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 …
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 …
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.
Dudesy, an AI-driven podcast curated by humans, releases an hour-long comedy special featuring an AI-generated 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 …
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.
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.
After announcing the $199 R1 “Large Action Model” AI handheld at CES, Rabbit sold 10K units in one day; second batch orders are set to 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.
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
https://techcrunch.com/... #AI #technology #OpenAI #marketplace #appstore X: Sam Altman / @sama : (there are incredibly useful GPTs in the store, but probably ‘everything is waifus’ runs away with it...
Ivanti confirms hackers are exploiting two critical vulnerabilities in its corporate VPN software, but says patches won't be available until the end of January
U.S. software giant Ivanti has confirmed that hackers are exploiting two critical-rated vulnerabilities affecting …
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.
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
OpenAI is launching a new subscription plan for ChatGPT, its viral AI-powered chatbot, aimed at smaller, self-service-oriented teams.
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 …
Ripple Labs, the creator of the XRP cryptocurrency, plans to buy back $285M in shares from early investors and employees, sources say at an $11.3B valuation
Cryptocurrency company Ripple Labs, known for its XRP coins, is buying back $285 million worth of shares in the company …
A researcher finds 800GB of data online tied to school software maker Raptor, used by 5,300+ US districts, including evacuation plans and student medical files
More than 4 million school records, including safety procedures, student medical files, and court documents, were also publicly accessible online.
The US SEC is working with the FBI to investigate the false X post on January 9 about approving spot bitcoin ETFs; the agency approved 11 of them on January 10
Google Cloud eliminates fees for customers who leave for a rival service, effective immediately, which may put pressure on Amazon and Microsoft to do the same
Antirust officials have been looking at cloud data-transfer policies — The cost of switching between cloud-computing providers …
Sources describe how AI replaced the metaverse as Mark Zuckerberg's top priority, leading Meta to ruthlessly cut jobs and focus on quickly releasing AI products
Meta's founder has become deeply engaged in his company's AI efforts ahead of its 20th anniversary, but his close attention hasn't always proved to be a recipe for success.
Netflix says its ad tier has 23M+ MAUs globally, up from 15M+ in November 2023, and 85% of subscribers on the ad tier are streaming for over 2 hours per day
Netflix is seeing strong growth of its advertising-based plan, having recently eclipsed 23 million global monthly active users, president of advertising Amy Reinhard said.
Filing: ironSource founders, including CEO and Unity Grow president Tomer Bar-Zeev, are exiting Unity amid mass layoffs; Unity merged with ironSource in 2022
IronSource CEO Tomer Bar-Zeev and his fellow co-founders are stepping down effective immediately.
Amazon launches “badge pay,” which uses its Just Walk Out retail tech to let employees use their badges for payments, starting with a hospital in Savannah, GA
Amazon's computer vision and sensor-powered Just Walk Out retail technology, which allows customers to shop at stores …
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.
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
which IonQ prefers to call AQ—follows IonQ own public roadmap so closely shows that IonQ has not only been out front in setting the the terms of the field, but in... @queracomputing : We're delighted ...
PitchBook estimates VC investment in the crypto industry totaled $9.5B in 2023, down 68% YoY; CryptoSlam says NFT sales fell 63% YoY to $8.7B in 2023
Hannah Miller / Bloomberg :
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
the Apple Watch 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 may soon be unavailable again Conor Allison / Wareable : ITC opposes Apple Watch ban pause, cites ‘weak and unconvincing’ Apple appeal Andrew O'Hara / AppleIn...
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
https://steamcommunity.com/... James House-Lantto / @Theeo123@mastodon.social : https://www.gamingonlinux.com/ ... Valve has posted new, and clearly defined rules or games using AI on steam. — In s...
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
Analysis: Google and Bing show deepfake porn images of female celebrities atop search results for their names plus “deepfakes”, “fake nudes”, and other terms
Google and other search engines include nonconsensual deepfake porn in top image search results alongside tools … X: @cecianasta , @cecianasta , and @benjamingoggin X: Cecilia D'Anastasio / @cecianast...
Google's Gboard adds a physical keyboard toolbar on Android tablets, to access the clipboard, translation, and more, after adding stylus handwriting support
Abner Li / 9to5Google :
Luminate's 2023 report: the global music industry passed 4T streams in 2023, a new record and up 34% YoY; Taylor Swift accounted for one in every 78 US streams
A look at some of the most interesting tech from CES 2024: Roxi's interactive music video channels for linear TV, Samsung's Ballie AI robot projector, and more
Chris Velazco / Washington Post :
Netflix removes an Indian film depicting a Hindu character eating meat after backlash from Hindu groups; producer Zee apologizes and plans to edit the film
Naman Ramachandran / Variety :
ByteDance plans to shut down music streaming service Resso in India on January 31, after removing the App Store and Google Play apps in mid-December 2023
Moneycontrol :
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
OpenAI is in talks with CNN, Fox & Time to license their content. … X: Lynn Doan / @lynnmdoan : EXCLUSIVE lots of interesting detail including: The Washington Post has not been in talks with OpenAI in...
The US DOJ says SAP will pay $220M+ to settle investigations into worldwide “recidivist” foreign bribery practices, and enter a three-year deferred prosecution
Rohan Goswami / CNBC :
London-based Hyperexponential, which offers math modeling tools to insurance companies to help price policies, raised $73M led by Battery Ventures
Martin Coulter / Reuters :
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
Maxwell Strachan / VICE :
Munich-based car subscription startup Finn, which manages 25K subscriptions in Germany and the US, raised a €100M Series C at a €600M post-money valuation
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch :
After spending $13M+ on US lobbying in the past decade, Huawei quietly shutters its in-house DC lobbying operation, ending its effort to overturn the US ban
Bloomberg :
Data.ai's State of Mobile 2023: global consumer app spending rose 3% YoY to $171B, non-game spending rose 11% YoY to $64B, and app downloads rose 1% YoY to 257B
Toto Haba, the SVP of LVMH brand Benefit Cosmetics, says the luxury conglomerate is discussing a plan with TikTok for limiting counterfeit products on the app
so it is in talks to join forces with the video platform to stop it Business Insider : How an $800 million social-commerce startup is bringing strategies from TikTok's Chinese sister app to the US mar...
Sources: Amazon won't offer concessions to the European Commission to garner approval for its $1.4B takeover of iRobot; the EU's final deadline is February 14
Sources: OpenAI, Inflection, and Cohere held back-channel talks on AI policy and safety with Chinese state-backed groups in Geneva in July 2023 and October 2023
Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times : X: @madhumita29 X: Madhumita Murgia / @madhumita29 : SCOOP 👀 Employees of OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere met with Chinese AI experts in Geneva to find common ground on...
Sensor Tower: Netflix Games downloads rose 180%+ YoY to 81.2M globally across the App Store and Google Play in 2023, with Q4 accounting for ~53% of downloads
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.