Sources: Microsoft is in talks to invest $10B in OpenAI at a $29B valuation, taking 75% of OpenAI's profits until the investment is recouped and then owning 49%
Microsoft has been in talks to invest $10 billion into the owner of ChatGPT, the wildly popular app that has thrilled casual users …
Coinbase plans to lay off a further ~950 employees, or ~20% of its workforce, seeking to reduce its operating expenses by 25% QoQ; Coinbase laid off 18% in June
- Coinbase is cutting a fifth of its workforce following an 18% staff reduction in June. — CEO Brian Armstrong pointed …
Microsoft unveils VALL-E, a text-to-speech AI model trained on 60K hours of English speech that can simulate a person's voice from three seconds of sample audio
Text-to-speech model can preserve speaker's emotional tone and acoustic environment. — On Thursday, Microsoft researchers announced …
Sources: Apple is working on a combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip to replace Broadcom components by 2025; plans to swap the Qualcomm modem in 2023 have hit snags
Apple Inc.'s push to replace the chips inside its devices with homegrown components will include dropping a key Broadcom Inc. part in 2025 …
Sources: former FTX engineering chief Nishad Singh, who has not been accused of wrongdoing, met with US federal prosecutors last week to seek a cooperation deal
Former FTX engineering chief Nishad Singh met with federal prosecutors in a bid to become the third member of Sam Bankman-Fried's inner circle …
Cameron Winklevoss writes to DCG's board, demanding CEO Barry Silbert's removal and alleging he and Genesis publicly lied, after his resolution deadline passed
Gemini crypto exchange co-founder Cameron Winklevoss called for the board of Digital Currency Group to remove Barry Silbert …
A breakdown of Binance's known assets, using data from Nansen and others, estimates the exchange has around $50B, including ~$10B in BNB, down 24% from November
The outflow of cash from Binance is worse than the CEO Changpeng Zhao indicated last month, and it's become considerably more severe since then, a Forbes analysis shows.
Amazon plans to launch Buy with Prime for all US-based merchants on January 31, letting them access Prime benefits, expanding on Fulfillment by Amazon merchants
Amazon announced this morning it's expanding its Buy with Prime service to U.S.-based merchants by the end of the month.
A New York University study finds Russian troll Twitter accounts had a minimal impact on 2016 US election voters; 1% of users accounted for 70% of the exposure
Welcome to The Cybersecurity 202! I caught up on some time hanging out with friends this past weekend. Friends are cool.
Google releases the Extension SDK for developers to bring new features, like the new Photo Picker API that launched with Android 13, to older Android versions
The Extensions SDK is what makes features like Photo Picker possible on older Android versions.
Microsoft acquires Fungible, which makes data processing units for data centers and has raised over $300M; reports from December say the deal is worth ~$190M
In December, reports suggested that Microsoft had acquired Fungible, a startup fabricating a type of data center hardware known …
A UK law mandates new properties in England must be built with gigabit broadband connections; DCMS says gigabit connections are available in 72%+ of households
My years-long battle to get gigabit internet installed may soon be over, thanks to new rules introduced by the UK government …
Common Sense Media survey of 1,358 US teenagers: 75% report having viewed porn online by 17, including 41% seeing images of nudity or sexual acts during school
Sexually explicit content has become so prevalent online that teenagers are deluged, according to a new report by a nonprofit child advocacy group.
Three years after ending mainstream support for Windows 7, Microsoft ends premium extended security support for the OS and support for Windows 8.1
Pour one out for Windows 7, the decade-old operating system that today reached the end of the security line.
TSMC reports Q4 revenue up 43% YoY to ~$20.6B, below ~$20.8B analyst estimates, its first miss in two years; TSMC stock dropped 27% in 2022 but is up 8% in 2023
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s fourth-quarter sales missed analysts' estimates, signaling the global decline …
New Jersey and Ohio ban TikTok on government-owned and managed devices; New Jersey's governor plans to ban products from 12+ vendors including Huawei and ZTE
New Jersey and Ohio said on Monday they were joining other states in banning use of the popular video app TikTok on government-owned and managed devices.
Meta plans to stop releasing software updates and drop some social features for the original Quest, which debuted in 2019, but will fix critical bugs until 2024
Mitchell Clark / The Verge :
VaynerMedia: in 2022, buying 1K video ad impressions on TikTok cost around 50% less than Instagram's Reels, ~33% less than Twitter, and 62% less than Snapchat
Advertisers and brands say an increasing amount of digital ads spend is moving away from Meta, YouTube and Twitter
A profile of Bela Bajaria, Netflix's global head of TV who leads its hyper-aggressive strategy to adapt successful show formats to different parts of the world
Rachel Syme / New Yorker :
German drugmaker BioNTech acquires London-based AI startup InstaDeep for up to £562M to help harness machine learning to improve drug discovery
Covid-19 vaccine maker is looking to use machine learning to help discover new treatments — BioNTech has agreed to buy UK artificial intelligence start …
In February, Instagram plans to replace the Shop tab with a Reels button in the app's bottom navigation bar and return the Compose button to the center
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch :
Chronosphere, which offers cloud-based observability tools, raised a $115M Series C extension at a $1.6B valuation, after a $200M C at a $1B+ valuation in 2021
The market for cloud native observability tools remains hot. As with so many new technologies, containerization solved …
Meta rolls out a Variance Reduction System, its AI ad-targeting tech meant to comply with its DOJ settlement and reduce discrimination in housing ads, in the US
Jon Fingas / Engadget :
Meta contractor Sama plans to close its east African content moderation hub in March, cutting ~200 staff; Meta will employ 1,500 Sama staff for data labelling
Financial Times :
A look at the US government's crypto-related sanctions strategy, the types of entities sanctioned, and the impact of the sanctions on the crypto crime ecosystem
Chainalysis :
YouTube plans to begin sharing ad revenue with Shorts creators on February 1, and starts rolling out new terms for all creators in the YouTube Partner Program
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch :
SCOTUS lets Meta's WhatsApp pursue a lawsuit accusing Israel's NSO Group of exploiting a bug to install spyware, allowing the surveillance of 1,400 people
The FAA proposes a February 1, 2024 deadline for airlines to replace or retrofit altimeters that can't filter out 5G signals, preventing full C-Band deployment
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica :
Report: Apple VP of Services Peter Stern, who helped build Apple TV+'s business, plans to leave at the end of January, as Apple reorganizes its Services unit
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac : Source: Insider .
The Easy Company, which just launched a “social” crypto wallet in beta featuring an “Instagram-like experience” for viewing NFTs, raised a $14.2M seed
The Easy Company has raised $14.2 million in a seed round and launched its “social” crypto wallet to help onboard …
Up until late December 2022, hackers were using a flaw in Experian's site to get anyone's entire credit report using only their name, address, birthday, and SSN
Sketchy iOS app “ChatGPT Chat GPT AI With GPT-3”, which is not affiliated with OpenAI, is selling subscriptions and has been a top paid App Store app for days
(See also: All the Wordle clones from awhile ago.) https://www.macrumors.com/... Tweets: Tae Kim / @firstadopter : App Store app testers on ChatGPT shams https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/.....
SteamDB: Valve's Steam platform passed 10M concurrent in-game players for the first time on January 7 and exceeded 33M concurrent online users on January 8
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge :
A New York judge sentences Nikhil Wahi, brother of Coinbase PM Ishan Wahi, to 10 months for his role in a scheme to trade on information about upcoming listings
Bob Van Voris / Bloomberg :
Sources: Douyin e-commerce spending in China grew 76% YoY to ~$208B in 2022; TikTok users in Southeast Asia more than quadrupled their spending to $4.4B in 2022
Juro Osawa / The Information :
Vista Equity Partners plans to acquire insurance tech company Duck Creek for ~$2.6B in cash, or $19 per share, a 46% premium on Friday's close; DCT jumps 45%+
Coin ATM Rader: there are now 38,641 bitcoin ATMs globally, up from 14,051 at the start of 2021 but flat from around July 2022 when bitcoin's price collapsed
Tim Copeland / The Block :
Dallas-based Worlds, whose “digital twins” of industrial companies' floor operations help boost productivity, raised a $21.2M Series A1 led by Moneta Ventures
VentureBeat :
Montreal-based payments company Nuvei enters a deal to acquire Atlanta-based rival Paya for ~$1.3B, a ~25% premium to January 6's closing price; PAYA jumps 24%+
Crunchbase: Black US founders raised around 1%, or an estimated $2.254B, of the total US venture capital raised in 2022, down from the record 1.3% in 2021
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26
Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control
Picture this: It's Monday morning. You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data
Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.