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February 27, 2024, 2:10 PM
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| 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.
More: Sony Interactive Entertainment, USA Today, Silicon Republic, Game Developer, The Hill, PCMag, IGN, HotHardware, TheGamer, CNBC, Kotaku, RTÉ, International Business Times, Game World Observer, Road to VR, Silicon Valley Business …, NBC News, BBC, TechSpot, TechCrunch, KitGuru, Fortune, Neowin, TechRadar, Variety, Gameranx, Aftermath, MSPoweruser, Polygon, Pocket Gamer.biz, The Hollywood Reporter, Pure Xbox, Push Square, GamingBolt, Deadline, Digital Trends, Video Games Chronicle, and Gamereactor UK
Mastodon: @AAKL@noc.social. X: @snazzylabs, @kylemsnape, @broodwars64, @whoregreymon, @majornelson, @jimmyrowe1994, @leglessgamer, @oliver_drk, @colteastwood, @ethangach, @thejenya, @jgameruk80, @lumberjackry, @joncomms, @spiintercal, @tomwarren, @horrorvisuals, @welladjustednrd, @emceekhan, @richontech, @thesamethyst, @vahn16, @playstation, @naughtyndc, and @stephentotilo
LinkedIn: Ali Durrant, Victoria Emma Tyrer, Jon Wills, Mike Rouse, Ben Jones, and Sam Carlisle
Forums: r/technews and r/KotakuInAction
| 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 …
More: Sony Interactive Entertainment, Game Developer, Business Post, The Guardian, MobileSyrup, Engadget, Game Rant, IGN, Metro.co.uk, TheGamer, GamesIndustry.biz, GameSpot, Forbes, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, New York Post, Wccftech, Press Start, GamingBolt, Gematsu, Video Games Chronicle, and Gamereactor UK
Forums: r/TwoBestFriendsPlay and r/TwistedMetal
| 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 …
More: Engadget, Tom's Hardware, Thurrott, HotHardware, PCMag, Android Headlines, PCWorld, MobileSyrup, BGR, Wccftech, T3, IGN, TechPowerUp, TechSpot, Gameranx, OC3D, 9to5Google, Game Rant, Neowin, KitGuru, VideoCardz.com, and TechRadar
Forums: r/technology, r/GeForceNOW, and Slashdot
| Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: |
Sources: Apple is winding down Project Titan, its decade-long effort to make an electric car; employees on some car teams will move to Apple's AI division — - Company is winding down work on decade-old Project Titan — Employees on some car teams will move to Apple's AI division| 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 …
More: The Register, Telegraph, Globes Online, SubTel Forum, New York Post, Trak.in, TechSpot, MediaNama, and DatacenterDynamics
| 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 … | 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 … | 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
More: TechCrunch, Reuters, Thurrott, Benzinga, The Information, PYMNTS.com, Associated Press, Cryptopolitan, The Verge, MSPoweruser, CoinGape, and Nairametrics
X: @samuelstolton, @tomwarren, and @mhbergen
| Romain Dillet / TechCrunch: |
More: Mistral AI, TechStartups, MediaPost, AI News, Coinpaper, The Rundown AI, Cointelegraph, Decrypt, and Constellation Research
X: @markhachman, @guillaumelample, @guillaumelample, @arthurmensch, @xlr8harder, @sophiamyang, and @methekarthik
Forums: Hacker News and r/MistralAI
| Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times: |
More: Source, Reuters, Inc.com, The Information, Fortune, RTÉ, The Verge, TIME, WebProNews, Gizmodo, Silicon Republic, The Stack, Cryptopolitan, TechPowerUp, Tech.eu, Ben's Bites, Coinspeaker, Associated Press, Livemint, CNBC, Business Post, Politico, PitchBook, and Wall Street Journal
Threads: @marcslove. Bluesky: @simli.bsky.social. X: @toddbishop, @jasonlk, @pitdesi, @cgarciae88, @mer__edith, @satyanadella, @carnage4life, @kylebrussell, @azure, and @pradeepviswav
LinkedIn: Meeri Haataja, Nathan Benaich, Luciano Floridi, Bart De Witte, Saanya Ojha, Luca Bertuzzi, Eric Boyd, Xiaopeng Li, Florian Follonier, PhD, Satya Nadella, Bruno Capuano, Emil Protalinski, and Lukas Lundin. Forums: Hacker News
| Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: |
Sources: Sonos delays its launch of $449 headphones to June, a month later than previously hoped, after hitting software snags, and aims to make up to 1M units — - Company anticipates shipping $449 product in June after delay — Sonos aims to manufacture as many as 1 million units
More: The Verge, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, and Digital Trends
| Lauren Thomas / Wall Street Journal: |
Cox Enterprises is buying OpenGov in a deal valuing the company, which provides cloud software for cities and state agencies, at $1.8B — Cable giant is buying OpenGov, a provider of software for cities and state agencies — Cox Enterprises is buying OpenGov in a deal that values …
X: @danprimack
| 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.
X: @jason_koebler, @growing_daniel, and @samleecole
| 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.
More: The GitHub Blog, VentureBeat, Thurrott, Bloomberg, Neowin, MSPoweruser, The Verge, and ITPro
X: @quinnypig, @github, and @ashtom
| Sifted: |
Hopin, the struggling virtual events startup valued at $7.75B in 2021, enters liquidation for its UK parent company as it moves its HQ to Delaware in the US — The company was once valued at $7.75bn … London-based event tech startup Hopin — which shot to a $5.65bn valuation in 2021 … | Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: |
Lapse, a photo app that makes users wait to share unedited pictures as they are “developed” like film, raised a $30M Series A, sources say at a $150M valuation — It can cost a fortune in 2024 to find an analogue camera, buy film (and maybe special batteries) for it, and take pictures that then need to be developed.
More: Tech.eu, FinSMEs, EU-Startups, and Bloomberg
| 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.| The Information: |
Sources: TikTok has replaced several senior executives, including the one running its trust and safety unit, giving the CEO more oversight of content moderation — TikTok has shaken up its senior ranks, replacing several senior executives including the person running its trust & safety unit …
More: Reuters, Business Post, Independent.ie, and Music Business Worldwide
X: @bryanrbeal and @erinkwoo
| Mark Stenberg / Adweek: |
Docs: Google is paying a handful of independent publishers a five-figure sum for one year to use an unreleased suite of generative AI tools to post stories — In exchange for a five-figure sum, publishers must use the tool to publish 3 stories per day — Google launched a private program … | Sarah Zheng / Bloomberg: |
In amended filings, Alibaba discloses previously unknown stakes by the Chinese government in more than 12 of its business entities, following a US SEC inquiry — The Hangzhou-based e-commerce pioneer said in filings in the US and Hong Kong over the weekend that more than a dozen of its entities … | Alexis Ong / The Verge: |
A look at the underground floppy disk music scene; Discogs data shows 500+ floppy music releases in the 2020s, more than in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s combined — The first computery thing I do in the year 2024 is nudge a 3.5-inch floppy disk into a USB floppy drive that I bought … | Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: |
AI-based photo editing app PhotoRoom raised $43M led by Balderton Capital at a $500M valuation, says it has 150M+ downloads and processes ~5B images annually — Photoroom, the AI-based photo editing app out of Paris that has been growing like a weed targeting people doing business online … | Jordan Novet / CNBC: |
Glean, which uses AI to offer unified search across apps used at a company, raised a $200M+ Series D at a $2.2B valuation and says annualized revenue hit $39M — - Glean is valued at $2.2 billion in its latest funding round. — The company is taking on the Copilot chat tool for Microsoft 365 …
More: Crunchbase News, FinSMEs, TechCrunch, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Business Wire, and Glean
X: @debarghya_das and @jainarvind
LinkedIn: Michael Talarico and Richard King
| Kali Hays / Business Insider: |
Sources: Meta aims to reveal and demo, but not launch, the first version of its AR glasses, codenamed Orion, during its Connect developer conference in the fall — - Under an internal project named Orion, Meta has been working on high-tech AR glasses for years.
More: ZDNet, 9to5Mac, Social Media Today, MIXED Reality News, and Benzinga
Threads: @lunayiann and @kalihays1
| Reuters: |
Sources: the BlackCat ransomware gang is behind the outage at UnitedHealth's technology unit that has disrupted services at pharmacies in the US for six days — Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of the words “Cyber Attack” in this illustration taken, February 19, 2024.| Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: |
Inkitt, the self-publishing site that wants to use AI to pick and tweak the most compelling stories to distribute on its Galatea app, raised a $37M Series C — Everyone has a story in them, as someone famous once said. A startup called Inkitt believes that it can use AI to turn the strongest … | Saritha Rai / Bloomberg: |
Intenseye, which uses computer vision to spot risks and enhance workplace safety, raised a $64M Series B led by Lightspeed, bringing its total funding to $90M — Intenseye has raised $64 million in a funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners to develop AI that can detect …
More: AlleyWatch, SiliconANGLE, FinSMEs, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Business Wire, and Pulse 2.0
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