Techmeme: 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 (Bloomberg)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News

January 29, 2024, 10:30 AM

Top News

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.

More: NBC News, Engadget, NBC News on YouTube, Variety, Neowin, and The Hill

Mastodon: @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social and @josephcox@infosec.exchange. X: @tomwarren

See also Mediagazer

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’

More: 9to5Mac, Gizmodo, TechHive, Fast Company, GameSpot, Bloomberg, Trak.in, The Verge, BGR, Cord Cutters News, and Making Television Easy Again!

See also Mediagazer

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

Threads: @gruber and @imdavidpierce. Mastodon: @matt@worldkey.io

X: @joshm, @gabrielvaldivia, @joshm, @joshm, @joshm, @joshm, and @joshm. LinkedIn: Jeff Weiner

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 …

More: Computerworld, South China Morning Post, Neowin, and The Decoder. X: @byjoshye

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’ …

More: TechSpot and SamMobile

X: @crmiller1, @dunne_insights, and @georgemagnus1. Forums: r/neoliberal

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

Sponsor Posts

Google:

Try Gemini 3 Pro — Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life

Shopify:

Shopify's new AI commerce stack — Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI and tech.

Zoho:

Get your favorite apps talking to Zoho Sign with Zapier — Your business didn't come together overnight. It's something you've built, refined, and fine-tuned over time. Every tool you use has a purpose …

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Grit:

How Brands Stay Visible When AI Decides | Profound CEO James Cadwallader

Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.

Subscribe to Grit.

Lenny's Podcast:

The coming AI security crisis (and what to do about it) | Sander Schulhoff

Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.

Big Technology Podcast:

OpenAI's Potential, Google's Speedy Model, Copilot Hits Turbulence

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.

Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.

Hard Fork:

Why Roomba Died + Tech Predictions for 2026 + A Hard Forkin' Xmas Song

The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.

Subscribe to Hard Fork.

Access:

Betting on reality with Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour

A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.

Subscribe to Access.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:30 AM 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.

From Mediagazer

Washington Post:

Internal email: 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi told staffers Bari Weiss pulled the CECOT segment after the Trump administration refused an interview

Ali Watkins / New York Times:

Channel 4 says Jimmy Kimmel will share a message on Christmas Day as part of its Alternative Christmas Message show, emphasizing the importance of free speech

Reuters:

Israel's cabinet votes to shut down popular national radio station Army Radio, saying it has become a platform for views that “attack” its armed forces

Upcoming Tech Events

Jan 4

Samsung "The First Look" media event

Game Developers Conference

More News

Dawn Lim / Bloomberg:

How Blackstone is building a $25B US data center empire via its QTS acquisition, using an estimated 6 GW of electricity when complete, equal to ~5M homes' needs

Alex Fitzpatrick / Axios:

The New York Times says users played its puzzles and games more than 8B times in 2023, led by Wordle with 4.8B plays, and the NYT Games app had 10M downloads

Financial Times:

How Japan's $6.4B takeover of key photoresists supplier JSR and ~$4.7B buyout of Fujitsu's chip-packaging arm Shinko Electric rankled many in the chip industry

X: @kanainagaki

Nikkei Asia:

Source: Japanese telecom NTT and Intel plan to build tech to mass-produce next-gen chips using optical tech to reduce power consumption, a possible game changer

More: eeNews Europe. X: @nikkeiasia

Oliver Haslam / iMore:

Apple updates Shazam to add support for identifying songs from other apps while listening via wired or Bluetooth headphones

More: MacRumors and BGR

Brandon Vigliarolo / The Register:

At Pwn2Own's first automotive-focused event, a total of $1.3M+ was awarded across 49 car-related zero-days, which included gaining root access to a Tesla modem

More: Forbes

Jennifer Maas / Variety:

A look at Warner Bros. Discovery's push to expand its gaming division with live services and mobile games, by leveraging its franchises like Game of Thrones

More: PC Games Insider. Mastodon: @BeAware@social.beaware.live. X: @benjisales, @benjisales, @captaingalxy, and @variety

See also Mediagazer

Earlier Picks

Thomas Claburn / The Register:

Q&A with Simon Willison, Django co-creator and an influential observer of AI software, on copyright concerns over AI, open-source AI models, LLMs, and more

X: @j2bryson, @simonw, and @rednafi

Bloomberg:

Sources: Reddit is targeting a valuation “in the mid-single-digit billions” for its planned IPO in March 2024, after raising funds at a $10B valuation in 2021

More: Proactive, Fast Company, Social Media Today, Crypto Daily, The Messenger, Business Insider, PYMNTS.com, and The Information

LinkedIn: Alan Vaksman. Forums: r/business, r/technology, r/privacy, and r/StockMarket

See also Mediagazer

Michael Msika / Bloomberg:

Europe's blue-chip stocks index Euro Stoxx 50 hits its highest level since 2001, with ASML and SAP, the region's two biggest tech stocks, powering the surge

X: @patrickmoorhead, @schuldensuehner, and @economyapp

Steven Sinofsky / Hardcore Software:

Apple has handled its response, including its proposed App Store changes, to the EU's DMA with aplomb, despite the law being an assault on Apple's brand promise

More: MacStories, The Verge, Six Colors, and Livemint

Threads: @alexheath, @theromit, @benedictevans, and @sixonedude

Mastodon: @ppatel@mstdn.social, @romaindillet@mastodon.social, and @slightlyoff@toot.cafe

X: @gruber, @snazzylabs, @ostynhyss, @snazzylabs, @timsweeneyepic, @counternotions, @stevesi, @gruber, @stevesi, @stevesi, and @pencoyd. Forums: Lobsters

Lora Kolodny / NBC News:

Researchers: financial sextortion of young users on TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube is rising, driven by Yahoo Boys, a West African cybercriminal gang

More: Network Contagion Research Institute, Infosecurity, and Neowin

Bluesky: @karlhungus.bsky.social. X: @alexwgoldenberg, @alexwgoldenberg, @alexwgoldenberg, @alexwgoldenberg, @repriggleman, @alexwgoldenberg, @alexwgoldenberg, @alexwgoldenberg, @alexwgoldenberg, @nbcnewsworld, @fbicharlotte, @benjamingoggin, and @benjamingoggin. LinkedIn: Lora Kolodny

Will Knight / Wired:

The Biden admin plans to use the Defense Production Act to require companies to inform the Commerce Department when they start training high-powered AI models

More: Network World, Associated Press, Bloomberg, Fortune, SiliconANGLE, Politico, Mashable, and PCMag

X: @moharchat, @jamescz19, and @wired

Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:

X plans to build a new “Trust and Safety center of excellence” in Austin, Texas, and hire 100 full-time moderators to fight child sexual exploitation material

More: TechCrunch, Committee on the Judiciary, PCMag, The Verge, The Verge, X, The Hill, The Information, Mashable, The Messenger, Engadget, Tech Xplore, Neowin, Social Media Today, Business Insider, and Axios

Threads: @renee.diresta, @katieharbath, and @crumbler

X: @seesyous and @kurtwagner8

LinkedIn: Erin Rose Kennedy and Isam Ghanim

See also Mediagazer