MSI Net, Inc. & mCloudServ

Marketplace Pulse: in a first, Amazon’s average cut of each sale reached 51.8% in 2022, up from 48% in 2021, 45.8% in 2020, 40% in 2017, and 35.2% in 2016 (Spencer Soper/Bloomberg)

Spencer Soper / Bloomberg: Marketplace Pulse: in a first, Amazon’s average cut of each sale reached 51.8% in 2022, up from 48% in 2021, 45.8% in 2020, 40% in 2017, and 35.2% in 2016 — Grappling with slowing sales growth and rising costs, Amazon.com Inc. is squeezing more money from the nearly 2 million small

‘Love in the Time of Fentanyl’ Tells the Whole Truth

This gripping documentary captures the reality of the opioid crisis by focusing on grassroots harm reduction.

Making the AirPods Pro Case Repairable

Apple is often lauded for its design chops, but function is often sacrificed at the altar of form, particularly when repair is involved. [Ken Pillonel] has made it easier for everyone to replace the batteries or lightning port in the AirPods Pro case. (YouTube) With such notable hacks as adding USB C to the iPhone

NASA’s NuSTAR Observatory Pinpoints Hottest Spots on the Sun

Every day, astronomers learn more about the stars spread around the cosmos, but there’s still plenty to learn about the star closest to Earth. NASA has released a new composite image of the Sun featuring data from the NuSTAR space telescope. It reveals some of the hottest areas of the Sun, which may help scientists

Razer Blade 18 review: gigantic QHD, 16:10, 240Hz display, upgradeable RAM and SSD, and lots of power, but incredibly pricey at $3,800 and mediocre battery life (Monica Chin/The Verge)

Monica Chin / The Verge: Razer Blade 18 review: gigantic QHD, 16:10, 240Hz display, upgradeable RAM and SSD, and lots of power, but incredibly pricey at $3,800 and mediocre battery life — It’s the ultimate big-screen gaming experience for the ultimate price. … Razer has made big laptops in the past — but they apparently

A look at Eindhoven, a small, low-rise Dutch city home to ASML, chipmaker NXP, and other tech companies, which was a focus as the US prepared to restrict China (Andy Bounds/Financial Times)

Andy Bounds / Financial Times: A look at Eindhoven, a small, low-rise Dutch city home to ASML, chipmaker NXP, and other tech companies, which was a focus as the US prepared to restrict China — Washington’s efforts to block China’s access to high-end technology homed in on just two places outside the US: Tokyo and

I Found My Chosen Family on Social Media

Though it has its shortcomings, Instagram led me to a core group of friends that I’ll cherish for life.

Doggy Bathroom Review: An Expensive Bin for Your Pup’s Business

Whether you have a puppy or an older dog, accidents happen. This pricey and attractive bin helps keep everything contained and easy to clean.

Laptop Maker Framework Begins Offering 2TB Steam Deck SSD Upgrade

Even if you get the most expensive version of Valve’s Steam Deck, you’re stuck with just 512GB of storage space. That might sound like a lot, but some of today’s most popular games eat up almost 100GB of that space. Finding a larger replacement drive is about to get a lot easier. Laptop maker Framework

Uber strikes two seven-year deals with Google Cloud and Oracle to host its IT infrastructure; an Uber executive says 95% of its IT is hosted on its own servers (Belle Lin/Wall Street Journal)

Belle Lin / Wall Street Journal: Uber strikes two seven-year deals with Google Cloud and Oracle to host its IT infrastructure; an Uber executive says 95% of its IT is hosted on its own servers — Two seven-year deals will help ride-hailing company end reliance on its own data centers — Uber Technologies Inc. plans

A look at Andy Jassy’s challenges running Amazon, down by $1T in market cap since he took over: cutting costs, layoffs, boosting Prime subscribers, and more (Financial Times)

Financial Times: A look at Andy Jassy’s challenges running Amazon, down by $1T in market cap since he took over: cutting costs, layoffs, boosting Prime subscribers, and more — Investors joining Amazon’s earning call earlier this month were greeted with a surprise guest: the group’s chief executive, Andy Jassy.

Tracxn: foreign VC funding in Indian tech startups fell nearly 40% YoY to $25.7B in 2022; Tiger Global, SoftBank, and Sequoia more than halved their investments (Financial Times)

Financial Times: Tracxn: foreign VC funding in Indian tech startups fell nearly 40% YoY to $25.7B in 2022; Tiger Global, SoftBank, and Sequoia more than halved their investments — Foreign venture capital investment dropped 40% in 2022 and IPO pipeline has dried up — Tech investors in India are struggling …

Publishers worry that Microsoft’s and Google’s search chatbots, which summarize key info from articles, may undermine their businesses and spread misinformation (Wired)

Wired: Publishers worry that Microsoft’s and Google’s search chatbots, which summarize key info from articles, may undermine their businesses and spread misinformation — Microsoft’s new search interface can serve up key information from articles, removing the need to click—and potentially undermining publisher business models.

Nike’s Vaporfly Racing Shoe Is Getting A Reboot

The Vaporfly 3 has a new upper and sculpted foam, and it’s designed to return more energy than ever before.

Binance says the NYDFS ordered Paxos to stop issuing more of its Binance USD stablecoin, which has 6.2M holders; Paxos will continue redemptions (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal: Binance says the NYDFS ordered Paxos to stop issuing more of its Binance USD stablecoin, which has 6.2M holders; Paxos will continue redemptions — Firm will continue to manage redemptions of the product — New York regulators directed a crypto company to stop issuing …

Monday’s top tech news: Mario’s still got a day job

Image: Illumination Mario’s plumbing ad was one of several big new trailers from the Super Bowl. Continue reading…

Xiaomi’s first phone with a ‘Dynamic Island’ could launch globally soon

Credit: Xiaomi Xiaomi is expected to launch the Xiaomi 13 Lite at MWC 2023. A leaked unboxing video of the phone shows it’s a rebranded Xiaomi Civi 2. The phone has a pill-shaped selfie camera housing that resembles the iPhone 14 Pro’s Dynamic Island. Xiaomi is hosting a phone launch at the upcoming Mobile World Congress

Sex educators, adult stars, and sex workers complain about Instagram, saying Meta’s moderation has gotten more punitive and less predictable since SESTA-FOSTA (Kat Tenbarge/NBC News)

Kat Tenbarge / NBC News: Sex educators, adult stars, and sex workers complain about Instagram, saying Meta’s moderation has gotten more punitive and less predictable since SESTA-FOSTA — Cherie DeVille lives in perpetual fear of losing her 3.7 million Instagram followers. — DeVille is a well-known porn star who also has an OnlyFans account.

Galaxy S23 software is here for older Samsung flagships (Updated)

Credit: Robert Triggs / Android Authority The One UI 5.1 update has landed on the Galaxy S22 series and the Galaxy Z Fold 4 after Canadian carrier Fido revealed a Feb-end rollout date. The Galaxy Z Flip 4 could be next in line to get the new software. Update: February 13, 2023 (4:46 AM ET):

10 reasons to worry about generative AI

Generative AI models like ChatGPT are so shockingly good that some now claim that AIs are not only equals of humans but often smarter. They toss off beautiful artwork in a dizzying array of styles. They churn out texts full of rich details, ideas, and knowledge. The generated artifacts are so varied, so seemingly unique, that

Zero-shot learning and the foundations of generative AI

We may remember 2022 as the year when cognitive AI techniques went from the labs to mainstream use. ChatGPT, a conversational AI that answers questions, went from zero to one million users in under a week. Image generation AIs DALL-E 2, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion opened public access and captured the world’s attention with the

Gatsby, Netlify, and the gravitational pull of general-purpose platforms

It’s been over a week since Netlify purchased Gatsby on February 1, 2023, “to accelerate adoption of composable web architectures,” and all the buzzwords are finally falling into place. Gone is any mention of the Jamstack (though you can still find its community humming along). Gone are the comments about how the two compete. Today it’s all

This CRT-Style Pi Portable Gets All the Details Right

A quick glance at the “Pi Terminal” built by [Salim Benbouziyane], and you might think he pulled an old CRT monitor out of a video editing bay and gutted it. Which, of course, is the point. But what you’re actually looking at is a completely new construction, featuring a fully 3D printed enclosure, a clever

A Stanford student used a prompt injection attack to reveal Bing Chat’s codename Sydney and its initial prompt that governs how the service interacts with users (Benj Edwards/Ars Technica)

Benj Edwards / Ars Technica: A Stanford student used a prompt injection attack to reveal Bing Chat’s codename Sydney and its initial prompt that governs how the service interacts with users — By asking “Sydney” to ignore previous instructions, it reveals its original directives. — On Tuesday, Microsoft revealed a …

Sony’s next flagship ups camera resolution, keeps headphone jack even in 2023

Credit: OnLeaks/GreenSmartphones Leaked Sony Xperia 1 V renders show a familiar design. Outed specs of the phone suggest a camera upgrade is on the cards. The phone seems to retain a 3.5mm headphone jack and a physical fingerprint reader. Sony is one of the few brands still keeping legacy smartphone features alive on its flagships,

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