Techmeme
January 25, 2024, 11:35 AM

Top News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Internal memo: Microsoft plans to lay off ~1,900 staff at Activision Blizzard and Xbox, or ~8% of its Microsoft Gaming workforce, this week  —  Microsoft is laying off around 1,900 employees at Activision Blizzard and Xbox this week.  While Microsoft is primarily laying off roles at Activision Blizzard …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Google Research details Lumiere, an AI video tool that uses unique architecture to create videos in one smooth process instead of putting together smaller parts  —  Lumiere generates five-second videos that “portray realistic, diverse and coherent motion.”  —  On Tuesday, Google announced Lumiere …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft launches Mesh, its 3D meeting platform in Teams, out of preview, with custom environments, games, spatial audio, and only supporting Meta Quest for VR  —  Microsoft is launching its immersive 3D meetings inside Microsoft Teams today.  Microsoft Mesh, the company's mixed reality platform …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Meta rolls out DM limits on Facebook and Instagram to stop all users from messaging teens who don't follow them, on by default, and expands parental controls  —  Meta announced today that it is rolling out new DM restrictions on both Facebook and Instagram for teens that prevent anyone from messaging teens.
IDC:
Chinese smartphone shipments declined 5% YoY to 271.3M units in 2023; Apple gained the top spot, a first, with 17.3% market share, followed by Honor with 17.1%  —  A shift of power that we saw on the worldwide stage also happened in China, the largest smartphone market globally.
Thomas Buckley / Bloomberg:
How the rising prices of streaming services are driving users to pirate websites with a ~90% profit margin that bring in ~$2B per year in ads and subscriptions  —  Illegal subscription services that steal films or TV shows bring in $2 billion a year in ads and subscriber fees.
Forums: Slashdot
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Bloomberg:
Filing: HPE says a threat actor believed to be Russia-linked Midnight Blizzard exfiltrated data from “a small percentage of HPE mailboxes” beginning in May 2023  —  - HPE says it was informed of nation-state breach on Dec. 12  — Same Russia-linked group suspected in recent Microsoft hack
Luke Bouma / Cord Cutters News:
Fubo TV launches Instant Headlines Beta, which uses AI to generate headlines from live news programs on Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, and other networks  —  You may be familiar with AI-powered highlights of sporting events.  Now, though, Fubo has announced for the first time you will be able to get instant headlines from live news programs.
Joseph Cox / 404 Media:
An investigation details a spy tool called Patternz, which can track billions of phone profiles via ads in hundreds of thousands of apps, including 9gag and Kik  —  Hundreds of thousands of ordinary apps, including popular ones such as 9gag, Kik, and a series of caller ID apps …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google Pixel users say all their apps cannot access data in internal storage after installing the January 2024 Google Play system update, causing various issues  —  Following a storage access issue in October with the initial Android 14 release and multiple users, Pixel devices might …
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Anomalo, which uses AI to solve data-quality problems in large datasets, raised a $33M Series B led by SignalFire, bringing its total funding to $72M  —  When Anomalo's co-founders left Instacart in 2018, they thought they could put machine learning to work to solve data quality problems inherent in large data sets.
More: SiliconANGLE
Heather Somerville / Wall Street Journal:
VCs put $100B+ in US defense tech startups since 2021, but convincing the Pentagon to buy from them has proven difficult; only a few had $25M+ in orders in FY23  —  Tech startups get cool reception from Defense Department despite its rhetoric that it will buy more from Silicon Valley
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Sources: research group China Tech Threat, which has advocated against Lenovo, aligns with the corporate interests of Dell and Micron, both long-term funders  —  China Tech Threat's advocacy aligns with the corporate interests of Dell and Micron, which have supported the group financially, say people familiar with the group.
LinkedIn: Brody Ford
Ryan Vlastelica / Bloomberg:
Microsoft briefly reached a $3T market cap for the first time on January 24, becoming the second company to do so after Apple, before closing at a record $2.99T  —  - Software giant is second company to hit level, following Apple  — AI services are seen as a long-term revenue growth tailwind

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Zoho:
How remote support can make your Christmas stress-free  —  As Christmas approaches, the air fills with the anticipation of joy, family gatherings, and gift-giving.  While the season brings immense happiness …
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
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.
Techmeme Ride Home:
(BNS) Calvin And Hobbes - With Daniel Kibblesmith
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 11:35 AM ET, January 25, 2024.

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

Sara Merken / Reuters:
Sareen Habeshian / Axios:

Earlier Picks

Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Hugh Son / CNBC:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Ash Parrish / The Verge:
Richard Nieva / Forbes:
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Ariel Shapiro / The Verge:
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC: