Email: Google eliminates its goal of hiring more employees from historically underrepresented groups and is reviewing some DEI programs after Donald Trump's EOs
Search giant is eliminating goals to hire more minority employees and reviewing DEI programs, part of a pullback across Silicon Valley
Stanford and University of Washington AI researchers claim they trained AI reasoning model s1, distilled from a Gemini 2.0 model, for under $50 in cloud compute
AI researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington were able to train an AI “reasoning” model for under $50 in cloud compute credits …
OpenAI opens ChatGPT search to users who are not logged in, after launching it to paying subscribers in October 2024 and logged-in users in December 2024
OpenAI is making its AI search engine more accessible. — OpenAI is making its AI search engine more accessible.
The Senate Commerce Committee approves the Kids Off Social Media Act to ban under-13s from social media, clearing the way for consideration by the full Senate
The Senate Commerce Committee approved legislation Wednesday to ban children under 13 from social media.
Kaspersky researchers found apps in Google's Play Store and Apple's App Store that use OCR to steal crypto wallet recovery phrases from images on users' devices
Android and iOS apps on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store contain a malicious software development kit (SDK) …
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon says Arm has withdrawn its October 2024 breach notice against Qualcomm and Arm no longer plans to end its Qualcomm license agreement
Qualcomm's (QCOM.O) Chief Executive Officer Cristiano Amon on Wednesday said Arm Holdings (O9Ty.F) has withdrawn a threat …
Apple is at the center of an escalating US-China geopolitical fight spanning tariffs, regulatory probes, and a backlash due to growing anti-US rhetoric in China
- The iPhone is in crosshairs of 10% tariffs on Chinese imports — China also is weighing a probe into company's App Store fees
Trump's de minimis cancellation is likely to hit Shein harder than online dollar-store Temu, which has shifted to an Amazon-like bulk overseas shipment strategy
The Trump administration move to stop low-cost imports entering the U.S. tariff-free is likely to hit fast fashion retailer Shein harder …
Spanish police arrest and raid a suspected hacker over 40 cyberattacks on critical public and private organizations, seizing 50 crypto accounts, PCs, and more
The Spanish police have arrested a suspected hacker in Alicante for allegedly conducting 40 cyberattacks targeting critical public …
Roblox reports Q4 revenue up 32% YoY to $988.2M, bookings up 21% YoY to $1.36B, vs. $1.37B est., and DAUs up 19% YoY to 85.3M, vs. 88.4M est.; RBLX falls 15%+
- Roblox had 85.3 million daily active users in fourth quarter — The company's quarterly bookings reached $1.36 billion
Sources: OpenAI is expected to air its first TV ad during Super Bowl LIX; MediaRadar says AI companies spent $332M on ads in 2024, over double their 2023 spend
The TV spot marks the artificial-intelligence company's biggest foray into consumer advertising to date
Arm reports Q3 revenue up 19% YoY to $983M, vs. $946.7M est., royalty revenue up 23% YoY to $580M, and lowers is FY revenue guidance; ARM drops 5%+
Max A. Cherney / Reuters :
Sources: Andy Jassy's campaign to flatten Amazon's middle management raises fears among staff of lean years and fewer promotions, as old career paths dry up
Campaign to restructure workforce is capitalizing on a moment when return-to-office policies are more common and the technology job market is cooling off.
Worldwide tablet shipments grew 9.2% YoY in 2024 to 147.6M units, after three consecutive years of decline; Xiaomi grew 73.1% YoY and Huawei grew 29.3% YoY
According to the latest data from Canalys, worldwide tablet shipments grew 5.6% year on year in Q4 2024, reaching 39.9 million units.
A profile of Joseph Firmage, who co-founded USWeb, which went public with a $2.5B market cap in 1997, and is now being sued by “antigravity machine” investors
Joseph Firmage helped create today's digital economy. These days, he's being sued by antigravity-machine investors … X: @bradstone and @bw . Forums: Slashdot X: Brad Stone / @bradstone : Wild, out-of...
Interviews with nearly two dozen VR studios on shipping games on Quest, Meta's increased focus on Horizon Worlds, concerns over declining game sales, and more
With concerns about declining sales and discoverability, UploadVR spoke with nearly two dozen VR studios to discuss the state of VR development for Quest. Bluesky: @kentbye.com , @jamesoloughlin , @ja...
Reddit banned r/WhitePeopleTwitter for 72 hours due to “a prevalence of violent content”, after Elon Musk said on February 3 that its users had “broken the law”
It'll take far longer than Twitter to topple, but it's *not* going to withstand its mismanagement. [embedded post] Alejandra Caraballo / @esqueer.net : Reddit admins are now taking direction from Elo...
In Q4 2024, AMD outsold Intel in the data center area for the first time, with revenue up 69% YoY to $3.86B, vs. Intel's $3.4B, but analysts expected more sales
But sales of Instinct GPUs disappoint. — AMD on Tuesday announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2024 and for the whole year.
Amazon has shrunk its Amazon Go store portfolio by ~50% since early 2023, to 16 stores in four US states, as the company stumbles in its physical retail efforts
The e-commerce giant is closing more of its convenience stores; 'I don't think they really understand retail,' a consultant says
DeepSeek says it suspended letting customers top up their API credits, due to server capacity shortages after being overwhelmed with demand since January 2024
DeepSeek, the Chinese startup whose artificial-intelligence model roiled global markets last week, said it would restrict access …
Mistral releases iOS and Android apps and unveils several updates to its AI assistant Le Chat, including a $14.99 per month Pro tier
Mistral, the company that is sometimes considered as Europe's great hope for AI, is releasing several updates to Le Chat, its AI assistant product.
White House crypto czar David Sacks says stablecoin laws could be done in the next six months, after lawmakers unveiled a bill to create a regulatory framework
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC :
Sources: DOGE staff were ordered to stop using Slack while the group moves from the OMB to the Executive Office of the President, which is not subject to FOIA
https://www.404media.co/email/ dc4f2fa1-e993-4f30-aea1-b985998bd90a/ Mary Branscombe / @marypcbuk : so, Truth Social or X? or are they smart enough to use Signal? [embedded post] Matt Novak / @paleofu...
Payments software company Lightspeed says it plans to continue operating as a publicly traded company and will buy back up to $400M of stock; LSPD falls 15%+
- Board of directors ‘unanimously’ agreed not to go private — Shares slide 16% after company announces results of review Bluesky: @sheepmachine Bluesky: @sheepmachine : Bet we're going to see a LOT o...
John Schulman, who co-founded OpenAI and has been credited as one of ChatGPT's leading architects, leaves Anthropic, after joining the startup in August 2024
Jon Victor / The Information :
Qualcomm reports Q1 revenue up 17% YoY to $11.67B, vs. $10.93B est., handsets revenue up 13% to $7.57B, net income up 15% to $3.18B, issues a strong Q2 guidance
Kif Leswing / CNBC :
Amazon announces an Alexa-focused event on February 26 in New York; sources say the company will preview its long-delayed Alexa generative AI revamp
what we expect to see Ghacks : Amazon's New AI-Powered Alexa Could Be Its Biggest Upgrade Yet Tyler Lee / Phandroid : Amazon's AI supercharged Alexa could be unveiled this month Stuart Dredge / Music ...
MicroStrategy rebrands as Strategy; its new logo has a stylized “B” for its BTC strategy and orange is its primary color for “energy, intelligence, and Bitcoin”
Strategy unveils new name, Bitcoin logo, and orange brand color AJ Dellinger / Gizmodo : MicroStrategy Says Drop the Micro, It's Cleaner Tanaya Macheel / CNBC : Wall Street analysts cheer greater clar...
Documents: EU prosecutors are probing how Atos' Moscow office helped build the EU's border system, which will establish the EU's largest personal info database
www.ft.com/content/1541... @financialtimes.com Mastodon: Tim Mak / @timkmak@journa.host : The Moscow office of a French IT group is that helped create the new electronic #EU border system is being in...
Munich-based Avelios, which is developing a healthcare system covering EHR, billing, clinical records, and more, raised a €30M Series A led by Sequoia
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch :
China's mini-drama industry grew 35% YoY to ~$6.91B in 2024, surpassing the country's box office and forcing iQiyi and Tencent to embrace short-form programming
Sohee Kim / Bloomberg : Bluesky: @lauridonahue . LinkedIn: Sohee Kim See also Mediagazer Bluesky: Lauri Donahue / @lauridonahue : Every example I've seen of these micro-episode series has been utter ...
US SEC filing: Sequoia's evergreen fund has grown from $13.6B in early 2023 to $19.6B, , a signal that the firm continues to grow despite a VC funding slowdown
The fund's total includes new cash commitments, shares of now-public companies that Sequoia previously backed and cash returns from mergers and acquisitions.
TrueFoundry, which helps enterprises deploy AI systems at scale, raised $19M led by Intel Capital, taking its total funding to $21M+, and claims 30 customers
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch :
Dublin-based Protex AI, whose AI-powered platform plugs into CCTV devices to spot risks and enhance workplace safety, raised a $36M Series B led by Hedosophia
Suhasini Srinivasaragavan / Silicon Republic :
Sonos lays off ~200 employees, or 12% of its staff, as it reorganizes to make its product teams “flatter, smaller, and more focused”, weeks after losing its CEO
what does the future hold for the smart speaker firm? Ankita Chakravarti / Moneycontrol : Sonos lays off 200 employees to streamline operations Omar Sohail / Wccftech : Sonos Trims 12 Percent Of Its W...
Semgrep, which offers an autonomous code security platform for developers, raised a $100M Series D led by Menlo Ventures, bringing its total funding to $204M
Chris Metinko / Crunchbase News :
XOi, whose software lets field technicians get info about the machines they're fixing, raised $230M from KKR and acquires rival Specifx for an undisclosed sum
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch :
Sources: SoftBank is in advanced talks to acquire Ampere Computing in a deal that could value the Oracle-backed Arm chip designer at ~$6.5B, including debt
Bloomberg :
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Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control
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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.