Techmeme
November 29, 2023, 12:50 PM

Top News

Mike Seymour / fxguide:
Unity plans to cut 265 jobs, or 3.8% of its workforce, and end its services deal with VFX company Wētā FX to focus on its core business in a “company reset”  —  UPDATE: Scroll down for a statement from WētāFX:  —  Reuters is reporting that Unity Software …
Ann-Marie Alcántara / Wall Street Journal:
Spotify launches Spotify Wrapped 2023, adding a Me in 2023 feature that assigns users one of 12 themes to describe their listening habits, on mobile and desktop  —  The listening recap, available Wednesday, takes over social media every year  —  It's the time of year many people have been anxiously awaiting: Spotify Wrapped season.
Steven J. Horowitz / Variety:
Spotify reveals 2023's most-streamed artists, albums, songs, and podcasts: Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny, Miley Cyrus' Flowers, The Joe Rogan Experience, and more  —  Spotify has revealed its annual Wrapped campaign for 2023, announcing the top-streamed artists, albums, songs and podcasts …
Graham Starr / Bloomberg:
Okta tells customers that hackers who breached its network stole information on all users of its customer support system, greater than the 1% claimed previously  —  - Okta had earlier said breach affected about 1% of customers  — Company said some Okta employee information was also stolen
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Google releases an emergency security update to fix Chrome's sixth zero-day in 2023, related to the Skia open-source 2D graphics library and found by Google TAG  —  Google has fixed the sixth Chrome zero-day vulnerability this year in an emergency security update released today to counter ongoing exploitation in attacks.
AnnaMaria Andriotis / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Apple plans to exit its Goldman Sachs contract in 12 to 15 months, ending their consumer partnership, including for credit card and savings accounts  —  Tech giant proposed exiting contract in about 12-to-15 months  —  Apple is pulling the plug on its credit-card partnership with Goldman Sachs …
Variety:
Robert De Niro criticizes Apple and the Gotham Awards, after sources say Apple cut part of his speech slamming Donald Trump, which he read anyway from his phone  —  The “Killers of the Flower Moon” actor was gearing up to slam Donald Trump at Monday's Gotham Awards, but when he took the stage …
Wayne Ma / The Information:
Sources: Apple licenses Arm's IP at less than 30 cents per device, the lowest rate among Arm's smartphone chip clients; Apple makes up under 5% of Arm's sales  —  In 2017, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son gathered a group of executives from Arm Holdings, the British chip designer SoftBank had just bought …
Michael Peel / Financial Times:
Google DeepMind finds 2.2M crystal structures using GNoME, more than 45x larger than all substances ever found, and plans to make 381K available to scientists  —  Work shows power of AI to improve real-world technology in fields from renewable energy to advanced computation
Bloomberg:
How deepfake porn victims in NYC suburb Levittown helped convict the perpetrator, a former classmate, an ordeal further complicated by the lack of clear US laws  —  A group of young women in a New York City suburb, horrified to learn their photographs had been manipulated and posted online, took matters into their own hands.
Ben Weiss / Fortune:
Wormhole, a messaging protocol started by Jump Crypto to let blockchain developers communicate, raised $225M at a $2.5B valuation, 2023's largest crypto raise  —  In a parched fundraising landscape, the team behind Wormhole, the messaging protocol that lets developers communicate across different blockchains …
David Pierce / The Verge:
A look at Ayaneo's $199+ Retro Mini PC AM01, designed to look like a 1980s-era Macintosh, with Ryzen chip options, up to 32GB of RAM, and up to 1TB of storage  —  Ayaneo, which is mostly known for making handheld gaming consoles, just fully revealed the new Retro Mini PC AM01 after teasing it a few weeks ago.
Amir Efrati / The Information:
Bloomberg:
Sources: London-based AI startup Stability AI held early-stage talks with several companies about a sale, as executives face investor pressure over its finances  —  - Move follows letter from investor Coatue calling for changes  — Coatue concerned about Stability AI's financial position
Scott Hayden / Road to VR:
Meta pauses shipments of the Quest 3's Elite Strap with Battery after users report a charging fault renders the battery useless, and starts making new straps  —  Meta paused shipments of its Elite Strap with Battery for Quest 3 amid widespread user reports of a charging fault that renders the battery useless.
Eric Newcomer / Newcomer:
Together AI, which helps pre-train and fine-tune open source foundation models more efficiently, raised a $102.5M Series A led by Kleiner Perkins  —  I spoke with Together AI CEO Vipul Ved Prakash  —  Together AI, a startup that's helping companies pre-train and fine-tune open source foundation models …
Bloomberg:
Meta tells US officials that the company plans to block new political ads on Facebook and Instagram one week before the 2024 election, similar to past elections  —  - Facebook owner to block political ads one week before US vote  — First US election with broad generative AI will test democracy
Raphael Satter / Reuters:
Elliptic and Corvus Insurance: the “Black Basta” ransomware group, suspected of being a Conti offshoot, extorted at least $107M in bitcoin since early 2022  —  A cyber extortion gang suspected of being an offshoot of the notorious Russian Conti group of hackers has raked …
More: Elliptic

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