Month: January 2023

Sources: Wayfair plans to lay off over 1,000 employees, or 5%+ of its staff, due to shrinking sales; the online furniture seller cut ~870 jobs in August 2022 (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal: Sources: Wayfair plans to lay off over 1,000 employees, or 5%+ of its staff, due to shrinking sales; the online furniture seller cut ~870 jobs in August 2022  —  Online furniture retailer has struggled with shrinking sales  —  Tech Layoffs Pile Up as Bosses Reverse Course  —  Created with sketchtool.

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Memo: Alphabet plans to cut around 12,000 jobs, more than 6% of its global workforce; Sundar Pichai says he takes “full responsibility” for the need to cut jobs (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: Memo: Alphabet plans to cut around 12,000 jobs, more than 6% of its global workforce; Sundar Pichai says he takes “full responsibility” for the need to cut jobs  —  Google parent Alphabet Inc. said it will cut about 12,000 jobs, more than 6% of its global workforce …

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India releases rules on social media influencers and virtual avatars promoting content without disclosing payment, adding an up to ~$12.3K fine for violations (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: India releases rules on social media influencers and virtual avatars promoting content without disclosing payment, adding an up to ~$12.3K fine for violations  —  As the market of social media influencers is getting bigger in India, the South Asian nation has introduced endorsement guidelines …

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The Chinese government grants Didi permission to republish its apps on Apple’s, Huawei’s, Xiaomi’s, and other app stores, after over a year of regulatory limbo (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: The Chinese government grants Didi permission to republish its apps on Apple’s, Huawei’s, Xiaomi’s, and other app stores, after over a year of regulatory limbo  —  Didi Global Inc.’s main apps have returned to the country’s biggest mobile stores, allowing the ride-hailing giant to resume growth …

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Sources: Google executives met with Larry Page and Sergey Brin last month to discuss Google’s AI efforts, as the company seeks to combat OpenAI’s ChatGPT (Nico Grant/New York Times)

Nico Grant / New York Times: Sources: Google executives met with Larry Page and Sergey Brin last month to discuss Google’s AI efforts, as the company seeks to combat OpenAI’s ChatGPT  —  A rival chatbot has shaken Google out of its routine, with the founders who left three years ago re-engaging and more than 20

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Indian food delivery service Swiggy plans to cut 360 jobs; the company raised $700M in January 2022 at a $10.7B valuation and employs about 6,000 people (Manish Singh/TechCrunch)

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Indian food delivery service Swiggy plans to cut 360 jobs; the company raised $700M in January 2022 at a $10.7B valuation and employs about 6,000 people  —  Swiggy plans to lay off 380 jobs as the Prosus Venture and SoftBank-backed Indian food delivery giant looks to navigate the market downturn …

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Autonomous vehicles in China face legal and financial issues, including different rules set by local governments, less funding, and uncertain profit prospects (Nikkei Asia)

Nikkei Asia: Autonomous vehicles in China face legal and financial issues, including different rules set by local governments, less funding, and uncertain profit prospects  —  WeRide and Pony.ai turn to selling systems for short-term profits  —  GUANGZHOU/TOKYO — China’s efforts to get more nearly autonomous vehicles …

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Slovakia-based Photoneo, the parent company of robotic warehouse automation startup Brightpick, raised an additional $19M, bringing its total Series B to $40M (Dan Taylor/Tech.eu)

Dan Taylor / Tech.eu: Slovakia-based Photoneo, the parent company of robotic warehouse automation startup Brightpick, raised an additional $19M, bringing its total Series B to $40M  —  Experiencing unprecedented growth during the pandemic, Brightpick uses 3D sensor technologies to fully automated …

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Sources: Nintendo plans to increase production of its six-year-old Switch console in the coming fiscal year, starting in April 2023, as demand remains strong (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: Sources: Nintendo plans to increase production of its six-year-old Switch console in the coming fiscal year, starting in April 2023, as demand remains strong  —  Nintendo Co. plans to increase production of its six-year-old Switch console in the coming fiscal year after shipping roughly 21 …

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The OnePlus 11 might get a downgrade in the US

Credit: OnePlus The OnePlus 11 might have slower wired charging in the US compared to global models. A leaker claims US models will have 80W charging versus 100W in the rest of the world. OnePlus’ 2022 flagship phones offered different charging speeds globally versus the US, with global models delivering higher wattages than devices in

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Myspace co-founders Chris DeWolfe and Aber Whitcomb’s PLAI Labs raised a $32M seed led by a16z to build social platforms leveraging generative AI and Web3 (Connie Loizos/TechCrunch)

Connie Loizos / TechCrunch: Myspace co-founders Chris DeWolfe and Aber Whitcomb’s PLAI Labs raised a $32M seed led by a16z to build social platforms leveraging generative AI and Web3  —  A $32 million seed round may seem like a throwback to frothier times like . . .2021.  But that’s how much PLAI Labs just raised

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What Else Is An M.2 WiFi Slot Good For?

Many mainboards and laptops these days come with a range of M.2 slots, with only a subset capable of NVME SSDs, and often a stubby one keyed for ‘WiFi’ cards. Or that’s what those are generally intended to be used for, but as [Peter Brockie] found out when pilfering sites like AliExpress, is that you

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The FAA says a contractor unintentionally deleted files used in a pilot-alert system while trying to sync a database and its backup, causing last week’s outage (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal: The FAA says a contractor unintentionally deleted files used in a pilot-alert system while trying to sync a database and its backup, causing last week’s outage  —  The federal air-safety regulator said no evidence of cyberattack or malicious intent was found

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Amazon plans to hike Music Unlimited’s monthly prices by $1 and £1 to $10.99 and £10.99 in the US and UK on February 21, matching Apple Music’s October increase (Billboard)

Billboard: Amazon plans to hike Music Unlimited’s monthly prices by $1 and £1 to $10.99 and £10.99 in the US and UK on February 21, matching Apple Music’s October increase  —  Prices will rise to $10.99/10.99 pounds per month for individual plans and $5.99/5.99 pounds per month for students.

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