Techmeme
January 29, 2024, 1:15 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:
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’
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 …
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.
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 …
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.

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Meet Airtable ProductCentral  —  The unified solution for managing your entire product development process in the AI era.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
Stay secure while signing documents digitally this Cybersecurity Awareness Month  —  National Cybersecurity Awareness Month was launched in October of 2004 and has been observed every year since.
Notion:
Get up to 6 months free of Notion with unlimited AI  —  Notion is trusted and loved by thousands of startups as their connected workspace—from building product roadmaps to tracking fundraising.  Build and scale your company with one tool!
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 10/31 - Spooky... I Mean, Earnings Season
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 1:15 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

Jennifer Maas / Variety:
Salvador Rodriguez / Wall Street Journal:
Steven Sinofsky / Hardcore Software: