Monday, June 26, 2023

OnePlus' next Nord smartphone listed on Amazon

OnePlus is set to expand its Nord series of smartphones in India. The Chinese tech company is expected to launch the OnePlus Nord 3 smartphone in India. OnePlus has also opened applications for 'The Lab', its community review program for the next Nord series smartphones. While the company is yet to reveal the launch timeline of its upcoming Nord smartphone, the teasers for the smartphone are live on Amazon India and OnePlus India website. The smartphone is teased to feature a flat display and an Alert Slider– a feature that allows users to take control of volume and notifications. https://ift.tt/eiglBGv

A look at Harry and Meghan's Hollywood flop in streaming's era of slower growth; sources: Netflix is unlikely to renew their $100M deal which runs through 2025 (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
A look at Harry and Meghan's Hollywood flop in streaming's era of slower growth; sources: Netflix is unlikely to renew their $100M deal, which runs through 2025  —  They arrived three years ago with royal star power amid a streaming boom, but have notched more cancellations and rejections than produced shows



Japan announces a $6.3B deal to buy and privatize JSR a maker of photoresists that controls the global supply of key chipmaking chemicals with two other firms (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Japan announces a $6.3B deal to buy and privatize JSR, a maker of photoresists that controls the global supply of key chipmaking chemicals with two other firms  —  Japan's government unveiled a $6.3 billion deal to buy out and privatize JSR Corp., taking direct control of the world leader …



WhatsApp to soon roll out 'Message Pin Duration' feature: Heres what it means for users

WhatsApp recently rolled out two new privacy features on its platform. Now a new report has surfaced online revealing that the Meta-owned platform is working on a feature which will enable users to choose for how long messages stay pinned within chats and groups. https://ift.tt/lwmeHF2

Q&A with Microsoft's Jared Spataro on AI tools advancing knowledge work increasing worker creativity being "usefully wrong" automating work away and more (Kevin J. Delaney/Charter)

Kevin J. Delaney / Charter:
Q&A with Microsoft's Jared Spataro on AI tools advancing knowledge work, increasing worker creativity, being “usefully wrong”, automating work away, and more  —  Microsoft over the past few years has released some of the most interesting research about how people work …



Sunday, June 25, 2023

As the use of AI-generated ads in political campaigns increases lawmakers political consultants and election researchers push for creating new guardrails (New York Times)

New York Times:
As the use of AI-generated ads in political campaigns increases, lawmakers, political consultants, and election researchers push for creating new guardrails  —  Gaps in campaign rules allow politicians to spread images and messaging generated by increasingly powerful artificial intelligence technology.



Source: a group of investors led by Apollo Global Management plans to make a $1B debt investment in US chipmaker Wolfspeed which has a $6B market cap (Maria Heeter/The Information)

Maria Heeter / The Information:
Source: a group of investors led by Apollo Global Management plans to make a $1B+ debt investment in US chipmaker Wolfspeed, which has a $6B market cap  —  A group of investors led by Apollo Global Management is making a more than $1 billion debt investment in Wolfspeed …



Q&A with AWS Product VP Matt Wood on the generative AI boom the escalating AI battle between tech giants curating the best models for AWS and more (Reed Albergotti/Semafor)

Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
Q&A with AWS Product VP Matt Wood on the generative AI boom, the escalating AI battle between tech giants, curating the best models for AWS, and more  —  Matt Wood, vice president of product for Amazon Web Services, is at the tip of the spear of Amazon's response in the escalating AI battle between the tech giants.



How Apple is getting Vision Pro ready to ship and a look at its Mac plans including upgrading the current lineup to M3 and early work on a 30-inch iMac (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
How Apple is getting Vision Pro ready to ship and a look at its Mac plans, including upgrading the current lineup to M3 and early work on a 30-inch+ iMac  —  After debuting the Vision Pro, Apple is working on finishing up the device's software, expanding testing and finalizing the rollout strategy.



As TikTok CEO Shou Chew announces a five-year $10B investment in Indonesia experts say competition and regulation have made TikTok vulnerable in Southeast Asia (Mercedes Ruehl/Financial Times)

Mercedes Ruehl / Financial Times:
As TikTok CEO Shou Chew announces a five-year $10B investment in Indonesia, experts say competition and regulation have made TikTok vulnerable in Southeast Asia  —  Viral app's parent ByteDance targets large Indonesian market but faces growing regulatory scrutiny around the world



A look at the underwhelming state of augmentative and alternative communication tech including a handful of iPad apps for speech and language impaired users (Julie Kim/MIT Technology Review)

Julie Kim / MIT Technology Review:
A look at the underwhelming state of augmentative and alternative communication tech, including a handful of iPad apps, for speech and language impaired users  —  For people who can't speak, there has been depressingly little innovation in technology that helps them communicate.



Saturday, June 24, 2023

The Twitter-to-Mastodon migration started in November 2022 failed because of Mastodon's exclusionary culture decentralization making the UX worse and more (Bloonface/Café Lob-On)

Bloonface / Café Lob-On:
The Twitter-to-Mastodon migration started in November 2022 failed because of Mastodon's exclusionary culture, decentralization making the UX worse, and more  —  I've been using fediverse stuff (Mastodon and, most recently, Calckey - I'm just going to use “Mastodon” as shorthand here …



Hermes wins permanent ban on 'MetaBirkin' NFT sales

Luxury brand Hermes has won a legal case in the US to permanently block artist Mason Rothschild's sale of MetaBirkin non-fungible tokens (NFTs). A US district judge agreed that the NFT violated the French luxury house's trademark rights. Rothschild's defence that the works were an absurdist statement on luxury goods and immune from the lawsuit was countered by the judge. The verdict means that Rothschild must stop marketing the NFTs and hand over remaining tokens and profits. https://ift.tt/luvQSBL

Sources: Mark Zuckerberg is using Instagram to promote an edgier image to court the "tech bros" captivated by Elon Musk's online antagonism and offline antics (Washington Post)

Washington Post:
Sources: Mark Zuckerberg is using Instagram to promote an edgier image to court the “tech bros” captivated by Elon Musk's online antagonism and offline antics  —  Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has been trying to appear more relevant among the tech elite



Sources: IBM is close to a deal to acquire cloud-based IT management startup Apptio from Vista Equity Partners for $5B; Vista acquired Apptio for $2B in 2019 (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: IBM is close to a deal to acquire cloud-based IT management startup Apptio from Vista Equity Partners for ~$5B; Vista acquired Apptio for ~$2B in 2019  —  Purchase of Apptio, owned by private-equity firm Vista Equity Partners, could be finalized over the weekend



A case study of the amount and kinds of ads in 12 shows on the ad-supported tiers of Netflix, Peacock, Disney+, Max, Paramount+, and Hulu (Jon Keegan/Sherwood News)

Jon Keegan / Sherwood News : A case study of the amount and kinds of ads in 12 shows on the ad-supported tiers of Netflix, Peacock, Disne...