Techmeme
November 16, 2023, 9:30 AM

Top News

Will Knight / Wired:
YouTube lets some Shorts creators test Dream Track, a new DeepMind-powered AI tool to generate and remix music in the styles of nine artists, including Sia  —  YouTube creators will get to test a new AI tool that generates and remixes music in the style of several famous musicians, including Sia, Demi Lovato, and T-Pain.
Jane Zhang / Bloomberg:
Alibaba reports Q2 revenue up 9% YoY to ~$31B, beating ~$30.9B est., a ~$3.8B net income, up from a ~$3B loss in Q2 2022, and calls off its cloud spinoff  —  - The decision marks a dramatic reversal on a signature move  — Alibaba's historic six-way restructuring is now in doubt
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Threads tests tags, a way of categorizing posts similar to hashtags without the # symbol being visible, initially in Australia and other countries “soon”  —  Instagram's Threads app has been duping Twitter/X in a number of ways and today it's adding one more feature that's been core …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple releases Apple Music Classical on iPad as part of a v1.1 update, the first major update to the app after its release in spring 2023 on iPhone  —  Apple Music Classical, included as part of a standard Apple Music subscription, launched as an iPhone only app in the spring ... but is now available on the iPad too.
K.J. Yossman / Variety:
Embracer reports Q2 net sales up 13% YoY to ~$1B, layoffs impacted 900 employees, or 5% of its workforce, and 36 fewer games are in development than Q2 2022  —  “Lord of the Rings” owner Embracer Group has reported a 13% increase in net sales year-on-year in Q2, in part thanks to its intensive restructuring program.
Charisma Madarang / Rolling Stone:
Elon Musk replied “You have said the actual truth” to an X user who, replying to a “Hitler was right” inquiry, accused Jewish groups of “hatred against whites”  —  The billionaire amplified a post Wednesday accusing the Jewish community of promoting “dialectical hatred against whites”
Nathan Edwards / The Verge:
The Wireless Power Consortium says the first Qi v2.0 devices are arriving in time for the holidays and over 100 are in certification testing or waiting in line  —  Qi2 — the next version of the wireless charging standard, now with more magnets! — is more almost-here than ever.
Supantha Mukherjee / Reuters:
TikTok joins Meta in challenging its EU DMA “gatekeeper” status, saying the service is “arguably the most capable challenger to more entrenched” rivals  —  TikTok on Thursday joined Meta (META.O) in appealing against the “gatekeeper” status under the Digital Markets Act …
Music Business Worldwide:
Sarah Scire / Nieman Lab:
Pew: 30% of US adults regularly get their news from Facebook, 26% from YouTube, 16% from Instagram, 14% TikTok, 12% X, 8% Reddit, and 5% Nextdoor and LinkedIn  —  Facebook may be ready to divorce the news business, but it's still the No. 1 source of news on social media for Americans.
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
At its conference, Unity says the company plans to launch Unity 6 in 2024, details Unity Muse, an AI suite for content creation, and announces Unity Cloud  —  Unity, the global game engine and monetizationplatform, said that its Unity 6 platform will launch in 2024 with AI innovations and platform updates.
Zac Bowden / Windows Central:
Microsoft launches a Windows App on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Windows, and the web, letting enterprise customers stream a copy of Windows, available in preview  —  Microsoft brings Windows to non-Windows devices.  —  What you need to know  — Microsoft is launching the “Windows app” …
Bloomberg:
Connor Jones / The Register:
Security researchers detail the largest cyberattack against Danish critical infrastructure, which involved Zyxel zero-days and affected 22 companies in May 2023  —  Zyxel zero days and nation-state actors (maybe) had a hand in the sector's worst cybersecurity event on record
Thomas Black / Bloomberg:
UPS announces a new $79M, 20-acre facility near Louisville, set to be staffed by over 3,000 robots handling manual tasks and around 200 human workers in 2024  —  - Facility near Louisville is part of warehouse services push  — Robots help retain workers, reduce injuries, company says
More: UPS
Emily Birnbaum / Bloomberg:
Investigation: Amazon backs three advocacy groups working to thwart Microsoft's government cloud contracts; an Amazon executive wrote a public FTC comment  —  Amazon is the driving force behind a trio of advocacy groups working to thwart Microsoft's growing ambition to become …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft unveils Copilot Studio, a no-code tool that lets companies customize Microsoft 365 Copilot or integrate custom ChatGPT chatbots made with OpenAI's GPT  —  Last week OpenAI announced its new GPT platform to let anyone create their own version of ChatGPT, and now Microsoft is following …
Ryan Tracy / Wall Street Journal:

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Earlier Picks

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