Techmeme
February 27, 2024, 7:30 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is winding down Project Titan, its decade-long effort to make an electric car; Apple plans to move some impacted staff to generative AI projects  —  - Executives tell staff to end work on endeavor known as Titan  — Employees on some car teams will move to Apple's AI division
More: The Verge, Android Authority, MacRumors, The Atlantic, The Register, Dexerto, SiliconANGLE, Reuters, The Guardian, The Hill, Financial Times, San Francisco Business Times, PCMag, Silicon Valley Business …, Wall Street Journal, Appleosophy, Ars Technica, PYMNTS.com, New York Times, Thurrott, Macworld, ZDNet, Decrypt, Forbes, Engadget, Investor's Business Daily, MobileSyrup, The Information, CNBC, NBC 7 San Diego, Patently Apple, Interesting Engineering, Hypebeast, Cult of Mac, CoinGape, Axios, Trusted Reviews, Proactive, Mashable, The Last Driver License Holder, Gizmodo, 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, The Tech Basic, Inc.com, TidBITS, Maginative, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, New York Post, Quartz, Channel NewsAsia, Neowin, Investing.com, autoevolution, Benzinga, IGN, SlashGear, BGR, Boing Boing, Watcher Guru, iClarified, Supercharged, iPhone in Canada Blog, Wccftech, The Drive, and TipRanks Financial
Samantha Cole / 404 Media:
Internal docs: Tumblr staff compiled users' data in preparation for deals where Automattic would sell the data to OpenAI and Midjourney to train AI tools  —  Internal documents obtained by 404 Media show that Tumblr staff compiled users' data as part of a deal with Midjourney and OpenAI.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Sony plans to lay off around 900 employees, or 8% of workforce, at its PlayStation division, and close its London Studio in the UK  —  Sony says it's laying off around 900 employees of its PlayStation division, a reduction of its global headcount of around 8 percent.
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
Sony says its PlayStation layoffs will also impact game makers Insomniac, Naughty Dog, and Guerrilla, three of its most successful subsidiaries  —  The company is also canceling a game based on the Twisted Metal racing franchise  —  Sony Group Corp. will lay off 900 people across …
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Filing: Nintendo sues the makers of Switch emulator Yuzu in US federal court, alleging it is designed to circumvent Nintendo's encryption and facilitates piracy  —  If you've ever seen a Steam Deck playing a Legend of Zelda game, chances are you were seeing the Yuzu emulator at work.
Blake Brittain / Reuters:
Filing: OpenAI asks a US federal judge to dismiss parts of NYT's copyright suit, alleging it “paid someone to hack OpenAI's products” and violated OpenAI's TOS  —  OpenAI has asked a federal judge to dismiss parts of the New York Times (NYT.N) copyright lawsuit against it …
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Nvidia plans to start showing free-tier GeForce Now users “up to two minutes” of video ads on February 28 while they are queuing to start a cloud gaming session  —  Nvidia's completely free, no-strings attached trial of its cloud gaming service GeForce Now is about to be very slightly less …
Olivia Solon / Bloomberg:
Seacom says a subsea cable was damaged in the area where Houthi fighters are targeting ships, highlighting how vulnerable critical subsea infrastructure can be  —  A subsea cable off the coast of Yemen that connects Europe to India has been damaged, and the telecommunications carrier that owns …
Wes Davis / The Verge:
Netflix confirms that it has started removing Apple iTunes billing for longtime subscribers, and now requires them to pay directly on its website  —  Netflix confirms to The Verge that it has begun booting longtime subscribers off their Apple iTunes billing plans, and will require …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
GitHub announces the general availability of Copilot Enterprise, which is able to reference an org's code and knowledge base, for $39 per user per month  —  GitHub today announced the general availability of Copilot Enterprise, the $39/month version of its code completion tool and developer-centric chatbot for large businesses.
Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg:
Microsoft says its investment in Mistral AI amounts to €15M; EU regulators plan to analyze the investment, which could eventually lead to a formal investigation  —  - Partnership amounts to €15 million investment, Microsoft says  — EU analysis could lead to future formal investigation
Ashley Capoot / CNBC:
Bumble reports Q4 revenue up 13% YoY to $273.6M, a $32M net loss, vs. $159.2M YoY, and plans to eliminate 350 roles, about 37% of its workforce  —  - Bumble announced plans to lay off about 350 employees as part of its fourth-quarter earnings report Tuesday.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Appfigures: Threads sees triple the daily downloads of X on iOS globally and over double the number of installs on Google Play, widening the gap late last year  —  Although an app's downloads aren't an exact proxy for usage, they can hint at where the market is headed.
Jem Aswad / Variety:
TikTok removes all songs published by Universal Music Publishing Group, expanding a licensing spat; at first only songs owned or distributed by UMG were removed  —  The bruising battle over royalties between Universal Music Group and TikTok entered a new and more severe stage in the early hours …
Proof:
A review of Claude, Gemini, GPT-4, Llama 2, and Mixtral found the models often provided inaccurate or misleading election information; GPT-4 performed the best  —  Experts testing five leading AI models found the answers were often inaccurate, misleading, and even downright harmful
Leah Nylen / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple met with DOJ Assistant AG Jonathan Kanter last week in a final bid to avoid an antitrust suit, which is expected to be filed by the end of March  —  - Representatives for iPhone maker met with top officials  — Antitrust agency has been probing company since 2019

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