Techmeme
April 23, 2024, 6:25 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
The FTC bans noncompete clauses that restrict job switching, the first time in 50+ years that the FTC has issued a regulation mandating an economy-wide change  —  Move sets up high-stakes legal clash with business groups over the agency's power  —  WASHINGTON—The Federal Trade Commission …
Emilia David / The Verge:
Microsoft debuts Phi-3 Mini, a small 3.8B-parameter model about as capable as GPT-3.5, and plans Phi-3 Small and Phi-3 Medium models with 7B and 14B parameters  —  Microsoft launched the next version of its lightweight AI model Phi-3 Mini, the first of three small models the company plans to release.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Meta rolls out multimodal AI in early access for the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, mainly to help identify objects, translate signs, and write Instagram captions  —  When the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses launched last fall, they were a pretty neat content capture tool and a surprisingly solid pair of headphones.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Meta's Ray-Ban Smart Glasses get support for video calling via WhatsApp and Messenger, hands-free Apple Music controls, and a new frame style  —  Meta just announced a slew of new updates for its Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.  CEO Mark Zuckerberg just dropped an Instagram reel showing off …
Ming-Chi Kuo:
Sources: Apple cut 2024 Vision Pro shipments to 400K-450K units, vs. a 700K+ market consensus, and US demand has “fallen sharply beyond expectations”  —  My latest survey is as follows:  — Apple has cut its 2024 Vision Pro shipments to 400-450k units (vs. market consensus of 700-800k units or more).
Quentyn Kennemer / The Verge:
Apple schedules a “special Apple Event” for May 7 at 10am ET, where new iPads are expected; rumors suggest the iPad Pro will get an OLED display and an M3 chip  —  After kicking off 2024 with the launch of the Vision Pro, the next act in Apple's 2024 script is a May product launch event.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: IBM is nearing an acquisition of HashiCorp, which helps companies manage cloud infrastructure, in the coming days; HashiCorp's stock jumps 22%+  —  .  —  The details  —  A deal for HashiCorp could come together in the coming days, according to people familiar with the matter.
Jacob Ridley / PC Gamer:
The European Parliament adopts right-to-repair rules clarifying manufacturer obligations to provide repair services, consumer access to spare parts, and more  —  The new rules will give customers new ways to claim support for a product throughout its lifetime, and also aid independent repair shops.
Counterpoint Research:
iPhone sales in China fell 19.1% YoY to a 15.7% share in Q1 2024; Vivo fell 0.4% YoY to 17.4%, Honor rose 11.5% YoY to 16.1%, and Huawei rose 69.7% YoY to 15.5%  —  - China's smartphone sales grew 1.5% YoY and 4.6% QoQ in Q1 2024, marking the second consecutive quarter of positive YoY growth.
Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg:
Perplexity AI, which offers an AI chatbot that summarizes search results, raised ~$63M led by Daniel Gross at a $1B+ valuation, up from $520M in January 2024  —  Perplexity's valuation has doubled in three months in a clear sign of investor enthusiasm for the company's artificial intelligence chatbot.
Sara Dorn / Forbes:
The US Senate advances the bill forcing a sale or ban of TikTok, preparing for a final vote on the bill as soon as Tuesday evening  —  The Senate is all but certain to pass the House-approved package that could ultimately ban TikTok if its China-based parent company doesn't sell the app …
Viola Zhou / Rest of World:
Interviews with 20+ current and former TSMC staff at its Arizona plant finds struggles over bridging Taiwanese and US norms, rigid hierarchies, and other issues  —  Missed deadlines and tension among Taiwanese and American coworkers are plaguing the chip giant's Phoenix expansion.
Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
Spotify reports Q1 revenue up 20% YoY to €3.6B, MAUs up 19% YoY to 615M, below 617.9M est., subscribers up 14% YoY to 239M, and a €168M operating income  —  - Subscribers to paid Spotify tiers jumped 14% to 239 million  — Swedish audio-streaming company posted record operating profit
Forbes:
Taser company Axon launches an AI tool that turns body cam audio into police reports to save time; critics worry it will introduce errors into crucial evidence  —  Axon says its AI will help get more police out of the office and on the streets.  Critics worry it'll make cops lazy and potentially introduce errors into crucial evidence.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Adobe adds AI tools powered by its new Firefly Image 3 model to Photoshop, including Reference Image to inspire the AI's output, available in beta on desktop  —  Adobe is adding some new generative AI tools to its Photoshop creative software that aim to give users additional ways to control the designs they generate.
Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Repairable laptop maker Framework Computer raised a $17M Series A-1, after an $18M Series A in early 2022, to expand into new product categories  —  Framework Computer was ahead of the curve.  The company was founded in 2019, as 20 U.S. states began exploring potential right to repair bills.

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:
Fast, affordable law for startups  —  Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better.  We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts.  Join the waitlist for early access!
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
Zoho Mail MCP: Make your inbox work for you  —  Maya is the head of operations at a 500-person B2B software company.  She's sharp, she's busy, and she starts every morning the same way-with her coffee, laptop, inbox.Not to work.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Anthropic's Mythos is Back, OpenAI Releases GPT 5.6, Apple's Price Increases
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:
'The Daily' and 'The Opinions': How A.I. Is Changing Loneliness and Taste
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.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Writer's May Habib: Building AI Tools For Corporate 'Normal People' The Labs Leave Behind
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
A Nick, Dick, and Paul Buffet!
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Great Chat:
How much data do we actually want about our bodies?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:25 PM ET, April 23, 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

Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Deepa Seetharaman / Wall Street Journal:
Chris Welch / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Washington Post:
Austin Weinstein / Bloomberg:
Reuters:
Mike Cherney / Wall Street Journal:
Scott Stein / CNET:
More: Meta, UploadVR, Game Rant, TweakTown, Inc.com, Fortune, iLounge, TechRadar, PC Gamer, PCGamesN, VentureBeat, T3, HotHardware, KitGuru, Stratechery, Road to VR, Mashable, Financial Express, SamMobile, NFT News Today, Engadget, The Hindu, Thurrott, 9to5Google, UploadVR, The Verge, Techsponential, Meta for Developers, UploadVR, and Road to VR