Techmeme
January 25, 2024, 10:50 AM

Top News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Internal memo: Microsoft plans to lay off ~1,900 staff at Activision Blizzard and Xbox, or ~8% of its Microsoft Gaming workforce, this week  —  Microsoft is laying off around 1,900 employees at Activision Blizzard and Xbox this week.  While Microsoft is primarily laying off roles at Activision Blizzard …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Google Research details Lumiere, an AI video tool that uses unique architecture to create videos in one smooth process instead of putting together smaller parts  —  Lumiere generates five-second videos that “portray realistic, diverse and coherent motion.”  —  On Tuesday, Google announced Lumiere …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft launches Mesh, its 3D meeting platform in Teams, out of preview, with custom environments, games, spatial audio, and only supporting Meta Quest for VR  —  Microsoft is launching its immersive 3D meetings inside Microsoft Teams today.  Microsoft Mesh, the company's mixed reality platform …
IDC:
Chinese smartphone shipments declined 5% YoY to 271.3M units in 2023; Apple gained the top spot, a first, with 17.3% market share, followed by Honor with 17.1%  —  A shift of power that we saw on the worldwide stage also happened in China, the largest smartphone market globally.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Meta rolls out DM limits on Facebook and Instagram to stop users 16+ from messaging teens who don't follow them, on by default, and expands parental controls  —  Meta announced today that it is rolling out new DM restrictions on both Facebook and Instagram for teens that prevent anyone from messaging teens.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Google announces a new mint color for the Pixel 8 series, plans to bring Circle to Search to Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, improves the built-in thermometer, and more  —  A “fresh” new color for the Pixel 8 series isn't the only thing Google is announcing today.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google Pixel users say all their apps cannot access data in internal storage after installing the January 2024 Google Play system update, causing various issues  —  Following a storage access issue in October with the initial Android 14 release and multiple users, Pixel devices might …
Bloomberg:
Filing: HPE says a threat actor believed to be Russia-linked Midnight Blizzard exfiltrated data from “a small percentage of HPE mailboxes” beginning in May 2023  —  - HPE says it was informed of nation-state breach on Dec. 12  — Same Russia-linked group suspected in recent Microsoft hack
Thomas Buckley / Bloomberg:
How the rising prices of streaming services are driving a new era of US pirate sites, bringing ~$2B per year in ads and subscriptions with a 90% profit margin  —  Illegal subscription services that steal films or TV shows bring in $2 billion a year in ads and subscriber fees.
Forums: Slashdot
Joseph Cox / 404 Media:
An investigation details a spy tool called Patternz, which can track billions of phone profiles via ads in hundreds of thousands of apps, including 9gag and Kik  —  Hundreds of thousands of ordinary apps, including popular ones such as 9gag, Kik, and a series of caller ID apps …
Ryan Vlastelica / Bloomberg:
Microsoft briefly reached a $3T market cap for the first time on January 24, becoming the second company to do so after Apple, before closing at a record $2.99T  —  - Software giant is second company to hit level, following Apple  — AI services are seen as a long-term revenue growth tailwind
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Anomalo, which uses AI to solve data-quality problems in large datasets, raised a $33M Series B led by SignalFire, bringing its total funding to $72M  —  When Anomalo's co-founders left Instacart in 2018, they thought they could put machine learning to work to solve data quality problems inherent in large data sets.
More: SiliconANGLE
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Sources: research group China Tech Threat, which has advocated against Lenovo, aligns with the corporate interests of Dell and Micron, both long-term funders  —  China Tech Threat's advocacy aligns with the corporate interests of Dell and Micron, which have supported the group financially, say people familiar with the group.
LinkedIn: Brody Ford
Sareen Habeshian / Axios:
New York City issues a public health advisory officially designating social media as an “environmental toxin”, blaming it for a youth mental health crisis  —  New York City declared Wednesday that it's the first city to issue an advisory officially designating social media as an environmental toxin.
Heather Somerville / Wall Street Journal:
VCs put $100B+ in US defense tech startups since 2021, but convincing the Pentagon to buy from them has proven difficult; only a few had $25M+ in orders in FY23  —  Tech startups get cool reception from Defense Department despite its rhetoric that it will buy more from Silicon Valley

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More News

Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg:
Sara Merken / Reuters:
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Hugh Son / CNBC:

Earlier Picks

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Ash Parrish / The Verge:
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch:
Richard Nieva / Forbes:
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Alexander Martin / The Record:
Ariel Shapiro / The Verge:
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC: