Tuesday, April 4, 2023

Many current and former Amazon executives, showrunners, and agents say Amazon Studios is confusing and frustrating; one showrunner says Studios has "no vision" (Kim Masters/The Hollywood Reporter)

Kim Masters / The Hollywood Reporter:
Many current and former Amazon executives, showrunners, and agents say Amazon Studios is confusing and frustrating; one showrunner says Studios has “no vision”  —  Despite ambitious bets like ‘Daisy Jones & The Six’ and the upcoming ‘Citadel,’ insiders complain that there's still …



OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite launch in India today: Time, likely price, specs and all you need to know

OnePlus is set to launch its latest products, the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite and OnePlus Nord Buds 2, in its "Larger than Life" event today. According to polls running on OnePlus's official Twitter account, the base model of Nord CE 3 Lite may be priced above Rs 20,000, while the Nord Buds 2 may be priced under Rs 5,000. The Nord CE 3 Lite is expected to house a 108MP AI Triple Camera, a 5,000 mAh battery, 67W SUPERVOOC rapid charging, and run on a Snapdragon 695 5G chipset. The Nord Buds 2 are the first TWS buds in the Nord category equipped with ANC and 12.4mm Extra-large Drivers. https://ift.tt/kaZKsG7

Sunday, April 2, 2023

In a referendum 89% of Parisians voted against keeping shared e-scooters in the city; Lime, Dott, and Tier will have to pull their fleets out by September 1 (Rebecca Bellan/TechCrunch)

Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch:
In a referendum 89% of Parisians voted against keeping shared e-scooters in the city; Lime, Dott, and Tier will have to pull their fleets out by September 1  —  In a major blow to shared micromobility companies Lime, Dott and Tier, Paris has voted to ban rental e-scooters from their streets.



Twitter updates the description of all blue checkmarks to say "This account is verified because it's subscribed to Twitter Blue or is a legacy verified account" (Todd Spangler/Variety)

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Twitter updates the description of all blue checkmarks to say “This account is verified because it's subscribed to Twitter Blue or is a legacy verified account”  —  On Sunday, Twitter did something different: It updated the language in the description of verified users …



Sources: in November 2021, five days after Biden put NSO on a Commerce Dept. blacklist, a shell company acting as a front for the US gov't licensed NSO software (New York Times)

New York Times:
Sources: in November 2021, five days after Biden put NSO on a Commerce Dept. blacklist, a shell company acting as a front for the US gov't licensed NSO software  —  The Biden administration has been trying to choke off use of hacking tools made by the Israeli firm NSO.



In a now deleted tweet, Elon Musk said verified accounts would get a "few weeks grace" but would lose their badges if "they tell they won't pay now" (Aaron McDade/Yahoo Finance)

Aaron McDade / Yahoo Finance:
In a now deleted tweet, Elon Musk said verified accounts would get a “few weeks grace” but would lose their badges if “they tell they won't pay now”  —  - The first day of Twitter's previously announced axing of “legacy” verified checks nearly passed without incident.



A16Z appears to openly court Saudi capital; Horowitz compared the US unfavorably to the Saudis after the US government appeared unmoved by an Andreessen essay (Connie Loizos/TechCrunch)

Connie Loizos / TechCrunch:
A16Z appears to openly court Saudi capital; Horowitz compared the US unfavorably to the Saudis after the US government appeared unmoved by an Andreessen essay  —  Andreessen Horowitz is now openly courting capital from Saudi Arabia, despite U.S. strains.  —  According to Bloomberg …



Sources: SVB execs bought long-term assets that paid more interest based on a misplaced profit-driven strategy, falling out of compliance with its risk model (Washington Post)

Washington Post:
Sources: SVB execs bought long-term assets that paid more interest based on a misplaced profit-driven strategy, falling out of compliance with its risk model  —  Focused on profits, leaders made decisions that foreshadowed the bank's surprise failure  —  Flush with cash from a booming tech industry …



Saturday, April 1, 2023

Sources: Lyft founders' departures followed months of staff concerns as the company's market value fell 85% to under $3.5B in two years, while Uber fared better (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Lyft founders' departures followed months of staff concerns as the company's market value fell 85% to under $3.5B in two years, while Uber fared better  —  New CEO says he aims to boost employee morale and overhaul customer and driver experience  —  Tech Live: Lyft Co-Founder on Stock-Price Tumble, Autonomous Cars



NLRB says Activision Blizzard broke US labor law by illegally surveilling staff during a walkout and threatening to close some Slack channels amid a union drive (Daniel Wiessner/Reuters)

Daniel Wiessner / Reuters:
NLRB says Activision Blizzard broke US labor law by illegally surveilling staff during a walkout and threatening to close some Slack channels amid a union drive  —  Activision Blizzard Inc (ATVI.O) violated U.S. labor law by illegally surveilling employees during a walkout and threatening …



Sources: ByteDance had revenues of $80B+ in 2022, up 30% YoY, after growing 70% between 2020 and 2021; TikTok represented ~12% of total ByteDance revenue (Juro Osawa/The Information)

Juro Osawa / The Information:
Sources: ByteDance had revenues of $80B+ in 2022, up 30% YoY, after growing 70% between 2020 and 2021; TikTok represented ~12% of total ByteDance revenue  —  ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, generated more than $80 billion in annual revenue last year, up more than 30% from roughly $60 billion in 2021 …



How GameStop chairman Ryan Cohen abandoned the company's e-commerce push to refocus on its ~4.4K stores, leading to GameStop's first profit in two years (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
How GameStop chairman Ryan Cohen abandoned the company's e-commerce push to refocus on its ~4.4K stores, leading to GameStop's first profit in two years  —  Videogame retailer, the original meme stock, hits brakes on e-commerce push to refocus on its 4,400 bricks-and-mortar locations



AI tech like ChatGPT can surely boost experiences of our customers: HP

As the world embraces generative AI across the spectrum, PC and printer major HP Inc too feels that the age of AI has begun and technologies like ChatGPT can definitively solve most of the challenges that their customers are facing today. HP already uses AI in solving customers' issues across the domain, like 'Instant Ink' that automatically delivers ink and paper to customers before they run out of printing supplies. https://ift.tt/6AzfJI5

Binance plans to keep the $985M+ BUSD it moved from its industry recovery fund, launched in November 2022 amid FTX's collapse, in its corporate wallets (Leo Schwartz/Fortune)

Leo Schwartz / Fortune:
Binance plans to keep the $985M+ BUSD it moved from its industry recovery fund, launched in November 2022 amid FTX's collapse, in its corporate wallets  —  Founder and CEO of Binance Changpeng Zhao, commonly known as “CZ”  —  In the wake of FTX's collapse in November, the newly crowned kingpin of crypto …



Friday, March 31, 2023

Siemens investigating report employee worked for Russian hacking firm

Siemens has launched an investigation after Der Spiegel reported a former programmer from Russian IT company NTC Vulkan - which has reported links to Russian security services - worked for the German engineering and tech company. https://ift.tt/y45lWOe

Arizona's Maricopa County is set to have the second largest concentration of US data centers by 2028, as the state races to increase electricity production (Pranshu Verma/Washington Post)

Pranshu Verma / Washington Post : Arizona's Maricopa County is set to have the second largest concentration of US data centers by 202...