Techmeme
May 9, 2024, 9:10 AM

Top News

Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
Sources: Microsoft plans more cuts after closing several game studios, as the massive Activision acquisition has ramped up scrutiny on the Xbox division  —  Xbox is offering voluntary severance agreements to producers, quality assurance testers and other staff at ZeniMax as part of a broader cost-cutting initiative
Ash Parrish / The Verge:
Town hall: Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty discussed wanting small and prestigious games, after closing the studio behind small, prestigious hit Hi-Fi Rush  —  Today, one day after Microsoft announced that it would shut down four of its games studios, Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios …
Wall Street Journal:
Binance sources and documents: internal investigators, dismissed in late 2023, found evidence of market manipulation by DWF Labs and secret trading accounts  —  Former company insiders say the firing of an internal investigator showed that the crypto exchange neglected evidence of market manipulation.
Dallin Grimm / Tom's Hardware:
Some Stack Overflow users say their account was suspended after they attempted to alter their posts in protest of its OpenAI partnership to supply data for AI  —  Stack Overflow is overflowing with salt.  —  Stack Overflow, a legendary internet forum for programmers and developers …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
A look at potential successors to Tim Cook; sources say Apple's hardware engineering chief John Ternus is the most likely long-term successor  —  John Ternus, the head of hardware engineering, is emerging as a potential successor to the CEO.  —  Tim Cook has transformed Apple Inc. since taking …
Wall Street Journal:
In a blog post, Neuralink details a problem with its implant in patient Noland Arbaugh's brain that reduced data collection after the implant's threads came out  —  Amount of data captured from the device declined, although the patient and the Elon Musk-owned company still staged a successful demonstration
Bloomberg:
Sources: Alphabet has been progressing in talks to acquire marketing software provider HubSpot and has discussed terms; HubSpot has a $30B market cap  —  Google parent Alphabet Inc. has been progressing in talks to acquire marketing software provider HubSpot Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
OpenAI publishes Model Spec, which specifies how its models should behave, including objectives, rules, and default behaviors, and asks the public for feedback  —  OpenAI isn't done trying to live up to the “open” in its name.  —  While not making any of its new models open source …
Emily Chang / Bloomberg:
An interview with Sundar Pichai on playing the long game on AI, how Gemini image generation “got it wrong”, AI search, the US DOJ lawsuits, layoffs, and more  —  In this episode of The Circuit with Emily Chang, the Alphabet CEO explains how he's in it for the long haul—and won't dance to anyone else's tune.
Shahram Mokhtari / iFixit News:
Huawei Pura 70 Pro teardown: the 7nm Kirin 9010 is only marginally better than Kirin 9000S, and the majority of the chips are designed and manufactured in China  —  Huawei released the Pura 70 line of smartphones in April 2024 and it's already made a bit of a stir.
Jesse Pound / CNBC:
Robinhood reports Q1 revenue up 40% YoY to $618M, vs. $549M est., crypto transaction revenue up 232% to $126M, and a $157M net income, vs. a $511M net loss YoY  —  Shares of Robinhood rose in extended trading Wednesday afternoon after the retail brokerage announced stronger-than-expected first-quarter results.
Bloomberg:
SMIC reports Q1 revenue up 4.3% YoY to $1.75B, vs. $1.69B est., and a $71.8M net income, vs. $76.8M est., as consumer sentiment remains weak in China  —  - Net income was $71.8 million in the three months to March  — SMIC expects revenue to rise by 5%-7% in April-June quarter
More: Reuters and SMIC
BBC:
Ofcom proposes new rules requiring tech companies to change their algorithms to hide “toxic” material from children, have more robust age checks, and more  —  Ofcom has warned social media sites they could be named and shamed - and banned for under-18s - if they fail to comply with new online safety rules.
Michael Peel / Financial Times:
Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs detail AlphaFold 3, an AI model to predict interactions and structures of proteins, DNA, RNA, more, beating many top methods  —  AlphaFold 3 aims to reveal biological secrets and boost drug search efforts  —  Google DeepMind has unveiled …

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