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January 29, 2024, 1:15 PM
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| Bloomberg: |
Amazon drops its $1.4B acquisition of Roomba maker iRobot after clashing with EU regulators and will pay a $94M fee; iRobot has ~$500M in net losses since 2021 — - IRobot CEO steps down and company cuts workforce by 31% — Tech giant to pay $94 million to iRobot over deal termination
More: The Verge, About Amazon, The Messenger, Thurrott, The Information, NBC News, TechCrunch, Engadget, TechSpot, MobileSyrup, TechRadar, Chain Store Age, TechStartups, Associated Press, New York Times, Axios, Financial Times, Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, and Android Headlines
Threads: @firstadopter. X: @mattturck, @pitdesi, @ttoboyle, @progresschamber, @theo_wayt, @linakhanftc, @visu, @jamestitcomb, @bongcapital, @marketsneil, @pat_hedger, @jcbcp, @sarthakgh, @adamkovac, @edludlow, @matthewstoller, @laz_radic, @lewis_crofts, @diane_alter, and @bhalligan. LinkedIn: Emil Protalinski
| Rohan Goswami / CNBC: |
After Amazon ended its acquisition, iRobot plans to lay off 31% of its staff, or ~350 people, and says chair and CEO Colin Angle would step down; IRBT drops 5%+ — - Amazon and iRobot mutually agreed to call off their planned acquisition, writing that there was “no path” to regulatory approval and sending iRobot shares down 15%.
More: The Guardian, eeNews Europe, Fortune, Seattle Business Journal, Ars Technica, Tech Monitor, TechCrunch, SiliconANGLE, PCMag, GeekWire, PYMNTS.com, The Register, Reuters, The Boston Globe, Investor's Business Daily, TechHive, New York Post, Tech Xplore, Techaeris, Neowin, The Robot Report, and NBC Bay Area
| Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media: |
Microsoft adds safeguards to its AI text-to-image tool Designer, after fake AI images of Taylor Swift went viral and a report of 4chan users misusing the tool — Following 404 Media's reporting, Microsoft has made changes to a tool people were using to make AI nudes of celebrities.
More: VentureBeat, Ars Technica, New York Post, NBC News, Gizmodo, NBC News on YouTube, Engadget, Neowin, Fortune, and Variety
| Allison Johnson / The Verge: |
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review: bright screen, anti-glare, Circle to Search, great camera, and seven years of updates, but pricey, heavy, and AI is a mixed bag — The Galaxy S24 Ultra is packed with top-tier hardware, but its highly touted AI features are hit-or-miss — and the price is higher than ever.
More: MacRumors, XDA Developers, IGN, Forbes, CNET, PCMag, MakeUseOf, Tom's Guide, GSMArena.com, TechSpot, and The Shortcut
| Suzanne Vranica / Wall Street Journal: |
Presentation: Amazon says Prime Video's ad load per hour will be two to 3.5 minutes, below traditional TV and most streamers, and expects 195M monthly viewers — Move prompts longtime subscribers to cancel Prime altogether, forgoing free shipping; ‘There is only one way to show them that this is not OK’
More: PCMag, Thurrott, Fast Company, 9to5Mac, Gizmochina, TechRadar, KnowTechie, The Streamable, TweakTown, GameSpot, Trak.in, Gizmodo, TechHive, Bloomberg, The Verge, BGR, and Making Television Easy Again!. Forums: Hacker News
| Dawn Lim / Bloomberg: |
How Blackstone is building a $25B US data center empire via its QTS acquisition, using an estimated 6 GW of electricity when complete, equal to ~5M homes' needs — The private equity giant says landlord QTS could be one of its best investments ever — but the resources needed for growth are vast.| New York Times: |
How Google, Meta, Microsoft, and others balance developing specialized AI chips with their relationship with Nvidia, which has an estimated 70% of AI chip sales — In September, Amazon said it would invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic, a San Francisco start-up working on artificial intelligence.| Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch: |
Meta partners with the Center for Open Science to share data for researching online well-being, before Wednesday's Congressional hearing on kids' online safety — Ahead of a major Congressional hearing about children's online safety, Meta has announced a collaboration with the Center for Open Science … | Oliver Haslam / iMore: |
Apple updates Shazam to add support for identifying songs from other apps while listening via wired or Bluetooth headphones — Apple's Shazam is now better than ever. — Shazam has long been the go-to app for people who want to know what song they're listening to but now it's better than ever thanks to a new version 17.3 update.
More: MacRumors, MobileSyrup, and iClarified
| Josh Ye / Reuters: |
Chinese state media: China has approved more than 40 LLMs for public use since authorities began the approval process in August 2023; 14 were approved last week — China has approved more than 40 artificial intelligence (AI) models for public use in the first six months since authorities began …
More: ITPro, Neowin, The Decoder, Computerworld, and South China Morning Post
| Priya Anand / Bloomberg: |
Sema4.ai, a three-month-old startup led by ex-Cloudera CEO Rob Bearden aiming to automate business tasks with AI, raised $30.5M and acquires AI startup Robocorp — Investors in Sema4.ai's funding round included Benchmark and Mayfield. — Sema4.ai, a startup that makes artificial intelligence tools … | David Pierce / The Verge: |
The Browser Company releases Arc Search, a new iOS app that takes a user's search query, browses the web, and builds a custom webpage to answer the query — A few minutes ago, I opened the new Arc Search app and typed, “What happened in the Chiefs game.” That game, the AFC Championship, had just wrapped up.
More: TechCrunch, Arc from The Browser Company, Inc.com, ZDNet, Thurrott, Engadget, App Store, TechRadar, Spyglass, MacStories, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, The Dent, and iPhone in Canada Blog
Threads: @crumbler, @shanselman, @anildash, @gruber, and @imdavidpierce. Mastodon: @matt@worldkey.io
Forums: r/ArcBrowser and MacRumors Forums
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