Twitter has formally sued Elon Musk in an effort to enforce their $44B takeover deal. Musk announced on Friday that he intended to terminate the deal, saying Twitter made “false and misleading representations” and violated the terms of their agreement by failing to provide data about spam accounts and other concerns. More: - On Tuesday, Twitter filed a 62-page lawsuit in Chancery Court in Delaware.
- The lawsuit argues that Musk, unlike other parties under Delaware contract law, believed that he was free to "trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away.”
- Twitter claims Musk's public critiques of the company and deal pushed its share price down. The suit accuses Musk of seeking an exit due to stock market changes impacting his wealth and using the bot complaint as a pretext to end the deal.
- The company also says Musk abandoned efforts to secure debt funding and violated their agreement not to publicly insult the company or its executives.
- The deal's deadline for completion is Oct. 24. Twitter has asked for a trial in September.
- Shortly after Twitter filed the complaint, Musk tweeted, “Oh the irony lol.” He and his legal team have yet to comment on the suit.
BBC 
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 Nothing unveiled its first Phone 1 smartphone on Tuesday, though it will not launch in the U.S. for now. The U.K.-based consumer tech startup is led by Carl Pei, who co-founded the Oppo-owned Chinese smartphone brand OnePlus. More: - Available in black or white, the phone starts at £400 (about $475 USD) and has a 6.55-inch OLED display and 120Hz adaptive refresh rate.
- It features a Snapdragon 778G+ chipset, 8 or 12GB RAM, and 128GB or 256GB storage, depending on the model.
- Notably, the phone has a transparent back, revealing electronic components, and LEDs that form a "glyph" interface. The light patterns can be customized to show different visual notifications when the phone is placed on its front.
- The Nothing Phone 1 goes on sale July 21 in 40 markets including Japan, India, and the U.K. Nothing said it will distribute some phones to U.S. community investors through a closed beta and does plan to launch a U.S.-supported smartphone sometime in the future.
Zoom-out: - To develop the handset, Nothing raised at least $144M from various backers including Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, iPhone co-creator Tony Fadell, and YouTuber Casey Neistat.
- It's Nothing's second device after it released wireless earbuds in 2021.
CNET
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Alphabet, Google's parent company, will slow down hiring for the rest of the year and has urged employees to "be more entrepreneurial." In a memo sent to employees Tuesday, CEO Sundar Pichai said the company will focus hiring efforts on technical, engineering, and other "critical" roles ahead of a potential recession. More: - Pichai told employees that they need to work with "greater urgency, sharper focus, and more hunger" than in previous years.
- He listed several actions that employees may need to take, such as streamlining, pausing deployment, redistributing resources to higher-priority areas, and consolidating overlapping investments.
- Google added 10,000 employees during the second quarter, up 17% YoY. It employs about 164,000 people globally.
- Alphabet stock is down 21% so far this year.
Other tech cutbacks: - A VP at Facebook parent company Meta has reportedly instructed managers to identify workers who need support and "move to exit" poor performers.
- Tesla will permanently shutter its San Mateo, California, office and is laying off 229 employees there, according to a new filing.
- Microsoft is cutting a small percentage of its workforce in a realignment of its business groups, though it will continue hiring in other areas.
REUTERS
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 Apple and former design chief Jony Ive agreed not to extend his consulting contract, effectively ending their 30-year relationship. First hired in 1992, Ive was a close confidant of Steve Jobs and designed Apple’s candy-colored cases for desktop computers and the iPhone’s rounded edges. He left the company in 2019 but stayed on as a consultant. More: - After leaving, Ive formed the independent design firm LoveFrom and reportedly hired some Apple designers.
- This frustrated some Apple executives, who also questioned how much Apple paid Ive.
- Ive's multi-year contract with Apple was valued at more than $100M. However, it restricted Ive from doing work that Apple considered competition.
- Ive reportedly wanted to take on new clients without requiring Apple’s clearance, which also contributed to the decision not to extend the contract.
- In addition to older Mac computers, Ive helped design the white earbuds of the iPod and elements of the Apple Watch and the iPad. He also supplied ideas for Apple's forthcoming AR/VR headset, due out early next year.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
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Game development company Unity announced plans to merge with app monetization platform ironSource. The combination is expected to result in an "end-to-end platform" for creators to develop, publish, and monetize live games and real-time 3D content. More: - ironSource enables mobile content creators to monetize and scale their apps and grow them into businesses.
- The Israeli software group will become a Unity subsidiary. The deal will support creators with tools to develop and grow apps in gaming, e-commerce, and other areas, Unity CEO John Riccitiello said in a news release.
- Unity said it will combine its game engine, editor, and the rest of its gaming sources with ironSource’s mediation and publishing platforms.
- ironSource is currently valued at $4.4B in the all-stock deal. Silver Lake and Sequoia, Unity's largest shareholders, agreed to invest $1B in Unity convertible notes at closing.
- Unity's prior acquisitions include software developer Ziva Dynamics in January and 3D data handling company Pixyz Software in June 2021.
TECHCRUNCH
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Volunteer researchers released a free artificial intelligence model that can write and summarize texts, create poems and recipes, and generate code. Called Bloom, the model is free to try and download on the website Hugging Face. More: - The model comes from BigScience, an international research group made up of more than 1,000 volunteers.
- They trained and released Bloom using the carbon footprint equivalent of a Paris-to-New York flight.
- The model supports 46 languages and 13 programming languages. It is similar in size and scope to OpenAI's popular GPT-3 language-generating model.
- Unlike related systems, Bloom was also made available with the code and datasets used to train it.
- Hugging Face said it plans to release a free web app for people to try out Bloom without needing to download it.
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- Emojipedia released a draft list of 31 new emoji coming to iOS and Android for the Unicode 15 standard update. Options include a shaking face, pink heart, and official “high-five” emoji.
- Peloton announced that it will no longer make its own treadmills and bikes and will rely on Taiwan's Rexon to be its primary manufacturer.
- YouTube is now rolling out picture-in-picture viewing for all U.S. iOS and iPadOS app users.
- Chinese EV maker XPeng's robotics subsidiary raised $100M as it seeks to introduce household robots for consumers in 2024.
- The Magic Leap 2 mixed reality device will be available for general purchase in the U.S., Canada, and other markets on Sept. 30. The business-centric headset starts at $3,299.
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 |  | Beth is a writer and analyst at Inside.com covering artificial intelligence and daily tech news. Since starting work at Inside, she has covered various topics including virtual reality, drones, and e-commerce. Prior to that she was a public policy and investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic, where she won a Pulitzer Prize nomination and First Amendment Award for reporting on the rising costs of pensions. Reach her at Beth.Duckett@inside.com. |   | | Editor | Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is the author of "Things You Can Do," an illustrated book about climate action. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
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