Techmeme
May 9, 2024, 11:20 AM

Top News

Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
Sources: after closing several video game studios, Microsoft plans more cuts, as the massive Activision acquisition has ramped up scrutiny on the Xbox division  —  Xbox is offering voluntary severance agreements to producers, quality assurance testers and other staff at ZeniMax as part of a broader cost-cutting initiative
Ash Parrish / The Verge:
Town hall: Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty discussed wanting small and prestigious games, after closing the studio behind small, prestigious hit Hi-Fi Rush  —  Today, one day after Microsoft announced that it would shut down four of its games studios, Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios …
Wall Street Journal:
Binance sources and docs: an internal investigator, dismissed in late 2023, found evidence of secret internal trading accounts and DWF Labs' market manipulation  —  Former company insiders say the firing of an internal investigator showed that the crypto exchange neglected evidence of market manipulation.
Wall Street Journal:
In a blog post, Neuralink details a problem with its implant in patient Noland Arbaugh's brain that reduced data collection after the implant's threads came out  —  Amount of data captured from the device declined, although the patient and the Elon Musk-owned company still staged a successful demonstration
Dan Milmo / The Guardian:
As part of its Model Spec release, OpenAI says it is considering letting developers and users “responsibly” create “NSFW content in age-appropriate contexts”  —  Critics say ChatGPT creator's proposal to allow erotica, slurs and other adult content undermines its mission statement
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
OpenAI publishes Model Spec, which specifies how its models should behave, including objectives, rules, and default behaviors, and asks the public for feedback  —  OpenAI isn't done trying to live up to the “open” in its name.  —  While not making any of its new models open source …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Alphabet has been progressing in talks to acquire marketing software provider HubSpot and has discussed terms; HubSpot has a $30B market cap  —  Google parent Alphabet Inc. has been progressing in talks to acquire marketing software provider HubSpot Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.
Emily Chang / Bloomberg:
An interview with Sundar Pichai on playing the long game on AI, how Gemini image generation “got it wrong”, AI search, the US DOJ lawsuits, layoffs, and more  —  In this episode of The Circuit with Emily Chang, the Alphabet CEO explains how he's in it for the long haul—and won't dance to anyone else's tune.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
A look at potential successors to Tim Cook; sources say Apple's hardware engineering chief John Ternus is the most likely long-term successor  —  John Ternus, the head of hardware engineering, is emerging as a potential successor to the CEO.  —  Tim Cook has transformed Apple Inc. since taking …
Shahram Mokhtari / iFixit News:
Huawei Pura 70 Pro teardown: the 7nm Kirin 9010 is only marginally better than Kirin 9000S, and the majority of the chips are designed and manufactured in China  —  Huawei released the Pura 70 line of smartphones in April 2024 and it's already made a bit of a stir.
Financial Times:
TikTok plans to start automatically labeling some AI content, including from Dall-E and Adobe's Firefly, and joins the Adobe-led content credential coalition  —  Social media companies under pressure to identify deepfakes and prevent spread of misinformation
Pratik Jain / Reuters:
US hospital operator Ascension reports disruptions to its clinical operations due to a suspected cybersecurity incident and engages Mandiant to help investigate  —  Hospital operator Ascension reported disruptions to its clinical operations on Wednesday due to a suspected cybersecurity incident …
Dade Hayes / Deadline:
Disney and WBD announce a streaming bundle of Disney+, Hulu, and Max, with ad-supported and ad-free plans, beginning this summer in the US, with pricing to come  —  Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery are breaking ground in streaming with a bundled offering featuring Disney+, Hulu and Max in a single package.
Jesse Pound / CNBC:
Robinhood reports Q1 revenue up 40% YoY to $618M, vs. $549M est., crypto transaction revenue up 232% to $126M, and a $157M net income, vs. a $511M net loss YoY  —  Shares of Robinhood rose in extended trading Wednesday afternoon after the retail brokerage announced stronger-than-expected first-quarter results.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Sonos responds to criticism of its app redesign, saying it takes “courage to rebuild” a product from the ground up and it plans to reintroduce missing features  —  In the days since, customers have complained about missing features like sleep timers, broken local music library management …
Dallin Grimm / Tom's Hardware:
A Stack Overflow user says the site suspended his account for a week after he altered his posts in protest of its OpenAI partnership to use data for AI training  —  Stack Overflow is overflowing with salt.  —  Stack Overflow, a legendary internet forum for programmers and developers …

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Earlier Picks

James Thomason / VentureBeat:
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Michael Peel / Financial Times: