Techmeme
January 5, 2023, 5:05 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: crypto lender Genesis Global laid off 30% of its staff, after cutting 20% of its 260 workforce in 2022, and is considering filing for bankruptcy  —  Firm suffered steep losses from loans it supplied to Alameda, Three Arrows  —  Massive crypto lender Genesis Global Trading Inc. laid off 30% …
Leyland Cecco / The Guardian:
Apple quietly launches a catalog of books narrated by AI on its Books app, in a move that publishers, authors, and agents warn may upend the audiobook market  —  Exclusive: tech firm quietly launches new audiobook catalogue narrated by AI - but move expected to spark backlash
Wall Street Journal:
New York AG Letitia James files a civil lawsuit against Celsius co-founder Alex Mashinsky, alleging he defrauded investors out of billions via false statements  —  Alex Mashinsky made false statements to investors about the crypto lender, lawsuit alleges  —  New York Attorney General Letitia …
David Benoit / Wall Street Journal:
US bank Silvergate, which caters to crypto, reports liquidating debt to cover $8.1B withdrawals as FTX collapsed and laying off 40% of its staff; SI falls 40%+  —  Bank sold assets at a loss to cover withdrawals and cut 40% of its staff but remains committed to crypto
Jules Roscoe / VICE:
The FTC proposes a rule banning non-compete clauses, saying the contracts harm healthy competition in the labor and product markets and block entrepreneurship  —  The agency stated that noncompete clauses are bad for both the labor market and innovation.  The proposed rule would make them illegal.
Angus Berwick / Reuters:
Source: FTX's former top lawyer Daniel Friedberg cooperated with US prosecutors, telling them on November 22 what he knew about SBF misusing customer funds  —  FTX's former top lawyer Daniel Friedberg has cooperated with U.S. prosecutors as they investigate the crypto firm's collapse …
Erin Woo / The Information:
Source: Twitter laid off ~40 ad optimization data scientists and engineers, as the company targets areas that leadership considers to be failing or unimportant  —  Twitter laid off about 40 data scientists and engineers working on advertising late Wednesday night in what amounted to at least …
Matt Burgess / Wired:
WhatsApp launches proxy support globally, letting users with blocked or disrupted connections use the app via servers set up by volunteers and organizations  —  Amid internet shutdowns in Iran, the encrypted messaging app is introducing proxy connections that can help people get online.
Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge:
Lenovo unveils the Yoga Book 9i, a laptop with two 13.3" OLED displays, available in June 2023 for $2,100+ with a 13th Gen Intel Core i7-U15 and 16GB of RAM  —  Dual monitor setups are great and all, but how about dual screens in a strangely tall laptop?  Lenovo is here to answer that …
Jessica Conditt / Engadget:
Sony unveils Project Leonardo, a PS5 accessibility controller kit with circular gamepads, for use on its own or with DualSense; pricing and release are TBC  —  Sony is building a better PlayStation 5 controller with Project Leonardo, a kit that promises to make games easier to play for people with limited motor control.
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
A hacker leaks a dataset allegedly containing the email addresses of 200M+ Twitter users, claimed to be a cleaner version of the 400M dataset from December 2022  —  A data leak described as containing email addresses for over 200 million Twitter users has been published on a popular hacker forum for about $2.
Wall Street Journal:
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
California's pay transparency law, which requires employers to share salary ranges on job listings, went into effect this week, revealing some Big Tech salaries  —  - A new law that went into effect this week requires most California employers to disclose salaries on job listings.
Levi Winslow / Kotaku:
After YouTuber Coffeezilla reported on Logan Paul's apparently sham NFT game CryptoZoo, Paul says his only mistake was trusting the project's many “bad actors”  —  Blockchain investigator Stephen ‘Coffeezilla’ Findeisen may see Paul in court  —  After keeping his mouth shut …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Amazon unveils the Ring Car Cam, its first car dashboard camera, with inside and outside recording, after a two-year delay, shipping in February 2023 for $250  —  Amazon.com Inc.'s Ring division introduced its first car dashboard camera after a two-year delay, expanding beyond home security with a new category.
Wall Street Journal:
Amazon plans to lay off 18,000+ employees, more than its initial target of 10,000 in November 2022, with the “majority” coming from retail and recruiting  —  Cuts focused on the company's corporate staff exceed earlier projection  —  Amazon AMZN -0.79%decrease …
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Google says Android TV OS, the underlying platform for Google TV and Android TV, now has 150M monthly active devices, up 36%+ YoY  —  At CES 2023 this week Google is sharing an update on how many devices are now using Google TV and Android TV, with 150 million devices in the hands of users.

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