Jay Peters

Senior Reporter

Jay PetersApr 27, 2023

Amazon is working on an improved LLM to power Alexa.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, on Thursday’s Q1 2023 earnings call:

We’ve had a large language model underneath [Alexa], but we’re building one that’s much larger and much more generalized and capable. I think that’s going to really rapidly accelerate our vision of becoming the world’s best personal assistant. I think there’s a significant business model underneath it.

Just today, The Information reported that Apple is working on some LLM-based improvements for Siri. I’d guess Google is doing something similar for Assistant, but I’ve asked them if they can share any details.

Jay PetersApr 27, 2023

“This is our biggest single-day jump in new users that we’ve experienced.”

Bluesky has had a banner day, and it’s doing an emergency upgrade to handle the influx of new users. I’m already worried how I’m going to handle the five minutes of downtime — I haven’t been able to stop refreshing the app all day.

Update April 27th, 5:56PM ET: Bluesky made it through the downtime and is now back.

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

Dril and AOC are now on Bluesky

Jay PetersApr 27, 2023

Coral!

Reliable leaker Evan Blass just shared a picture of what appears to be a coral Pixel 7A on Twitter (his account is private, so you may not be able to see the pic on Twitter). I normally just go for black phones, but I think this coral color looks fantastic.

The unannounced phone is also rumored to come in blue, black, and white.

Image shared by Evan Blass

Jay PetersApr 27, 2023

Amazon had a good quarter.

The company reported revenues of $127.4 billion in Q1 2023, beating analyst expectations that the company would bring in $124.5 billion. The stock is up 11 percent in after-hours trading. However, it hasn’t been all good news at the company today; it laid off about 100 employees in Amazon Studios and Prime Video.

Amazon.com Announces First Quarter Results

[ir.aboutamazon.com]

Microsoft is done with major Windows 10 updates

Jay PetersApr 27, 2023

Amazon is laying off Studios and Prime Video staffers.

About 100 roles are impacted, according to TheWrap and Business Insider. Amazon began laying off employees in its cloud and HR divisions yesterday. The company last month announced it would be cutting an additional 9,000 staffers.

Amazon Studios layoffs have begun as CEO Andy Jassy looks for cost savings across the board

[Business Insider]

Jay PetersApr 27, 2023

Siri struggles.

The Information has a long article about Apple’s recent internal issues with Siri. With the tech industry’s new obsession with AI chatbots, the challenges facing Apple’s voice assistant aren’t going to get any easier, but the report does say that the company is internally proposing LLM-based improvements to Siri.

Apple’s Siri Chief Struggles With Turf Wars as New AI Era Begins

[The Information]