Amazon began laying off tech and corporate employees on Tuesday in various divisions including its Alexa and the Luna cloud gaming units, according to LinkedIn posts. On Monday, the New York Times reported that Amazon planned to cut as many as 10,000 employees, or 3% of its corporate workforce. More: - In an email sent to employees Wednesday, Amazon SVP Dave Limp confirmed the cuts in Amazon's devices and services division.
- “After a deep set of reviews, we recently decided to consolidate some teams and programs,” Limp wrote.
- He said Amazon is offering severance packages to laid-off employees who can't find other new roles at the company.
Zoom-out: - The job cuts have so far impacted employees in Seattle, the Bay Area, Vancouver, and Boston, according to posts on LinkedIn, the workplace community app Blind, and internal Slack messages.
- According to CNBC, Amazon has also been laying off contracted employees who recruited new hires for its Fire TV, advertising, and internal operations divisions.
- The NYT previously reported that the layoffs would affect Amazon's retail operations, human resources, and its devices unit that makes Alexa and Echo products.
- A 10,000-employee reduction would be the largest since Amazon was founded in 1994.
TECHCRUNCH 
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 On Wednesday morning, NASA successfully launched its Artemis I mission, sending an uncrewed spacecraft filled with test dummies on a trip around the moon. The test flight comes 50 years after NASA's Apollo lunar program ended. It's the first mission of NASA's long-term Artemis program that plans to send astronauts to the lunar surface and establish a human presence on the moon. More: - The launch date was pushed back several times since September due to hurricanes, hydrogen-fuel leaks, and other technical issues.
- NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket successfully lifted off at 1:47 a.m. Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center with the Orion spacecraft on its top.
- Less than two hours later, the rocket's upper stage fired to propel Orion out of Earth's orbit and onto its path toward the moon.
- The capsule is now on track to orbit the moon in a 1.2-million-mile trip that will bring it within 80 miles of the lunar surface.
- NASA's next lunar mission, Artemis II, will shuttle four astronauts to the moon’s orbit and back as early as 2024. If all goes well, the agency plans to send two astronauts to the moon's surface in 2025 or later.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
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 A message from SYNTHESIS AI What is synthetic data, and what does it mean for computer vision and generative AI? Synthetic data is computer-generated information that models the real world, but where does it apply? What are the benefits and tradeoffs, and how does it compare to real data for developing ML models? We answered these and other questions in our Synthetic Data Guide for Computer Vision. Our guide will help users better understand: - What synthetic data is in the context of computer vision
- Benefits, tradeoffs, use cases, and applications for synthetic data in machine learning
- How synthetic data is transforming the way we develop software
Learn More
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 Apple plans to buy some of its chips from a factory in Arizona starting in 2024, CEO Tim Cook reportedly told employees during an internal meeting. Cook was likely referring to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s plant, which is under construction in north Phoenix, Arizona. The $12B semiconductor fab is expected to come online in 2024 and produce 20,000 chips per month. More: - Cook made the remarks during an internal meeting with engineering and retail employees in Germany, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
- The CEO told employees that Apple has "already made the decision" to buy the chips from an Arizona plant that will start up in 2024.
- Sourcing chips from a U.S. factory will reduce Apple's reliance on factories in Taiwan and Asia, where it currently sources its processors.
- Cook also said that Apple will source chips from Europe in the future, without elaborating. TSMC is also in talks with Germany's government to potentially open plants there.
- Earlier this month, TSMC announced plans for a second chip factory in Arizona due to “strong customer demand.”
BLOOMBERG
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Global banking giants and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York have launched a test to see how digital dollars could speed up payments. The 12-week digital dollar pilot involves more than a dozen banks and other financial institutions including Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co, HSBC, and Mastercard. More: - The banks, in conjunction with the New York Fed, will use technology to simulate the U.S. Dollar as digital money tokens representing customer deposits.
- The firms will issue the tokens to be processed through a simulated central bank on a shared blockchain.
- The proof-of-concept platform, known as a regulated liability network, will examine how the process could help expedite payments.
- It aims to test the technical, legal, and business feasibility of distributed ledger technology, which includes blockchain, according to the group. The testing could eventually expand to include stablecoins and other digital assets.
COINTELEGRAPH
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Electric vehicles ranked among the least reliable car models in Consumer Reports' annual reliability survey. The low ranking was attributed in part to the new and often unproven technologies found in many EVs. More: - The report surveyed the owners of 300,000 vehicles from model years 2000 to 2022 to predict the reliability of 2023 model year vehicles.
- Based on the findings, battery-powered EVs were considered the worst-performing segment besides gas-powered full-size pickup trucks.
- Topping the list of most-reliable brands were Toyota, Lexus, BMW, Mazda, and Honda. Tesla ranked 19th out of the 24 brands.
- Additionally, the survey found that hybrid vehicles have been generally more reliable than their gas-powered counterparts.
EV technologies: - With the exception of Tesla, most automakers have only launched fully electric cars in the last several years and have yet to iron out some issues, according to Jake Fisher, auto testing senior director at Consumer Reports.
- He added that many automakers are using EVs as a testbed for their latest technologies, which can lead to additional problems.
CNBC
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Descript, an AI-powered video and audio editing app founded by former Groupon CEO Andrew Mason, captured a $50M investment led by the OpenAI Startup Fund. Descript's software lets users edit audio and video by editing a text transcript first. Its platform, geared toward podcasters and other creators, automatically changes the audio and video based on tweaks in the transcript. More: - Sources previously told The Information that the round values Descript at roughly $550M, up from $260M in January 2021.
- In addition to the funding, Descript announced a redesign of its desktop app interface.
- It also launched other new features, such as AI-powered background removal, a mode to help users write scripts, and access to stock media for soundtracks and B-roll footage.
- OpenAI's $100M startup fund launched in May 2021 with an investment from Microsoft and others.
- Venture capitalists appear to be investing in AI-generated art, videos, and content startups despite the ongoing downturn in venture funding.
TECHCRUNCH
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- Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao announced an industry recovery fund to help crypto projects prevent liquidity issues.
- Italian mobile app developer Bending Spoons is acquiring the note-taking app Evernote, which will join the former's existing app lineup that includes Remini and Splice.
- YouTube has introduced a new feature in Shorts, its TikTok competitor, that enables users to purchase products while watching content.
- In an email sent today, Elon Musk asked Twitter employees if they want to be a part of "Twitter 2.0," which will be "much more engineering-driven" and involve "long hours at high intensity." He asked the employees to commit by clicking "yes" on a link. Those who don't will be offered three months of severance, he wrote.
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 |  | Beth is a writer and editor at Inside.com covering artificial intelligence and daily technology news. You can 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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