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January 29, 2024, 10:30 AM
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| Bloomberg: |
Amazon ends 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: iRobot, The Verge, TechCrunch, TechHive, The Information, New York Post, NBC News, Engadget, Associated Press, New York Times, Axios, Financial Times, Associated Press, and Wall Street Journal
Threads: @firstadopter. X: @pat_hedger, @bhalligan, @matthewstoller, @laz_radic, @jamestitcomb, @adamkovac, @visu, @bongcapital, @marketsneil, @edludlow, @diane_alter, @lewis_crofts, @jcbcp, and @sarthakgh
| 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 will step down; IRBT drops 15%+ — - 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: PR Newswire, TechCrunch, Reuters, Android Headlines, The Robot Report, and NBC Bay Area
X: @carnage4life, @geoffmanne, @geoffmanne, @bongcapital, and @mattmday
| Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media: |
After fake AI images of Taylor Swift went viral, Microsoft adds safeguards to its AI text-to-image tool Designer; Microsoft couldn't verify if Designer was used — Following 404 Media's reporting, Microsoft has made changes to a tool people were using to make AI nudes of celebrities.| 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.
More: Windows Central, XDA Developers, Windows Central, Eurogamer.net, PC Gamer, Phoronix, KitGuru, TechSpot, TechPowerUp, and Wccftech
| Salvador Rodriguez / Wall Street Journal: |
Sources: Meta is optimistic Vision Pro can reinvigorate its $50B metaverse effort, with the Quest ecosystem filling the role played by Android in smartphones — Company executives are optimistic about competition as billions spent have yet to translate into wide consumer adoption
More: Apple on YouTube, Axios, MacRumors, MIXED Reality News, TechRadar, Notebookcheck, Wccftech, and 9to5Mac
Threads: @kbode. X: @arian_ghashghai, @iamdcinvestor, @amaldorai, @benz145, @lunayian, @iamdcinvestor, @zgftech, @benz145, @benz145, @cixliv, and @edzitron. Forums: MacRumors Forums
| Suzanne Vranica / Wall Street Journal: |
Presentation: Amazon says Prime Video's ad load per hour will be two to 3.5 minutes, below traditional TV and most streamers, and expects 195M 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’| David Pierce / The Verge: |
The Browser Company releases Arc Search, a new iOS app that takes a user's search query, browses the web, and builds a custom webpage to answer the query — A few minutes ago, I opened the new Arc Search app and typed, “What happened in the Chiefs game.” That game, the AFC Championship, had just wrapped up.
More: TechCrunch, Engadget, Arc from The Browser Company, 9to5Mac, MacRumors, MacStories, Spyglass, The Dent, and App Store
Forums: r/ArcBrowser and MacRumors Forums
| 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.| 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 … | Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: |
AR glasses maker Xreal raised $60M from an unidentified supply chain partner at a $1B+ valuation, for $300M+ in funding, and expects $100M-$150M in 2024 revenue — - Xreal CEO says company is aiming to go public within two years — Startup owns about half of still-nascent AR devices market
More: Auganix.org, VentureBeat, MIXED Reality News, and DealStreetAsia
| Chris Miller / Financial Times: |
China's chipmakers are ramping up production capacity, helped by the country's subsidies, raising concerns among western nations about China flooding the market — The oversupply of certain types of semiconductors is going to be a problem this year — The writer is the author of ‘Chip War’ … | 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.
X: @p_ferragu and @mikeisaac
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