Thomas Ricker
Samsung Unpacked is coming.
It’s not officially official, but leaks from Evan Blass are pretty close.
Thomas Ricker
Deputy Editor
Deputy Editor
More From Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
Bill Gates on the climate of fear under Trump.
The leaders of US businesses are more scared than he thought:
I was at a conference where they said, how many of you are afraid to speak out? And only like four people raised their hands and I said, wow, this is even worse than I thought. People are afraid to speak out about being afraid to speak out. I mean, because everybody in the room should have raised their hand. Are you kidding?
Bill Gates: AI, aid cuts and the fear of speaking out
[Financial Times]
Thomas Ricker
Amazon shutters palm reading tech for retail.
The closure of its physical Amazon Go and Fresh stores also brings an end to the Amazon One palm ID service by June 3rd for retail locations, including over 500 Whole Foods stores, with all biometric data deleted. Amazon One will continue to function at healthcare facilities “until further notice.”
Image: Amazon
Thomas Ricker
Amazon is cutting another 16,000 jobs.
The previously-rumored cuts follow an accidental calendar invite sent last night. They come after 14,000 corporate jobs were cut in October, attributed partially to advances in AI. This latest round of layoffs is less than 5 percent of Amazon’s 350,000 corporate workforce.
We’ve been working to strengthen our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy. While many teams finalized their organizational changes in October, other teams did not complete that work until now.
Thomas Ricker
Will the stars align for a SpaceX IPO?
Mr. 420 hopes to raise $50 billion by taking SpaceX public with the largest initial public offering in history. The target date is mid-June, near Elon Musk’s 55th birthday on June 28th, and June 8th and 9th “when Jupiter and Venus will appear very close together, known as a conjunction, for the first time in more than three years.”
SpaceX wants the extra funds to help develop its beefier Starship rocket system, expand its Starlink constellation, and to put data centers into space.
Thomas Ricker
TCL about to unseat Samsung in TVs.
Samsung has been the leading TV maker globally for 20 years. China’s TCL is this close to unseating the South Korean champ after posting a 20 percent surge in year-over-year global TV shipments, according to Counterpoint Research. That Sony x TCL deal all but guarantees a new leader should it go through.
8
Verge Score
I should want this, but don’t.
Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
US exits WHO.
The withdrawal from the World Health Organization makes good on an executive order Trump issued on his first day in office. Per The New York Times:
The up-in-the-air status of the flu vaccine is just one of countless global health matters that are left hanging in the balance by the United States’ withdrawal. Global health experts are deeply concerned that if a novel bug similar to the coronavirus emerges, a lack of international coordination will lead to death and disaster.
8
Verge Score
An all-in-one Google TV projector with big battery life for entertainment anywhere you go.
Thomas Ricker