Tech Meme

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Microsoft acquires Fungible, which makes data processing units for data centers and has raised over $300M; reports from December say the deal is worth ~$190M  —  In December, reports suggested that Microsoft had acquired Fungible, a startup fabricating a type of data center hardware known … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Damir Yalalov / Metaverse Post: VALL-E: Microsoft’s new zero-shot text-to-speech model can duplicate everyone’s voice in three seconds  —  Since the release of the first text-to-speech (TTS) model, researchers have been looking for ways to improve the way these systems generate speech.  The latest model from Microsoft … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Juro Osawa / The Information: Sources: Douyin e-commerce spending in China grew 76% YoY to ~$208B in 2022; TikTok users in Southeast Asia more than quadrupled their spending to $4.4B in 2022  —  TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, is making inroads in e-commerce.  Consumers in China last year spent 1.41 trillion yuan … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Mitchell Clark / The Verge: Meta plans to stop releasing software updates and drop some social features for the original Quest, which debuted in 2019, but will fix critical bugs until 2024  —  Meta is planning to stop supporting the original Quest VR headset with new software updates, and soon anyone using the older hardware … Lees verder op Tech Meme

VentureBeat: Dallas-based Worlds, whose “digital twins” of industrial companies’ floor operations help boost productivity, raised a $21.2M Series A1 led by Moneta Ventures  —  Worlds Enterprises, a company that builds digital twins of floor operations for industrial companies to let them become … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Belle Lin / Wall Street Journal: Southwest Airlines’ recent meltdown exposed an over-reliance on aging crew-assignment software SkySolver, forcing the company to return to manual scheduling  —  The airline industry is long overdue for a tech overhaul that takes full advantage of the cloud and data integration, analysts say Lees verder op Tech Meme

Clive Thompson / MIT Technology Review: A profile of blockchain auditing service CertiK, which inspects smart contracts to help clients like Yuga Labs avoid critical bugs that can lead to lost crypto  —  Programming errors on the blockchain can mean $100 million lost in the blink of an eye.  Ronghui Gu and his company CertiK are trying to help. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Debby Wu / Bloomberg: Chinese media: Foxconn says its Zhengzhou plant is operating with ~200,000 workers, or ~90% capacity, back to around reported normal levels, after disruptions  —  Foxconn Technology Group has brought the world’s largest iPhone plant to about 90% of anticipated peak capacity … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Christopher Grimes / Financial Times: United Talent Agency CEO Jeremy Zimmer argues the creative talent behind shows on Netflix’s ad-supported tier should earn more money if their shows are popular  —  United Talent Agency chief Jeremy Zimmer says ad-supported service ‘changes the game’ for creators Lees verder op Tech Meme

Lora Kolodny / CNBC: Email: SpaceX is raising $750M in a round likely led by a16z at a $137B valuation; the company raised $2B+ in 2022 and was valued at $127B in May  —  – SpaceX is raising $750 million in a new round of funding that values the company at $137 billion, according to correspondence viewed by CNBC. Lees verder op Tech Meme