Microsoft launches Mesh, its immersive 3D meeting platform in Teams, out of preview, with custom environments, games, and more; Mesh only supports Meta Quest (Tom Warren/The Verge)

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft launches Mesh, its immersive 3D meeting platform in Teams, out of preview, with custom environments, games, and more; Mesh only supports Meta Quest  —  Microsoft is launching its immersive 3D meetings inside Microsoft Teams today.  Microsoft Mesh, the company's mixed reality platform …

How the rising prices of streaming services are driving a new era of US pirate sites, bringing ~$2B per year in ads and subscriptions with a 90% profit margin (Thomas Buckley/Bloomberg)

Thomas Buckley / Bloomberg:
How the rising prices of streaming services are driving a new era of US pirate sites, bringing ~$2B per year in ads and subscriptions with a 90% profit margin  —  Illegal subscription services that steal films or TV shows bring in $2 billion a year in ads and subscriber fees.

NYC-based Bilt Rewards, which converts rental payments to points, raised $200M led by General Catalyst at a $3.1B valuation, and says users spend $20B annually (Gillian Tan/Bloomberg)

Gillian Tan / Bloomberg:
NYC-based Bilt Rewards, which converts rental payments to points, raised $200M led by General Catalyst at a $3.1B valuation, and says users spend $20B annually  —  - General Catalyst, Eldridge invest in $200 million equity round  — Startup wants to add neighborhood merchants to rewards program

As Wikimedia Russia shuts down, a look at the Kremlin-compliant Wikipedia alternative Ruwiki, which recently went live, led by an ex-Wikimedia Russia director (Noam Cohen/Bloomberg)

Noam Cohen / Bloomberg:
As Wikimedia Russia shuts down, a look at the Kremlin-compliant Wikipedia alternative Ruwiki, which recently went live, led by an ex-Wikimedia Russia director  —  A campaign to replace the country's Wikipedia with a more pliant alternative seems near completion.

MIT CSAIL study: only 23% of US wages paid to humans for doing vision tasks would be economically attractive to automate with AI, due to large upfront costs (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
MIT CSAIL study: only 23% of US wages paid to humans for doing vision tasks would be economically attractive to automate with AI, due to large upfront costs  —  Will AI automate human jobs, and — if so — which jobs and when?  —  That's the trio of questions a new research study …

French's CNIL fines Amazon France Logistique $35M for an "excessively intrusive" surveillance system set up to monitor the performance of its staff (Sudip Kar-Gupta/Reuters)

Sudip Kar-Gupta / Reuters:
French's CNIL fines Amazon France Logistique $35M for an “excessively intrusive” surveillance system set up to monitor the performance of its staff  —  French regulator CNIL said on Tuesday it had fined Amazon France Logistique (AMZN.O) 32 million euros ($35 million) …

Meta plans to let EU users unlink their Instagram and Facebook accounts, as well as other Meta services, ahead of the EU's DMA taking effect in March 2024 (Jon Porter/The Verge)

Jon Porter / The Verge:
Meta plans to let EU users unlink their Instagram and Facebook accounts, as well as other Meta services, ahead of the EU's DMA taking effect in March 2024  —  EU users will be able to unlink their Instagram and Facebook accounts, as well as other Meta services ahead of the bloc's new Digital Markets Act …

Source: in a low-key tour, Jensen Huang visited Nvidia's offices in Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Beijing earlier in January, as the US curbs Nvidia's China exports (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Source: in a low-key tour, Jensen Huang visited Nvidia's offices in Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Beijing earlier in January, as the US curbs Nvidia's China exports  —  - Company's chips have become central to US-China tech race  — Huang kept a low profile during his visit to the country

ElevenLabs, which uses AI tools to create and edit synthetic voices, raised an $80M Series B co-led by a16z, Nat Friedman, and Daniel Gross at a $1B+ valuation (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
ElevenLabs, which uses AI tools to create and edit synthetic voices, raised an $80M Series B co-led by a16z, Nat Friedman, and Daniel Gross at a $1B+ valuation  —  There's a lot of money in voice cloning.  —  Case in point: ElevenLabs, a startup developing AI-powered tools to create …

British Library hack lessons for the UK: ransomware is a national security issue, a national response is required, policy mitigations are available, and more (Ciaran Martin/Ciaran's Crispy Cogitations)

Ciaran Martin / Ciaran's Crispy Cogitations:
British Library hack lessons for the UK: ransomware is a national security issue, a national response is required, policy mitigations are available, and more  —  The most important lesson to figure out is why it is taking so long to restore services.  That will tell us how to prevent …

Architects are incorporating DALL-E, Midjourney, and other generative AI tools for complex design work, threatening the industry of professional illustrators (Edwin Heathcote/Financial Times)

Edwin Heathcote / Financial Times:
Architects are incorporating DALL-E, Midjourney, and other generative AI tools for complex design work, threatening the industry of professional illustrators  —  Programs such as Dall-E and Midjourney are revolutionising the designs of buildings, but threatening the industry too

OpenAI bans the developer of a chatbot mimicking presidential hopeful Dean Phillips, the company's first action against use of its tech in political campaigns (Elizabeth Dwoskin/Washington Post)

Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post:
OpenAI bans the developer of a chatbot mimicking presidential hopeful Dean Phillips, the company's first action against use of its tech in political campaigns  —  It's the ChatGPT maker's first known action against the use of its technology in a political campaign

A look at the reasons for the less-than-expected developer enthusiasm for Apple's Vision Pro, including an uncertain ROI and anger at the App Store policies (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
A look at the reasons for the less-than-expected developer enthusiasm for Apple's Vision Pro, including an uncertain ROI and anger at the App Store policies  —  Apple's new Vision Pro will lack some key apps when it debuts, renewing concerns about an already-tense relationship with certain developers.

In an unpublished manuscript, David Bunnell, co-founder of PC Magazine, PC World, and Macworld, details the origins of the enduring media brands in the 1980s (Harry McCracken/Technologizer)

Harry McCracken / Technologizer:
In an unpublished manuscript, David Bunnell, co-founder of PC Magazine, PC World, and Macworld, details the origins of the enduring media brands in the 1980s  —  In an unpublished manuscript, the cofounder of three enduring media brands looks back. … “But Flying Upside Down is more than that.

After two failed attempts, a bipartisan effort is being made to remedy the issues caused by US tax law Section 174, which forces amortization of software labor (Kia Kokalitcheva/Axios)

Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios:
After two failed attempts, a bipartisan effort is being made to remedy the issues caused by US tax law Section 174, which forces amortization of software labor  —  The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 is impacting some startups' tax bills, thanks to a provision that changes how R&D costs are deducted.