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January 11, 2024, 10:55 AM
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Louise Matsakis / Semafor:
Google lays off hundreds of staff working on Assistant and says the restructuring would help improve Assistant as the company explores integrating newer AI tech  —  Google is laying off hundreds of people working on its voice-activated Google Assistant software and eliminating a similar number …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google reorganizes its Devices & Services teams responsible for Pixel, Fitbit, and Nest; Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman are leaving Google  —  Google is reorganizing the Devices & Services teams responsible for Pixel, Nest, and Fitbit hardware.
Nico Grant / New York Times:
Sources: several hundred Google engineering employees received notices that their roles were eliminated and lost corporate access; most hardware cuts were in AR  —  The company, which has been working to trim expenses, laid off employees who worked on core engineering, the Google Assistant product and hardware such as the Pixel phone.
Reuters:
The US SEC approves spot bitcoin ETFs from BlackRock, Grayscale, ARK 21Shares, Bitwise, WisdomTree, Fidelity, VanEck, Invesco, Valkyrie, Hashdex, and Franklin  —  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has approved 11 spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds, including those of Grayscale …
More: Coinbase, Grayscale Investments, CoinDesk, PYMNTS.com, New York Times, Decrypt, CoinDesk, Crypto Daily, Fortune, CryptoSlate, CoinDesk, BBC, New.blicio.us, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Cointelegraph, The Block, Bankless Times, Crypto Adventure, Bloomberg, Cointelegraph, Bitcoin Insider, The Block, Bitcoin News, Reuters, Finextra, Cointelegraph, Bitwise Investments, CoinDesk, Blockworks, Unchained, Engadget, CyberScoop, Blockworks, Gizmodo, The Daily Hodl, Decrypt, The Defiant, Forkast, Ticker, Nasdaq, BNN Bloomberg, Business Insider, CoinGape, Fortune, Decrypt, The Block, and The Block
X: @gopmajoritywhip, @bitwiseinvest, @grayscale, @fti_us, @stevennerayoff, @saylor, @senlummis, @gaborgurbacs, @defisquared, @bitcoinpierre, @fintechfrank, @snowden, @campbelljaustin, @janvaneck3, @repjohnrose, @sherlock_hodles, @tradermercury, @johnedeaton1, @dougielarge, @adamscochran, @ryansadams, @hesterpeirce, @barrysilbert, @iampaulgrewal, @hhorsley, @fintechfrank, @demirelo, @econoar, @grayscale, @propelforward, @collins_belton, @aubreystrobel, @jbrukh, @fintechfrank, @jbsdc, @mattomattik, @pythianism, @tusharjain_, @neerajka, @daveweisberger1, @balajis, @davidsacks, @laurashin, @nategeraci, @3orovik, @shaunmmaguire, @s_alderoty, @twobitidiot, @punk6529, @daancrypto, @tradermayne, @pentosh1, @lsdinmycoffee, @cburniske, @teeznutz11, @tree_of_alpha, @jseyff, @tree_of_alpha, @neuralinkdb, @nitwitty, @ericbalchunas, @cgasparino, @jseyff, @nategeraci, and @fintechfrank
Forums: Hacker News and Slashdot
Jesse Hamilton / CoinDesk:
US SEC Chair Gary Gensler concedes that losing in court after rejecting Grayscale's spot bitcoin ETF left the agency with little choice but to approve such ETFs  —  The SEC chair said a court forced his hand and that the agency's decision to greenlight a spot bitcoin ETF doesn't signal support of that or any other digital asset.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google plans to remove 17 “underutilized” Assistant features in February, including controlling audiobooks, media alarms, recipes, messages, events, and more  —  Bard is the future of Assistant.  Ahead of that happening, Google announced today that Assistant features with low usage will be removed in February.
Reuters:
USDC stablecoin issuer Circle confidentially files for a US IPO, without saying the number of shares for sale or a price range; Circle was valued at $9B in 2022  —  Circle Internet Financial, the company behind stablecoin USDC, said on Thursday that it had confidentially filed …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
After announcing the $199 R1 “Large Action Model” AI handheld at CES, Rabbit sold 10,000 units in one day; second batch orders should ship in April to May 2024  —  The R1, the pocket-size gadget from Rabbit that's supposed to use your apps for you, has already sold out of its first batch.
Charisma Madarang / Rolling Stone:
Dudesy, a podcast generated by AI and curated by humans, releases an hour-long comedy special featuring an AI recreation of George Carlin, who died in 2008  —  The hour-long special arrived from Dudesy, a podcast run by artificial intelligence … Following the special's release …
Dominic-Madori Davis / TechCrunch:
PitchBook: female-founded US companies raised $44.4B out of $170.59B in VC funding in 2023; companies with all-female founding teams raised ~$3.1B, down 39% YoY  —  Female-founded companies in the U.S. raised $44.4 billion out of the $170.59 billion in venture capital allocated last year.
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
OpenAI debuts a GPT Store for paid users to share and find custom chatbots and plans to start sharing revenue in Q1; users have already made 3M+ chatbots so far  —  The store will feature a bot leaderboard, and will eventually introduce payments.  —  OpenAI has launched an online store …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
OpenAI launches ChatGPT Team, a new subscription plan for teams of up to 149 people, for $30 per user per month, or $25 per user per month billed annually
Bloomberg:
After spending $13M+ on US lobbying in the past decade, Huawei quietly shutters its in-house lobbying operation, ending an effort to overturn the US bans  —  - Chinese firm lost its last Washington fixers in recent months  — Hired hands and Huawei itself have told Congress they're done

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From Mediagazer

New York Times:
Court docs detail a smear campaign against actor Blake Lively via media articles and social media posts after she accused director Justin Baldoni of misconduct

Max Tani / @maxwelltani:
Memo: WaPo's Matt Murray lays out plans for WP Ventures, the “third newsroom”; Krissah Thompson will be editor and Samantha Henig will be general manager

Jack Dunn / Variety:
Trump appoints Mark Burnett, the British TV executive who created and produced the reality show The Apprentice, as a special envoy to the UK

More News

John Timmer / Ars Technica:
Harvard spinout QuEra, a quantum computing startup, plans to release an error-corrected quantum computer with 10,000 physical and 100 logical qubits by 2026

Earlier Picks

Maxwell Strachan / VICE:
A survey of 9,388 software engineers in December 2023: ~90% believe getting a job now is harder than pre-pandemic and 60%+ believe AI will lead to less hiring
Bloomberg:
Sources: OpenAI is in talks with CNN and Fox Corp. to license their text, video, and image content; Time “is in discussions with OpenAI” about a content deal
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
The US ITC files its opposition to Apple's motion for the Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 sales ban to remain paused for the duration of the company's appeal
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
X quietly removes the ability for paying subscribers to set an NFT as a profile picture, a feature Twitter launched in January 2022 for Twitter Blue subscribers
Kat Bailey / IGN:
Valve plans to add an “AI disclosure section” to Steam, asking developers to describe how their games use AI content and to let gamers report illegal AI content
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