Techmeme
January 24, 2024, 1:30 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Apple plans to add new fees and restrictions after allowing EU users to download apps from outside the App Store, including reviewing sideloaded apps  —  Meta, Spotify and other companies are weighing new options for customers as Apple makes changes to comply with new European law
Ariel Shapiro / The Verge:
Ahead of the EU's DMA, Spotify shares iOS app mockups with full in-app payments, rolling out in part on March 7; Apple hasn't yet shared its changes for the DMA  —  For years, Apple's App Store policies have made it impossible for apps to sell digital services and goods on their own terms.
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Ring plans to stop letting police request footage from users' video doorbells and cameras via its tool next week; police and fire departments will need warrants  —  - Move dials back company's longtime public-safety stance  — Law enforcement will now have to seek warrants for video
Michael Acton / Financial Times:
Apple's acquisitions, job postings, and academic papers detail the company's AI plans; PitchBook says Apple acquired 21 AI startups since the start of 2017  —  Acquisitions, job postings and academic papers suggest tech company is preparing to run AI through its devices
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:
eBay plans to cut ~1,000 full-time jobs, or ~9% of its workforce, and scale back the number of contracts within its “alternate workforce” over the coming months  —  - EBay said Tuesday it's laying off 1,000 full-time employees.  — CEO Jamie Iannone told employees the company will …
Kate Knibbs / Wired:
Originality AI: 88%+ of the top US news outlets now block AI companies' web crawlers; leading right-wing outlets, like Breitbart and Newsmax, mostly permit them  —  Nearly 90 percent of top news outlets like The New York Times now block AI data collection bots from OpenAI and others.
Toby Sterling / Reuters:
ASML reports Q4 revenue up 13% YoY to €7.2B, net profit up 9% YoY to €2B, both above est., orders up 3x QoQ to €9B+, and expects 2024 net sales to be flat YoY  —  ASML Holding NV (ASML.AS), Europe's biggest technology company by market value, on Wednesday reported better …
Alexander Martin / The Record:
The UK NCSC's all-source intelligence assessment: ransomware attacks will almost certainly increase in both volume and impact over the next two years due to AI  —  Ransomware attacks will increase in both volume and impact over the next two years due to artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, British intelligence has warned.
Richard Nieva / Forbes:
The US National Science Foundation partners with OpenAI, Meta, Nvidia, Microsoft, and others to launch NAIRR, a pilot to expand researchers' access to AI tools  —  The pilot program, called the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource, follows President Biden's executive order mandating lower entry to AI infrastructure.
Matthew Ball / MatthewBall.co:
A look at some long-term issues facing the gaming industry, including deep layoffs, weak revenue growth, growing development costs, and declining VC investments  —  To players and outside observers, 2023 looks like one of the 70-year-old gaming industry's greatest-ever years.
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
London- and Tallinn-based VC firm Plural, led by some of Europe's best known startup founders, raised a €400M fund to invest in early-stage “deep tech” startups  —  The firm offers a Silicon-Valley approach to backing start-ups as an alternative to the traditional VC model
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Google releases a Gemini-powered chat-based tool in beta for building Search ad campaigns in Google Ads to all English language advertisers in the US and the UK  —  Google announced today that Gemini, its family of multimodal large language models, now powers the conversational experience within the Google Ads platform.
Noam Cohen / Bloomberg:
As Wikimedia Russia shutters, a look at the Kremlin-compliant Wikipedia alternative Ruwiki, led by a former Wikimedia Russia director and launched on January 15  —  A campaign to replace the country's Wikipedia with a more pliant alternative seems near completion.
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
BeReal plans to let brands and celebrities join, starting on February 6, and says the app now has 23M DAUs, up from 20M DAUs in August 2023  —  BeReal, a rising social media app that emphasizes authenticity, is making its first outreach to brands and celebrities.
More: BeReal
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Netflix plans to retire its ad-free Basic plan in some countries where the company offers ad-supported plans, starting with Canada and the UK in Q2 2024  —  Although Netflix no longer allows new or returning members to sign up for the ad-free Basic subscription that costs $11.99 per month …
Sarah Whitten / CNBC:
Bloomberg:
Oppo and Nokia sign a patent cross-licensing deal, ending a years-long dispute, letting the Chinese smartphone maker sell in key European markets like Germany  —  - Patent cross-licensing agreement ends years-long dispute  — Chinese brand is the No.4 smartphone maker in the world
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
X adds support for passkeys for US-based iOS users, after removing SMS 2FA in February 2023; the announcement comes shortly after the US SEC's X account hack  —  X, formerly Twitter, today announced support for passkeys, a new and more secure login method than traditional passwords …

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