be one of its best investments ever — but the resources needed for growth are vast.| Allison Johnson / The Verge: |
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review: bright screen, anti-glare, Circle to Search, great camera, and seven years of updates, but pricey, heavy, and AI is a mixed bag — The Galaxy S24 Ultra is packed with top-tier hardware, but its highly touted AI features are hit-or-miss — and the price is higher than ever.
More: MacRumors, CNET, XDA Developers, IGN, Forbes, PCMag, MakeUseOf, Tom's Guide, GSMArena.com, TechSpot, and The Shortcut
| New York Times: |
How Google, Meta, Microsoft, and others balance developing specialized AI chips with their relationship with Nvidia, which has an estimated 70% of AI chip sales — In September, Amazon said it would invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic, a San Francisco start-up working on artificial intelligence.| Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch: |
Meta partners with the Center for Open Science to share data for researching online well-being, before Wednesday's Congressional hearing on kids' online safety — Ahead of a major Congressional hearing about children's online safety, Meta has announced a collaboration with the Center for Open Science …
More: Engadget and Center for Open Science
| Priya Anand / Bloomberg: |
Sema4.ai, a three-month-old startup led by ex-Cloudera CEO Rob Bearden aiming to automate business tasks with AI, raised $30.5M and acquires AI startup Robocorp — Investors in Sema4.ai's funding round included Benchmark and Mayfield. — Sema4.ai, a startup that makes artificial intelligence tools … | Oliver Haslam / iMore: |
Apple updates Shazam to add support for identifying songs from other apps while listening via wired or Bluetooth headphones — Apple's Shazam is now better than ever. — Shazam has long been the go-to app for people who want to know what song they're listening to but now it's better than ever thanks to a new version 17.3 update.
More: MacRumors, MobileSyrup, and iClarified
| Josh Ye / Reuters: |
Chinese state media: China has approved more than 40 LLMs for public use since authorities began the approval process in August 2023; 14 were approved last week — China has approved more than 40 artificial intelligence (AI) models for public use in the first six months since authorities began …
More: ITPro, The Decoder, Neowin, Computerworld, and South China Morning Post
| Bloomberg: |
The US ODNI appointed cyber expert Jason Barrett in October 2023 to help the intel community harness open-source intel, an area US agencies have struggled with — Scouring open-source intelligence may not have the same cachet as undercover work, but it's become a new priority for the US intelligence agencies.Sponsor Posts
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Zoho:
Labels that build themselves: Simplified Label Automation in Zoho Writer — Anyone who ships every day knows this feeling. Forty orders, each with a different number of items, and every item needs its own label.
Labels that build themselves: Simplified Label Automation in Zoho Writer — Anyone who ships every day knows this feeling. Forty orders, each with a different number of items, and every item needs its own label.
IDrive:
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WebBrain:
WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser — Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox. Use local models or your preferred AI provider. Get started free.
WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser — Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox. Use local models or your preferred AI provider. Get started free.Featured Podcasts
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Will the Democrats' Big Win Stop the AI Buildout? — With Teddy Schleifer
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Machine Gods:
Crypto's Biggest Heist Ever + The Spy Who Loved Nvidia + Hacktober's Unsolved Mysteries
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
Barry Diller on Big Bets, AI, and Knowing When to Walk Away
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Martin Casado on Frontier Model Economics, AI's Slowdown, and the Cursor Deal
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Sources:
A quiet investor's $10 billion bet on AI, chips, and defense
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
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