Techmeme
January 24, 2024, 1:55 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Apple plans to add new fees and restrictions after allowing EU users to download apps from outside the App Store, including reviewing sideloaded apps  —  Meta, Spotify and other companies are weighing new options for customers as Apple makes changes to comply with new European law
Ariel Shapiro / The Verge:
Ahead of the EU's DMA, Spotify shares iOS app mockups with full in-app payments, rolling out in part on March 7; Apple hasn't yet shared its changes for the DMA  —  For years, Apple's App Store policies have made it impossible for apps to sell digital services and goods on their own terms.
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Ring plans to stop letting police request footage from users' video doorbells and cameras via its tool next week; police and fire departments will need warrants  —  - Move dials back company's longtime public-safety stance  — Law enforcement will now have to seek warrants for video
Michael Acton / Financial Times:
Apple's acquisitions, job postings, and academic papers detail the company's AI plans; PitchBook says Apple acquired 21 AI startups since the start of 2017  —  Acquisitions, job postings and academic papers suggest tech company is preparing to run AI through its devices
Kate Knibbs / Wired:
Originality AI: 88%+ of the top US news outlets now block AI companies' web crawlers; leading right-wing outlets, like Breitbart and Newsmax, mostly permit them  —  Nearly 90 percent of top news outlets like The New York Times now block AI data collection bots from OpenAI and others.
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:
eBay plans to cut ~1,000 full-time jobs, or ~9% of its workforce, and scale back the number of contracts within its “alternate workforce” over the coming months  —  - EBay said Tuesday it's laying off 1,000 full-time employees.  — CEO Jamie Iannone told employees the company will …
Alexander Martin / The Record:
The UK NCSC's all-source intelligence assessment: ransomware attacks will almost certainly increase in both volume and impact over the next two years due to AI  —  Ransomware attacks will increase in both volume and impact over the next two years due to artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, British intelligence has warned.
Toby Sterling / Reuters:
ASML reports Q4 revenue up 13% YoY to €7.2B, net profit up 9% YoY to €2B, both above est., orders up 3x QoQ to €9B+, and expects 2024 net sales to be flat YoY  —  ASML Holding NV (ASML.AS), Europe's biggest technology company by market value, on Wednesday reported better …
Richard Nieva / Forbes:
The US National Science Foundation partners with OpenAI, Meta, Nvidia, Microsoft, and others to launch NAIRR, a pilot to expand researchers' access to AI tools  —  The pilot program, called the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource, follows President Biden's executive order mandating lower entry to AI infrastructure.
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
London- and Tallinn-based VC firm Plural, led by some of Europe's best known startup founders, raised a €400M fund to invest in early-stage “deep tech” startups  —  The firm offers a Silicon-Valley approach to backing start-ups as an alternative to the traditional VC model
Matthew Ball / MatthewBall.co:
A look at some long-term issues facing the gaming industry, including deep layoffs, weak revenue growth, growing development costs, and declining VC investments  —  To players and outside observers, 2023 looks like one of the 70-year-old gaming industry's greatest-ever years.
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Google releases a Gemini-powered chat-based tool in beta for building Search ad campaigns in Google Ads to all English language advertisers in the US and the UK  —  Google announced today that Gemini, its family of multimodal large language models, now powers the conversational experience within the Google Ads platform.
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
BeReal plans to let brands and celebrities join, starting on February 6, and says the app now has 23M DAUs, up from 20M DAUs in August 2023  —  BeReal, a rising social media app that emphasizes authenticity, is making its first outreach to brands and celebrities.
More: BeReal
Noam Cohen / Bloomberg:
As Wikimedia Russia shutters, a look at the Kremlin-compliant Wikipedia alternative Ruwiki, led by a former Wikimedia Russia director and launched on January 15  —  A campaign to replace the country's Wikipedia with a more pliant alternative seems near completion.
Bloomberg:
Oppo and Nokia sign a patent cross-licensing deal, ending a years-long dispute, letting the Chinese smartphone maker sell in key European markets like Germany  —  - Patent cross-licensing agreement ends years-long dispute  — Chinese brand is the No.4 smartphone maker in the world
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Netflix plans to retire its ad-free Basic plan in some countries where the company offers ad-supported plans, starting with Canada and the UK in Q2 2024  —  Although Netflix no longer allows new or returning members to sign up for the ad-free Basic subscription that costs $11.99 per month …
Sarah Whitten / CNBC:

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work  —  Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.
Zoho:
How EWS deprecation affects Zoho Calendar Interoperability  —  Understanding the impactMicrosoft began blocking Exchange Web Services (EWS) requests in Exchange Online (Microsoft 365) as of October 1, 2026.
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.
WebBrain:
WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser  —  Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox.  Use local models or your preferred AI provider.  Get started free.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
AI Stockpocalypse, Anthropic Nears RSI?, Prediction Markets vs. Pollsters
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.
Machine Gods:
The Purple Tsunami Against Data Centers
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
Subscribe to Machine Gods.
Invest Like the Best:
Ramtin Naimi - The State of Venture
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
The Upstarts Podcast:
How Ramp Built A $60B AI Product Factory Off A Corporate Card | Co-CEO Eric Glyman
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.
Great Chat:
Would you let a robot do it?
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.
Training Data:
A Model For Everyone: How Ronak From Trajectory Is Building Products For Continual Learning
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:55 PM ET, January 24, 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

TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Ian King / Bloomberg:
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Basith Rahman P P / MySmartPrice:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: