Techmeme
January 29, 2024, 2:10 PM

Top News

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
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%.
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.
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’
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
Meta partners with the Center for Open Science to share data for researching online well-being, before January 31'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 …
Gavin Bonshor / AnandTech:
AMD Ryzen 7 8700G and Ryzen 5 8600G review: both offer solid levels of gaming performance for $329 and $229, respectively, especially with AMD's fastest cores  —  One of the most desired desktop chips designed for low-cost systems has been AMD's APUs, or Accelerated Processing Units.
Oliver Haslam / iMore:
Apple updates Shazam to add support for identifying songs from other apps while listening via wired or Bluetooth headphones and earbuds  —  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 …
More: MacRumors, MobileSyrup, and BGR
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 …
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

Tribe AI:
Build AI that works  —  Tribe builds tech for top AI companies.  Get in touch to learn how our bench of 500+ engineers and researchers can accelerate your roadmap.
Prospect:
A running list of the best startups to join  —  We've analyzed thousands of startups using the same data VCs use and distilled our list down to the top 2%.  Discover and join the next Stripe, Airbnb, or Coinbase today.
Zoho:
Optimizing Business Finances: Leveraging the Synergy of QuickBooks and Zoho Expense  —  Expenses incurred by employees are an essential part of accounting and must be captured and recorded accurately.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Gavin Purcell & Kevin Pereira, The Future of AI (#55)
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 05/03 - Apple Earnings Underline Their Predicament
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:10 PM ET, January 29, 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.

More News

Earlier Picks

David Pierce / The Verge:
Jennifer Maas / Variety:
Salvador Rodriguez / Wall Street Journal: