Techmeme
January 25, 2024, 5:00 PM

Top News

Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple announces support for alternative app stores in the EU, charging no commission but instead an annual €0.50 Core Technology Fee per install per account  —  Apple today announced major changes to its app ecosystem in the European Union, implementing updates that will allow iPhone …
The Verge:
Apple plans to “notarize” iOS apps distributed via third-party app stores; apps will need to meet basic platform requirements, like getting scanned for malware  —  The iPhone's app ecosystem is about to go through its biggest shake-up since the App Store launched in 2008.
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says Apple's “anticompetitive scheme rife with new junk fees” is illegal under the EU's DMA and an example of “malicious compliance”  —  Apple announced a slew of App Store policy changes today to conform to the EU's Digital Market Act …
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Internal memo: Microsoft plans to lay off ~1,900 staff at Activision Blizzard and Xbox, or ~8% of its Microsoft Gaming workforce, this week  —  Microsoft is laying off around 1,900 employees at Activision Blizzard and Xbox this week.  While Microsoft is primarily laying off roles at Activision Blizzard …
Andrew Webster / The Verge:
Apple begins allowing game streaming apps and services globally, meaning that Xbox Cloud Gaming, GeForce Now, and others can be turned into full-featured apps  —  Starting today Apple is opening up its App Store to allow game streaming apps and services.  This means that services …
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
Apple plans to allow default third-party browsers, like Chrome, Edge, and Brave, and web engines in the EU with iOS 17.4, prompting Safari users on first launch  —  Apple is making major changes to how web browsers can operate on iPhone for customers in the EU. iOS 17.4 will introduce …
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
More: Engadget, Mobilegamer.biz, and The Verge
Threads: @bzamayoX: @carnage4life, @dhh, @dhh, and @dhh
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Google Research details Lumiere, an AI video tool that uses unique architecture to create videos in one smooth process instead of putting together smaller parts  —  Lumiere generates five-second videos that “portray realistic, diverse and coherent motion.”  —  On Tuesday, Google announced Lumiere …
David McCabe / New York Times:
The US FTC opens a probe into investments by Microsoft in OpenAI and by Amazon and Google in Anthropic, to assess how the deals alter the competitive landscape  —  The agency plans to scrutinize Microsoft, Amazon and Google for their investments in the A.I. start-ups OpenAI and Anthropic.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
OpenAI announces 25% to 50% lower GPT-3.5 Turbo prices, a GPT-4 Turbo preview model to reduce cases of “laziness”, improved text embedding models, and more  —  OpenAI is always making slight adjustments to its models and pricing, and today brings just such an occasion.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft launches Mesh, its 3D meeting platform in Teams, out of preview, with custom environments, games, spatial audio, and only supporting Meta Quest for VR  —  Microsoft is launching its immersive 3D meetings inside Microsoft Teams today.  Microsoft Mesh, the company's mixed reality platform …
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
X is flooded with AI-generated pornographic images of Taylor Swift; one post, live for 17 hours, had 45M+ views, hundreds of thousands of likes, and 24K reposts  —  Sexually explicit AI-generated images of Taylor Swift have been circulating on X (formerly Twitter) over the last day in the latest example …
Julia Love / Bloomberg:
Google puts Hugging Face's open-source AI models on Google Cloud, letting developers on Hugging Face's platform use Google Cloud's computing power and chips  —  Alphabet Inc.'s Google forged a deal to host AI software from startup Hugging Face on its cloud computing network …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Meta rolls out DM limits on Facebook and Instagram to stop all users from messaging teens who don't follow them, on by default, and expands parental controls  —  Meta announced today that it is rolling out new DM restrictions on both Facebook and Instagram for teens that prevent anyone from messaging teens.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Intel reports Q4 revenue up 10% YoY to $15.4B vs. $15.15B est., Data Center and AI down 10% YoY to $4B, and forecasts Q1 revenue below estimates; INTC drops 5%+  —  - Intel issued an outlook for the first quarter of 2024 that lagged analyst estimates.  — Intel shares are down slightly …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Study: kids aged 4 to 18 globally spent an average of 112 minutes daily on TikTok in 2023, up from 107 minutes YoY and 60% more than YouTube; 20% tried ChatGPT  —  No wonder YouTube launched Shorts.  A new study of children's online habits found that children ages 4 through 18 spent …
More: Qustodio
Paige Smith / Bloomberg:
PayPal rolls out product enhancements, including CashPass to let users earn cash back through the PayPal app and revamped Venmo business profiles  —  - CEO Chriss had promised to ‘shock’ company's detractors  — Enhancements include one-click checkout, Venmo updates

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