Techmeme
November 29, 2023, 12:15 PM

Top News

Mike Seymour / fxguide:
Unity plans to cut 265 jobs, or 3.8% of its workforce, and end its services deal with VFX company Wētā FX to focus on its core business in a “company reset”  —  UPDATE: Scroll down for a statement from WētāFX:  —  Reuters is reporting that Unity Software …
Graham Starr / Bloomberg:
Okta tells customers that hackers who breached its network stole information on all users of its customer support system, greater than the 1% claimed previously  —  - Okta had earlier said breach affected about 1% of customers  — Company said some Okta employee information was also stolen
Ann-Marie Alcántara / Wall Street Journal:
Spotify launches Spotify Wrapped 2023, adding a Me in 2023 feature that assigns users one of 12 themes to describe their listening habits, on mobile and desktop  —  The listening recap, available Wednesday, takes over social media every year  —  It's the time of year many people have been anxiously awaiting: Spotify Wrapped season.
Steven J. Horowitz / Variety:
Spotify reveals 2023's most-streamed artists, albums, songs, and podcasts: Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny, Miley Cyrus' Flowers, The Joe Rogan Experience, and more  —  Spotify has revealed its annual Wrapped campaign for 2023, announcing the top-streamed artists, albums, songs and podcasts …
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Google releases an emergency security update to fix Chrome's sixth zero-day in 2023, related to the Skia open-source 2D graphics library and found by Google TAG  —  Google has fixed the sixth Chrome zero-day vulnerability this year in an emergency security update released today to counter ongoing exploitation in attacks.
AnnaMaria Andriotis / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Apple plans to exit its Goldman Sachs contract in 12 to 15 months, ending their consumer partnership, including for credit card and savings accounts  —  Tech giant proposed exiting contract in about 12-to-15 months  —  Apple is pulling the plug on its credit-card partnership with Goldman Sachs …
Variety:
Robert De Niro criticizes Apple and the Gotham Awards, after sources say Apple cut part of his speech slamming Donald Trump, which he read anyway from his phone  —  The “Killers of the Flower Moon” actor was gearing up to slam Donald Trump at Monday's Gotham Awards, but when he took the stage …
Wayne Ma / The Information:
Sources: Apple pays Arm under 30 cents per device to license Arm's IP, the lowest rate among Arm's smartphone customers; Apple accounts for <5% of Arm's sales  —  In 2017, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son gathered a group of executives from Arm Holdings, the British chip designer SoftBank had just bought …
Bloomberg:
How deepfake porn victims in NYC suburb Levittown helped convict the perpetrator, a former classmate, an ordeal further complicated by the lack of clear US laws  —  A group of young women in a New York City suburb, horrified to learn their photographs had been manipulated and posted online, took matters into their own hands.
Michael Peel / Financial Times:
Google DeepMind finds 2.2M crystal structures using GNoME, more than 45x larger than all substances ever found, and plans to make 381K available to scientists  —  Work shows power of AI to improve real-world technology in fields from renewable energy to advanced computation
Ben Weiss / Fortune:
Wormhole, a messaging protocol started by Jump Crypto to let blockchain developers communicate, raised $225M at a $2.5B valuation, 2023's largest crypto raise  —  In a parched fundraising landscape, the team behind Wormhole, the messaging protocol that lets developers communicate across different blockchains …
David Pierce / The Verge:
A look at Ayaneo's $199+ Retro Mini PC AM01, designed to look like a 1980s-era Macintosh, with Ryzen chip options, up to 32GB of RAM, and up to 1TB of storage  —  Ayaneo, which is mostly known for making handheld gaming consoles, just fully revealed the new Retro Mini PC AM01 after teasing it a few weeks ago.
Amir Efrati / The Information:
Bloomberg:
Sources: London-based AI startup Stability AI held early-stage talks with several companies about a sale, as executives face investor pressure over its finances  —  - Move follows letter from investor Coatue calling for changes  — Coatue concerned about Stability AI's financial position
Scott Hayden / Road to VR:
Meta pauses shipments of the Quest 3's Elite Strap with Battery after users report a charging fault renders the battery useless, and starts making new straps  —  Meta paused shipments of its Elite Strap with Battery for Quest 3 amid widespread user reports of a charging fault that renders the battery useless.
Eric Newcomer / Newcomer:
Together AI, which helps pre-train and fine-tune open source foundation models more efficiently, raised a $102.5M Series A led by Kleiner Perkins  —  I spoke with Together AI CEO Vipul Ved Prakash  —  Together AI, a startup that's helping companies pre-train and fine-tune open source foundation models …
Raphael Satter / Reuters:
Elliptic and Corvus Insurance: the “Black Basta” ransomware group, suspected of being a Conti offshoot, extorted at least $107M in bitcoin since early 2022  —  A cyber extortion gang suspected of being an offshoot of the notorious Russian Conti group of hackers has raked …
More: Elliptic
Bloomberg:
Meta tells US officials that the company plans to block new political ads on Facebook and Instagram one week before the 2024 election, similar to past elections  —  - Facebook owner to block political ads one week before US vote  — First US election with broad generative AI will test democracy
Rest of World:
A look at Foxconn's struggles to manufacture the iPhone 15 in India, contending with language barriers, labor disputes, regulatory hurdles, and more  —  Chinese engineers are flying to India to train the next generation of iPhone builders.  —  • SUNGUVARCHATRAM, INDIA

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
How you can grow your business with Zoho One  —  Zoho One is a comprehensive business suite, giving businesses the scalability, stability, security, and features they need for smooth operations.
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 11/14 - The FBI (!) Investigating Polymarket
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:15 PM ET, November 29, 2023.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Financial Times:
Vikas SN / Moneycontrol:

Earlier Picks

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Jonathan M. Katz / The Atlantic: