CATEGORIES

THE JOB MARKET IS HUMMING, BUT LAYOFFS ARE STILL HAPPENING IN A SHIFTING ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT

The U.S. economy is humming and there are hundreds of thousands of jobs being added every month. In a stunning burst of hiring to start the year, the nation added 353,000 jobs in January, shrugging off the highest interest rates in two decades that have been put in place by the U.S. Federal Reserve in part to cool off hiring and spending.

APPLE ENDS YEARLONG SALES SLUMP WITH SLIGHT REVENUE RISE IN HOLIDAY-SEASON PERIOD BUT STOCK SLIPS

Apple snapped out of a yearlong sales funk during its holiday-season quarter, propelled by solid demand for the latest model of its iPhone and still-robust growth in a services division facing legal threats that could undermine its prospects.

GM'S TROUBLED ROBOTAXI SERVICE FACES ANOTHER ROUND OF PUBLIC RIDICULE IN REGULATORY HEARING

General Motors’ troubled robotaxi service Cruise this week endured a public lashing from a California judge who compared the company to the devious TV character Eddie Haskell for its behavior following a ghastly collision that wrecked its ambitious expansion plans.

OVERSIGHT BOARD URGES META TO RETHINK ITS POLICY ON MANIPULATED MEDIA IN HIGH-STAKES ELECTION YEAR

An oversight board is criticizing Facebook owner Meta’s policies regarding manipulated media as “incoherent” and insufficient to address the flood of online disinformation that already has begun to target elections across the globe this year.

MICROSOFT CEO SATYA NADELLA CAPS A DECADE OF CHANGE AND TREMENDOUS GROWTH

Satya Nadella marks his tenth year as Microsoft CEO, capping a decade of stunning growth as he pivoted the slow-moving software giant into a laser focus on cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

Game Boost

EXPANDING APPLE'S GAMING ECOSYSTEM WITH NEW RULES

META SAYS IT WILL LABEL AI-GENERATED IMAGES ON FACEBOOK & INSTAGRAM

Facebook and Instagram users will start seeing labels on AI-generated images that appear on their social media feeds, part of a broader tech industry initiative to sort between what’s real and not.

WHY APPLE IS PUSHING THE TERM 'SPATIAL COMPUTING' ALONG WITH ITS NEW VISION PRO HEADSET

With Apple's hotly anticipated Vision Pro headset hitting store shelves, you're probably going to start to see more people wearing the futuristic googles that are supposed to usher in the age of \"spatial computing.\"

U.S. SETS PLANS TO PROTECT ENDANGERED WHALES NEAR OFFSHORE WIND FARMS; FIRMS SWAP WIND LEASES

Two federal environmental agencies issued plans to better protect endangered whales amid offshore wind farm development.

CHATGPT VIOLATED EUROPEAN PRIVACY LAWS, ITALY TELLS CHATBOT MAKER OPENAL

Italian regulators said they told OpenAI that its ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot has violated European Union’s stringent data privacy rules.

AMAZON CALLS OFF BID TO BUY VACUUM MAKER IROBOT AMID SCRUTINY IN EUROPE AND THE US

Amazon called off its proposed acquisition of robot vacuum maker iRobot this week as the deal faced antitrust scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic, with the ecommerce giant blaming “undue and disproportionate regulatory hurdles.”

SCIENCE SLEUTHS ARE USING TECHNOLOGY TO FIND FAKERY AND PLAGIARISM IN PUBLISHED RESEARCH

Allegations of research fakery at a leading cancer center have turned a spotlight on scientific integrity and the amateur sleuths uncovering image manipulation in published research.

TAYLOR SWIFT, BAD BUNNY AND OTHERS MAY VANISH FROM TIKTOK AS LICENSING DISPUTE BOILS OVER

Universal Music Group, which represents artists including Taylor Swift, Drake, Adele, Bad Bunny and Billie Eilish, says that it will no longer allow its music on TikTok now that a licensing deal between the two parties has expired.

DOCUMENTARY ON 'WE ARE THE WORLD' GOES DEEP INSIDE RECORDING SESSION OF STARRY 1985 CHARITY SINGLE

Thirty-nine years ago, the biggest music stars in the world crammed into a recording studio in Los Angeles for an all-night session that they hoped might alter music history.

MICROSOFT PROFITSOARS 33% ON AI, CLOUD-COMPUTING INVESTMENTS

Microsoft Corp. said this week that its profit for the October-December quarter soared 33%, powered by its significant investments in artificial intelligence technology.

ELON MUSK CANNOT KEEP TESLA PAY PACKAGE WORTH MORE THAN $55 BILLION, JUDGE RULES

Elon Musk is not entitled to landmark compensation package awarded by Tesla’s board of directors that is potentially worth more than $55 billion, a Delaware judge ruled Tuesday.

EXPLORING APPLE VISION PRO: INSIGHTS FROM TOP TECH EXPERTS

The Apple Vision Pro, one of the most buzzedabout gadgets of the year, has been unboxed and scrutinized by a cadre of leading tech influencers and media outlets.

GOOGLE'S PARENT POSTS DOUBLE-DIGIT REVENUE GROWTH IN A QUARTER FOR FIRST TIME IN 1,38 NEARLY 2 YEARS

Google’s corporate parent returned to doubledigit revenue growth during last year’s final quarter, signaling the internet powerhouse has regained its footing even as it grapples with regulatory and competitive threats to its digital empire.

EU Overhaul

APPLE'S EFFORTS TO KEEP USERS SAFE IN EUROPE DESPITE DMA

AMAZON SAYS PRIME DELIVERIES REACHED THEIR FASTEST SPEEDS EVER LAST YEAR

Amazon delivered packages to its Prime customers at the fastest speeds ever in 2023, the retailer said this week, thanks to better inventory placement, a new regionalization model for shipments and more same-day warehouses.

WHAT YOU ACTUALLY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WINTERTIME DRIVING WITH AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE

As a big winter storm rolled across the United States in mid-January, many news outlets reported on drivers of electric vehicles dealing with dramatically reduced range and multihour waits at public charging stations.

ELON MUSK SAYS THE FIRST HUMAN HAS RECEIVED AN IMPLANT FROM NEURALINK, BUT OTHER DETAILS ARE SCANT

According to Elon Musk, the first human received an implant from his computer-brain interface company Neuralink over the weekend.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU'RE CONCERNED YOU MIGHT BE LAID OFF - OR IF YOU'VE LOST YOUR JOB

Recent mass layoffs from technology and media companies, including eBay, Riot Games and the Los Angeles Times, might have you thinking about your job security.

FRANCE FINES AMAZON $35 MILLION FOR 'EXCESSIVELY INTRUSIVE' MONITORING OF WAREHOUSE STAFF

France’s privacy watchdog said this week that it slapped Amazon‘s French warehouse business with a 32 million euro fine ($35 million) for using an “excessively intrusive system” to monitor worker performance and activity.

MICROSOFT SAYS STATE-BACKED RUSSIAN HACKERS ACCESSED EMAILS OF SENIOR LEADERSHIP TEAM MEMBERS

State-backed Russian hackers broke into Microsoft’s corporate email system and accessed the accounts of members of the company’s leadership team, as well as those of employees on its cybersecurity and legal teams, the company said.

JAPAN BECOMES THE FIFTH COUNTRY TO LAND A SPACECRAFT ON THE MOON

Japan became the fifth country in history to reach the moon when one of its spacecrafts without astronauts successfully made a soft landing on the lunar surface early Saturday (20).

WWE'S 'RAW' IS MOVING TO NETFLIX NEXT YEAR IN A MAJOR STREAMING DEAL WORTH MORE THAN $5 BILLION

WWE’s weekly television show “Raw” will move to Netflix next year as part of a major streaming deal worth more than $5 billion.

NETFLIX'S GAINS 13M NEW GLOBAL 4Q SUBSCRIBERS AS IT UNWRAPS ITS BEST-EVER HOLIDAY SEASON RESULTS

Netflix registered its third-consecutive quarter of accelerating subscriber growth in the final three months of 2023, closing out a comeback year that included a crackdown on viewers freeloading on the video-streaming service and a smattering of price hikes.

A LOOK AT SOME OF THE COMPANIES IN THE TECHNOLOGY SECTOR THAT HAVE RECENTLY MADE LAYOFFS

A bunch of companies in the technology sector have been laying off some of their employees recently after quickly ramping up hiring during the COVID-19 pandemic while people spent more time and money online.

ONLINE RETAILER EBAY IS CUTTING 1.000 JOBS. IT'S THE LATEST TECH COMPANY TO REDUCE ITS WORKFORCE

Online retailer eBay Inc. will cut about 1,000 jobs, or an estimated 9% of its full-time workforce, saying its number of employees and costs have exceeded how much the business is growing in a slowing economy. It marks the latest layoffs in the tech industry.