Techmeme
February 28, 2024, 8:35 PM

Top News

Alex Koller / CNBC:
EA plans to cut 5% of its workforce, part of a plan that includes reducing office space and sunsetting some games; EA employed 13,400 workers as of March 2023  —  - EA announced Wednesday that it will cut 5% of its workforce.  — The video game company employed 13,400 workers as of the end …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Tim Cook says Apple will “break new ground” on generative AI this year; Apple shareholders reject a request for report into whether Apple is using AI ethically  —  - Shareholders approve recommendations for board, executive pay  — Longtime directors Al Gore and James Bell officially step down
Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
Memo: Google CEO Sundar Pichai calls Gemini's problematic responses around race “completely unacceptable” and vows to make structural changes to fix the problem  —  The Scoop  —  Google CEO Sundar Pichai addressed the company's Gemini controversy Tuesday evening …
Ben Lovejoy / 9to5Mac:
Kuo: Vision Pro demand is higher than Apple originally expected, with US shipments expected to hit 200-250k units this year; return rates are now below 1%  —  Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes that Vision Pro demand is higher than Apple originally expected, with US shipments expected to hit 200-250k units this year.
Mehtab Ansari / Smartprix:
Alleged renders of Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 6 show a boxy frame, flat sides, and dimensions that make it slightly shorter and wider than its predecessor  —  The Galaxy Z Fold 6, leaks and rumors about the device have been floating around for a while now and yesterday we reported …
Karissa Bell / Engadget:
President Biden signs an EO that aims to limit the mass-sale of Americans' personal data like geolocation to “countries of concern”, including China and Russia  —  The bulk sale of geolocation, genomic, financial and health data will be off-limits to “countries of concern.”
New York Times:
Sources detail Apple's $10B+ car project: years of disagreements on whether it should be a self-driving car or just an EV, talks with Musk on buying Tesla, more  —  Internal disagreements over the direction of the Apple car led the effort to sputter for years before it was canceled this week.
Leo Schwartz / Fortune:
Gemini agrees to return over $1B to customers and pay a $37M fine in a settlement with the New York Department of Financial Services related to Gemini Earn  —  The New York Department of Financial Services on Wednesday announced a settlement with Gemini, the crypto firm founded by the Winklevoss twins …
Dara Kerr / NPR:
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff tells a reporter, who is looking into his Hawaii land acquisition, that he knows where she is staying and her personal details  —  WAIMEA, Hawaii — A life-size bronze statue of a cowboy sits at the center of Waimea.  The cowboy is riding a horse, lasso in hand, pursuing a wild bull.
Helene Braun / CoinDesk:
Coinbase is investigating an issue causing some users to see a zero balance across their accounts, after BTC topped $60K for the first time since November 2021  —  Multiple users of Coinbase's U.S. platform said on Wednesday that their account balances were wiped out.  —  10 Years of Decentralizing the Future
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:
Snowflake says that CEO Frank Slootman is retiring, and reports Q4 revenue up 32% YoY to $774.7M and Q1 product revenue guidance below est.; SNOW drops 23%+  —  - Snowflake said CEO Frank Slootman, who took the company public in 2020, is retiring.  — The stock dropped in extended trading.
Jon Swartz / MarketWatch:
Salesforce reports Q4 revenue up 11% YoY to $9.29B, vs. $9.2B est., FY 2025 revenue guidance below est., and announces a $10B increase in its share buyback plan  —  Software giant also announces dividend, share buyback  —  Salesforce Inc.'s stock initially slipped 4% in after-hours trading Wednesday …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Adobe unveils Project Music GenAI Control, a platform that can generate audio from text descriptions or a reference melody and let users customize the results  —  There's plenty of GenAI-powered music editing and creation tools out there, but Adobe wants to put its own spin on the concept.
The Information:
Sources: Meta plans to launch Llama 3 in July, as the company tries to overcome a perceived problem that Llama 2's answers for contentious topics are too “safe”  —  As Google grapples with the backlash over the historically inaccurate responses on its Gemini chatbot, Meta Platforms is dealing with a related issue.
Reuters:
Sources: cloud storage service Egnyte has hired underwriters for a US IPO as early as this year that could value it at $3B+; Egnyte was valued at $460M in 2018  —  Cloud storage service Egnyte has hired underwriters for an initial public offering (IPO) in New York that could value it at more than $3 billion …
Angel Au-Yeung / Wall Street Journal:
Hannah Miao / Wall Street Journal:
Webull plans to go public via a SPAC merger with SK Growth Opportunities around September 2024 and expects to raise ~$100M, valuing the online brokerage at $7B+  —  The brokerage, which surged in popularity during the GameStop mania, had previously considered an IPO
Byron Tau / Wired:
A look at some government contractors that are helping US intelligence agencies and others use targeted mobile ads to track down people  —  Meet the guy who taught US intelligence agencies how to make the most of the ad tech ecosystem, “the largest information-gathering enterprise ever conceived by man.”
Anton Shilov / AnandTech:
Samsung launches 36GB 12H HBM3E DRAM for AI, slated for mass production in H1 2024, with 50%+ more peak bandwidth and capacity compared to its previous HBM gen  —  Samsung announced late on Monday the completion of the development of its 12-Hi 36 GB HBM3E memory stacks …
Yiwen Lu / New York Times:
Raw Story, AlterNet, and, in a separate case, The Intercept sue OpenAI in a NY federal court for copyright infringement; The Intercept is also suing Microsoft  —  Raw Story, AlterNet and The Intercept sued for copyright infringement over the way the ChatGPT creator trains its technology.

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More News

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Financial Times:

Earlier Picks

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Joyce Lee / Reuters:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: