Techmeme
January 26, 2024, 5:50 PM

Top News

Damien Geradin / The Platform Law Blog:
Apple's changes for iOS app distribution in the EU fail to offer fair and reasonable commissions and show its disdain for both the DMA and app developers  —  Yesterday, Apple made an important announcement regarding changes to iOS, Safari, and the App Store in the European Union in response to the Digital Markets Act ("DMA").
Spotify:
Spotify says Apple is “forcing developers to stay with the status quo” and calls on the EU to “reject this blatant disregard” of the principles it established  —  For almost five years - 1,782 days - we have been asking the European Commission to take action against Apple.
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Apple's reluctant, punitive compliance with regulators will burn its political and developer goodwill, affecting the success of new platforms like Vision Pro  —  Apple is on a roll when it comes to having its hand forced by state entities and governing bodies: Alternative payment methods …
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
A look at the browser-related iOS changes in the EU, including letting users set their default out of the 12 most popular browsers in their country's App Store  —  The raft of iOS changes Apple dropped in the European Union yesterday, as it prepares for enforcement of the bloc's Digital Markets Act …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Mozilla criticizes Apple's plans to restrict BrowserEngineKit to EU-specific apps, forcing “Firefox to build and maintain two separate browser implementations”  —  Apple's new rules in the European Union mean browsers like Firefox can finally use their own engines on iOS.
More: MacRumors and TechRadar
LinkedIn: Bruce Lawson and Justin Willis
Forums: Hacker News and r/apple
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Pixel 8 Pro's Thermometer app, which uses an infrared sensor to scan the forehead, has a fiddly user experience and appears to have accuracy issues  —  Earlier this week, Google updated the Pixel 8 Pro to let its strange new temperature sensor finally take readings of human bodies.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Google is testing an ARM64 version of Chrome for Arm-based Windows devices  —  Google appears to be readying a version of its popular Chrome browser for Windows on Arm.  X (formerly Twitter) user Pedro Justo spotted a native version of the browser for Windows 11 Arm-powered devices …
Tom Dotan / Wall Street Journal:
Source: Salesforce plans to lay off ~700 employees, or ~1% of its staff, after cutting 10% of its workforce in January 2023; the company has 1,000 open jobs  —  The layoffs, which will affect around 1% of its workforce, follow a 10% reduction last year  —  Salesforce is laying off around …
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Q&A with Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters on not launching an app on the Apple Vision Pro, the WWE deal, content strategy, ads, competition, gaming, bundles, and more  —  I am pleased to welcome Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters for a Stratechery Interview.  Peters was named the co-CEO of Netflix …
Financial Times:
Sources: xAI is in talks to raise up to $6B from family offices in Hong Kong, Middle Eastern funds, and Japanese and South Korean investors at a $20B valuation  —  Tesla chief targets $20bn valuation in bid to take on OpenAI  —  Elon Musk's xAI is in talks to raise up to $6bn …
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Microsoft details the techniques that the Russian hacking group Midnight Blizzard used to breach the email accounts of its executives and other organizations  —  Microsoft confirmed that the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service hacking group, which hacked into its executives' email accounts in November 2023 …
Turner Wright / Cointelegraph:
A federal judge sentences OneCoin lawyer Mark Scott to 10 years in prison for his role in laundering millions of dollars through the crypto scheme  —  A court convicted Mark Scott of two felony counts related to bank fraud and money laundering in November 2019.  —  Total views Total shares
Jon Porter / The Verge:
A review of Honor's Magic V2 foldable, launching in the UK and Europe for £1,700 and €2,000: thin and durable but a dated OS and processor, and software issues  —  It's thin and light enough to feel like a regular smartphone when folded.  That's impressive.  I just wish Honor's software were as svelte.
Bloomberg:
Omdia: Nintendo plans to introduce a new Switch gaming console in 2024 with an 8" LCD screen; the current gen seven-year-old Switch has sold over 132M units  —  - The next console from Kyoto company to have 8-inch LCD  — Seven-year-old Switch console has sold over 132 million units
Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios:
Source: Chamath Palihapitiya shelved plans to raise $1B for an early-stage investment fund, in part due to fundraising challenges  —  - Social Capital last summer reportedly sought to sell a large number of its investment holdings. … - He continues to invest via his own balance sheet.
Kylie Robison / Fortune:
Source: MGM Resorts International's BetMGM is partnering with X to showcase betting odds on X and provide a direct link to BetMGM, allowing users to place bets  —  Elon Musk's X to incorporate online gambling statistics into platform.  —  MGM Resorts International's online gambling subsidiary BetMGM …
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
A profile of Israel-linked Predatory Sparrow, whose cyberattacks on Iranian civilian targets are some of the most aggressive offensive hacking incidents ever  —  From repeatedly crippling thousands of gas stations to setting a steel mill on fire, Predatory Sparrow's offensive hacking …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple adds support for transcripts to the Podcasts app in iOS 17.4 beta and says transcripts will be generated automatically after a new episode is published  —  Apple released the first developer beta of iOS 17.4 today, and there are a couple of changes to the Apple Podcasts app.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple's €0.50 Core Technology Fee in the EU would lead to a free or freemium app with 2M annual “first installs” paying $540K+ a year even if no money is earned  —  App developers in the European Union who choose to opt in to Apple's new business terms must pay an €0.50 …
Chris Kerr / Game Developer:

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