Techmeme
June 1, 2023, 12:45 PM

Top News

Meta:
Meta unveils the $500 Quest 3, “the first mainstream headset with high-res color MR”, slimmer and over 2x the GPU performance vs. the Quest 2, coming this fall  —  Meta Quest 3 Launches Later This Year + Lower Prices & Improvements for Quest 2 The countdown is on for …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Meta cuts the Quest 2's price to $350 for 256GB and to $300 for 128GB, and plans a software update to boost the Quest 2 and Quest Pro's CPU and GPU performance  —  Starting June 4th, the 128GB version of the Quest 2 will cost $299.99 while the 256GB version will cost $349.99, Meta announced today.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is testing two new high-end Macs, one with M2 Max and the other with an unannounced M2 Ultra, offering 60 graphics cores and up to 192GB of RAM  —  Apple Inc. is testing a pair of new high-end Macs and their accompanying processors ahead of its Worldwide Developers Conference next week …
Natasha Singer / New York Times:
Amazon agrees to pay $25M to settle FTC and DOJ charges over the company keeping Alexa voice recordings and geolocation data collected from children for years  —  Regulators said the tech giant kept children's Alexa voice recordings “forever,” violating a children's privacy law.
Bloomberg:
Amazon agrees to pay $5.8M to settle FTC allegations that Ring gave employees and third-party contractors full access to every customer video until 2017  —  Amazon.com Inc. agreed to pay $30.8 million to resolve two cases brought by the Federal Trade Commission Wednesday related to privacy lapses by its smart devices.
Michael Potuck / 9to5Mac:
Survey: Android owners mostly switched to iPhone because of prior phone problems and new iPhone features; only 6% moved because of iMessage and FaceTime  —  Following its report that showed Android users pivoting to iPhone at a 5-year high, CIRP is out today with a study that reveals why people are making the switch.
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Instagram details ranking content in Feed, Stories, Reels, and more, and is testing more user controls, including an “Interested” button for recommended posts  —  Instagram announced today that it's testing a new feature that gives users more control over what they see on the social network …
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
After Microsoft paid $7.5B for ZeniMax in 2020, sources detail development issues for Redfall, one of the worst-reviewed games in 2023 and Xbox's latest misfire  —  Over the years, Microsoft Corp.-owned video-game developer Arkane Studios has cultivated a reputation for releasing games …
Hayden Field / CNBC:
OpenAI researchers say training AI with process supervision, which rewards the thought process rather than the outcome, could help prevent hallucinations  —  - AI hallucinations occur when models like OpenAI's ChatGPT or Google's Bard fabricate information entirely.
Michael McSweeney / The Block:
Crypto bridging protocol Multichain suspended service for multiple chains after being unable to contact its CEO to get server access, during ongoing tech issues  —  - Multichain, the cross-chain protocol, confirmed Wednesday that the team is unable to contact its chief executive amid ongoing technology problems.
Isaac Schorr / Mediaite:
Caroline O'Donovan / Washington Post:
Hundreds of white-collar Amazon workers in Seattle walked off the job, frustrated by job losses, a return-to-office mandate, carbon emissions, and leadership  —  Frustrated by job losses, office policies and rising carbon emissions, white-collar Amazon workers are demanding more from leadership
Bloomberg:
Tether's USDT circulation surpasses its $83.2B all-time-high, recovering the ~$20B lost after TerraUSD imploded in 2022, even as crypto trading volumes drop  —  Tether Holdings Ltd.'s stablecoin has recovered all of the roughly $20 billion in market value it lost following the collapse …
Krisztian Sandor / CoinDesk:
DeFi lending protocol MakerDAO's community votes to ditch $500M of the Paxos Dollar stable from its reserves, impacting half of the token's supply  —  The result is a significant blow for Paxos as MakerDAO currently holds roughly half of USDP's total supply.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Reddit client Apollo's developer says Reddit plans to charge $12K for 50M API requests and that he would need to pay $20M per year to keep operating the app  —  Popular Reddit app Apollo might not be able to operate as is in the future due to planned API pricing that Reddit is implementing.
Financial Times:
Investigation: of 14 laptops with trackers given to UK retailers to recycle, 10 were recycled correctly; others were sold, likely stolen, or took long journeys  —  Every year about 30,000 tonnes of electronic waste is illegally shipped out of Britain.  Much is destined for developing countries …
Reuters:
Sources: a planned $3B chip plant in India by ISMC, a consortium that included chipmaker Tower, has stalled due to the company's pending takeover by Intel  —  A planned $3 billion semiconductor facility in India by chip consortium ISMC that counted Israeli chipmaker Tower as a tech partner …

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Earlier Picks

Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: