Techmeme
January 18, 2023, 10:05 PM

Top News

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Memo: Microsoft plans to lay off 10,000 employees through March 31, reducing its headcount by less than 5%, and take a $1.2B charge tied to severance and more  —  Citing a need to “align our cost structure with our revenue and where we see customer demand,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told employees Wednesday …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Apple announces a second-generation HomePod with a similar design to the original from 2018, Matter support, S7 chip, and more, shipping on February 3 for $299  —  It will be sold alongside the HomePod Mini, the smaller version of the speaker introduced in 2020, and features support …
Hartley Charlton / MacRumors:
Apple enables a temperature and humidity sensor in the HomePod mini and second-generation HomePod, helping users create automations to execute household tasks  —  The reintroduced HomePod offers a temperature and humidity sensor, but Apple is also enabling the feature on the existing HomePod mini.
Reuters:
The US Treasury's FinCEN unit labels crypto exchange Bitzlato as a “money laundering concern” related to Russian illicit finance; French police seize Bitzlato  —  The U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network on Wednesday said it has identified virtual …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is working on an iPad-based smart display with smart home controls, video, and FaceTime and on a new Apple TV for H1 2024 with a faster processor  —  Apple Inc. is working on a slate of devices aimed at challenging Amazon.com Inc. and Google in the smart-home market …
Erin Woo / The Information:
Source: Twitter engineering manager Siddharth Rao told employees that daily revenue was 40% lower YoY and 500+ of the company's top advertisers paused spending  —  A senior Twitter manager told employees that the company's daily revenue on Tuesday was 40% lower than the same day a year ago …
The Block:
Sources: Genesis creditors are negotiating a bankruptcy plan with the firm and weighing a one to two-year forbearance period in exchange for cash and DCG equity  —  - Genesis creditors are negotiating the terms of a possible Chapter 11 filing, according to sources close to the matter.
Billy Perrigo / TIME:
Investigation: starting in November 2021, OpenAI contracted Kenya-based Sama workers to label violent, toxic, and sexual content for ~$2/hour to improve ChatGPT  —  Content warning: this story contains descriptions of sexual abuse  —  ChatGPT was hailed as one of 2022's …
Addy Bink / The Hill:
Amazon plans to close AmazonSmile, its program launched in 2013 that let customers donate 0.5% of eligible items' purchase prices to a charity, on February 20  —  (NEXSTAR) - Amazon will be closing its charity program, AmazonSmile, in the coming weeks in order to “focus its philanthropic giving to programs with greater impact.”
Bloomberg:
Amazon begins laying off 18,000+ employees, impacting ~1% of its total workforce and ~6% of its 350,000 corporate staff, mostly in its retail and HR departments  —  Amazon.com Inc. is set to begin a round of layoffs ultimately affecting more than 18,000 employees in the largest job cull in its history …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Samsung Galaxy S23, S23 Plus, and S23 Ultra specs allegedly leak: 6.1-, 6.6-, and 6.8-inch displays, Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, a 200MP sensor for the Ultra, and more  —  Spec sheets for all three devices in Samsung's upcoming flagship smartphone lineup, the Galaxy S23 series, appear to have leaked online.
CoinDesk:
Analysis: 196 members of the new Congress accepted donations from Sam Bankman-Fried or other FTX senior executives, including Kevin McCarthy and Chuck Schumer  —  The session began with 196 U.S. lawmakers who took direct contributions from Sam Bankman-Fried and other former FTX executives …
Wall Street Journal:
Investigation: 600+ US law enforcement agencies can access a database of 150M+ money transfers between the US and 20+ countries via Western Union and others  —  Law-enforcement agencies across the U.S. have direct access to over 150 million transactions housed at an Arizona nonprofit
Digiday:
Similarweb: Twitter referral traffic to 12 major news outlets fell 12% on average from November 2022 to December 2022; only traffic to NY Post and Fox News grew  —  Under the leadership of Elon Musk, Twitter's role as a traffic referral source to publishers' sites is largely declining.
Chavi Mehta / Reuters:
Spotify, Deezer, Proton, and others write to Margrethe Vestager, demanding the European Commission take action against Apple's “unfair practices”, like IAP fees  —  Music streaming service Spotify Technology (SPOT.N), along with other media firms such as Deezer …
Joseph F. Kovar / CRN:
Cloudian, a hybrid cloud data management and storage tech vendor, raised $60M from Digital Alpha, Intel Capital, and others, bringing its total funding to $233M  —  'When you have one infrastructure, you can control that infrastructure, your data your costs, and your access.

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More News

Helen Thomas / Financial Times:
Abha Bhattarai / Washington Post:

Earlier Picks

Patrick McGee / Financial Times:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: