Techmeme
January 31, 2023, 4:25 PM

Top News

Casey Newton / Platformer:
Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger form a venture to explore next-gen social apps; the first is Artifact, a TikTok-like app for news articles  —  EXCLUSIVE: Meet Artifact, a kind of TikTok for text  —  Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are back.
Jack Schickler / CoinDesk:
Independent examiner: Celsius misled its investors, sometimes used new customer funds to pay for withdrawals, CEO Alex Mashinsky made false claims, and more  —  Shoba Pillay was appointed by a New York bankruptcy court to look at whether the crypto lender operated as a Ponzi scheme
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
A look at Microsoft's prized 343 Industries, the studio behind Halo, after a leadership overhaul, layoffs, and more; sources detail a pivot to Unreal Engine  —  Microsoft Corp. says it's going to keep making new games in the popular Halo franchise at its prized 343 Industries studio — despite rumors to the contrary.
The Verge:
Apple HomePod (second-gen) review: similarly good sound quality, useful sensors, and a responsive Siri, but pricey and the best experience is via a paired set  —  Apple's second take on the HomePod doesn't stray far from the original, but it's better all around.
Takashi Mochizuki / Bloomberg:
Sources: Sony halves its PlayStation VR2 shipment forecast to ~1M units in Q1 after early preorders disappointed; the headset is slated to launch on February 22  —  Sony Group Corp. reduced projections for the initial launch of its PlayStation VR2 headset dramatically after early pre-orders disappointed …
Ina Fried / Axios:
Anna Nicolaou / Financial Times:
Brian Merchant / Los Angeles Times:
The real aim of the Big Tech layoffs is to bring workers to heel and cultivate an insecure workforce, as an actual recession has yet to hit the tech sector  —  In Silicon Valley, the new year began as the last one ended — with tens of thousands of tech workers losing their jobs.
Jillian Deutsch / Bloomberg:
A draft EU “fair-share” document proposes making Netflix, Alphabet, and other “large traffic generators” to help pay for next-generation internet infrastructure  —  The European Union is weighing a proposal to make technology companies that use the most bandwidth …
Sharon Goldman / VentureBeat:
Parmy Olson / Bloomberg:
The European Commission plans to require that country regulators report six times a year on GDPR investigations and more, after a complaint by rights group ICCL  —  It's well established that the European Union has some of the strictest privacy laws in the world, threatening fines of up to 4% of a company's annual turnover.
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch:
Tech Nation, the UK-sanctioned tech ecosystem builder, plans to shut down on March 31 after 10+ years, due to losing its grant funding to a Barclays-run program  —  After over ten years in operation, Tech Nation, the UK's government-sanctioned ecosystem builder for UK tech startups …
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
A look at US cases that may set the bounds of free speech online, including Gonzalez v. Google, Twitter v. Taamneh, and a fight over California's kid safety law  —  - The U.S. justice system, including the Supreme Court, will consider cases that will help determine the bounds of free expression on the internet.
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
A US judge says the names of the two people who posted SBF's $250M bail can be made public, but holds the ruling until at least February 7, expecting an appeal  —  A U.S. judge on Monday said the names of two people who helped guarantee bail for indicted FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried …
Reuters:

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
How Zoho Workplace eliminates knowledge silos and provides a workplace where information flows  —  Discover how Zoho Workplace tears down information silos.  Bridge team gaps, centralize institutional knowledge …
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

Training Data:
Factory's Matan Grinberg: The Coming 'Dark Factory' Where Software Builds Itself
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Invest Like the Best:
Matthew Smith — How America Runs Out of Natural Gas by 2030
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Lenny's Podcast:
Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
Kimi K3 & AI's Price War, What Happened To Google?, OpenAI's Partner Trouble
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.
Great Chat:
Never follow your heroes (on X)
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:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
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 4:25 PM ET, January 31, 2023.

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

Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
Michael King / Search Engine Land:
John Herrman / New York Magazine:

Earlier Picks

AJ Vicens / CyberScoop:
Stephanie Murray / The Block:
Matt Tamanini / The Streamable:
New York Times:
Kat Bailey / IGN: