Hello friends, welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter summarizing the latest days in technology.
Google’s annual business development conference, Google Cloud Next, dominated the headlines and we had a lot of coverage of the event. But it wasn’t the only thing going on (see: the spectacular eclipse).
Lorenzo wrote about how hackers stole over ~340,000 Social Security numbers from government consulting firm Greylock McKinnon Associates (GMA). It took the GMA nine months to determine the extent of the breach and notify victims; So far, it is not clear why.
Elsewhere, Sarah told the story about Spotify’s AI personalized playlists, which allow users to create a playlist based on written prompts.
And Connie reported on the death of entrepreneur Mahbod Moghadam, who rose to fame as co-founder of Genius, the online music encyclopedia. Moghadam passed away at the age of 41 due to complications from a recurrent brain tumor.
Many more things happened. We’ve rounded it all up in this edition of WiR, but first, a reminder to sign up to receive the WiR newsletter in your inbox every Saturday.
News
Tesla Price Drop: Tesla lowered prices on unsold Model Y SUVs in the US by thousands of dollars in a bid to clear an unprecedented inventory backlog.
Snapchat turns off its solar system: Snapchat adjusted a feature on its app that displays how “close” you are to your friends after a report revealed it increased anxiety among teens.
Non-invasive anxiety treatment: Neurovalens, a startup developing technology to deliver non-invasive electrical stimulation of the brain and nervous system, gained FDA approval thanks to a 2019 agency rule change aimed at encouraging innovations targeting insomnia and anxiety.
Call 3: At an event in London, Meta confirmed that it plans an initial launch of Llama 3, the next generation of its artificial intelligence model used to power chatbots and other applications, within a month.
Emulators in the store: Apple updated its App Store rules to globally allow retro console game emulators an option to download titles.
AT&T Breach: AT&T began notifying US state authorities and regulators about a security incident after confirming that millions of customer records posted online last month were authentic.
Money
Web3 and beauty: Kiki World, a beauty brand that uses web3 for co-creation and customer ownership, has closed a $7 million round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Analysis
Magnets on keyboards: Frederic writes about an intriguing development in mechanical keyboard design: magnetic switches, which can quickly change the actuation point, the point during a key press where the switch registers a downward press.
WFH, here to stay: Working from home is not going away, even if some CEOs want it to. Ron writes that most workers crave flexibility and work-life balance—who knew?
Podcasts
In equity On Wednesday’s startup-focused show, the team delved into Multiverse’s acquisition of Searchlight, Guesty’s latest round, the Monad Labs transaction, and a new venture capital fund targeting growth rounds in Africa.
Meanwhile, Found presented Ben Christensen, founder and CEO of Cambium, a startup that is reinventing the lumber supply chain and reallocating previously wasted materials for use in new construction projects.
Bonus round
Exposed Microsoft Passwords: Security researchers discovered an open, public database hosted on Microsoft’s Azure cloud service that stored internal information related to Microsoft’s Bing search engine. Microsoft says it has resolved the bug.
