Techmeme
February 1, 2024, 4:15 PM

Top News

Nick Bilton / Vanity Fair:
Interviews with Tim Cook, Greg Joswiak, James Cameron, Jon Favreau, and others on the Apple Vision Pro, using the device, developing the headset, and more  —  Inside Apple Park, the tech giant's CEO talks about the genesis of a “mind-blowing” new device that could change the way we live and work.
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Apple says developers have optimized 600+ apps for the Vision Pro in time for its February 2 launch, including Airmail, Box, MUBI, Night Sky, Parcel, and PCalc  —  Apple today announced that over 600 apps with native support for visionOS will be available on the Vision Pro when the headset launches in the U.S. this Friday.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Google debuts ImageFX, an AI image generator underpinned by Imagen 2, with “expressive chips”, or keyword suggestions, and brings Imagen 2 to Vertex AI and Bard  —  Taylor Swift deepfakes be damned, Google is releasing a new AI-powered tool, TextFX, for image creation.
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
CISA orders US federal agencies to disconnect all Ivanti Connect Secure and Policy Secure VPN appliances vulnerable to actively exploited bugs before February 3  —  CISA has ordered U.S. federal agencies to disconnect all Ivanti Connect Secure or Policy Secure VPN appliances vulnerable …
James Hunt / The Block:
The US EIA plans to begin surveying crypto miners' electricity use next week; the EIA justified the emergency data collection by citing BTC's 50% price increase  —  - The Energy Information Administration will begin surveying the electricity use of U.S. crypto miners next week …
Dexter Thomas / Wired:
Q&A with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew on the company's music festival in Arizona, his background, TikTok and music, US scrutiny, music labels, moderation, and more  —  A few weeks ago, Shou Zi Chew sat down with WIRED to tell us how he's trying to make TikTok better.
Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Google plans to roll out a Google Maps feature that uses LLMs to analyze its data on 250M+ places and community insights to recommend places, starting in the US  —  Google is bringing generative AI to — where else?  — Google Maps, promising to help users find cool places through the use of large language models (LLM).
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
The US CPSC says Snap will recall all its Pixy selfie camera drones because their batteries pose a fire hazard; Snap sold fewer than 71K drones in four months  —  Snap gave up on its Pixy flying selfie camera drone after just four months, but it turns out the company sold 71,000 drones …
Richard Nieva / Forbes:
YouTube says YouTube Premium and Music have a combined 100M subscribers; CEO Neal Mohan says subscriptions have become a “meaningful part” of YouTube's business  —  YouTube CEO Neal Mohan told Forbes the subscription services are now a “meaningful part” of the business.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Apple releases visionOS 1.0.2, fixing a WebKit vulnerability that, if exploited, allowed malicious code execution; Apple included a patch in iOS 17.3 last week  —  A day after reporters published their first hands-on review of Apple's Vision Pro, the technology giant released its first security patch …
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge:
After Amazon ended its acquisition, iRobot, whose robot vacuum market share has steadily eroded since 2014, could become an also-ran as Chinese companies gain  —  By abandoning its deal to buy iRobot, Amazon has left the robot vacuum maker stuck under the couch.
Andrew Webster / The Verge:
Microsoft says Pocket Pair's Palworld, still technically in early access, is the biggest third-party Xbox Game Pass launch in history, reaching 7M players  —  Surprise viral gaming hit Palworld continues to reach new player milestones.  Today, developer Pocketpair announced that the game …
Scott Stein / CNET:
Meta starts rolling out its v62 software update for Meta Quest headsets, adding support for playing Apple's spatial videos, PS4 and PS5 controllers, and more  —  An update announced today folds in a way to play back Apple's new 3D videos right as the Vision Pro launches.
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
Google's fix for a Pixel phone storage bug, the second one in the past four months, is a very technical manual process requiring access to developer tools  —  Automatic updates broke your phone; the fix is a highly technical manual process.  —  Google has another fix for the second major …
The Information:
Sources: fabless semiconductor startup Astera Labs is meeting with prospective investors ahead of a potential March IPO; Astera was valued at $3.15B in 2022  —  A little-known startup that sells crucial data center components to customers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft is aiming …
Jesse Hamilton / CoinDesk:
Celsius emerges from bankruptcy and plans to distribute $3B+ to its creditors, who will also get a stake in the company's new Ionic Digital mining operation  —  The distribution will be made through PayPal and Coinbase.  —  Register Now  —  Celsius will be shipping out more than $3 billion …

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Earlier Picks

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
MK Manoylov / The Block: