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| Here’s a look at today's tech briefing: - Google fires employees protesting Israel cloud contract.
- Meta integrates chatbot across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp.
- Micron set to receive $6.1B in U.S. grants for chip plants.
- Huawei starts selling latest smartphonesin China.
- 23andMe CEO weighs buyout to take company private.
Beth
p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | Google fired 28 employees linked to protests against the company's cloud computing contract with Israel. The workers oppose Project Nimbus, Google's $1.2B joint contract with Amazon to provide AI and cloud services to Israel's government and military. More: - The "No Tech For Apartheid" group organized sit-in protests at Google's offices in New York City, Seattle, and Sunnyvale, California.
- On Tuesday, nine workers were suspended and arrested on trespassing charges.
- Some had occupied Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian's office until police removed them.
- On Thursday, Google said it had terminated 28 employees, some of whom did not directly participate in the sit-ins.
- The company deemed the behavior "unacceptable," while No Tech For Apartheid called the firings retaliatory.
Zoom out: - The protests occurred just before Israel approved a strategic five-year cloud transition under Project Nimbus.
- A Google rep said the Nimbus contract is "not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services."
- In 2018, Google employees persuaded the company not to renew its contract for Project Maven, a U.S. military program for analyzing drone imagery.
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| 2 | | Meta is incorporating its AI chatbot in the search bars of Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The Meta AI assistant can answer questions and provide web search results in real time using Google and Bing. More: - The English-speaking bot is now available in over a dozen countries, including the U.S., Australia, Canada, and Singapore.
- Alongside the search bar, the bot will appear in the main Facebook feed and the messaging inboxes of Meta's apps.
- The chatbot is now available on its own website, Meta.ai, where users can ask it to generate images including animated GIFs.
Zoom out: - The assistant is based on the company's new large language model, Llama 3.
- With the update, Meta AI is now "the most intelligent freely available assistant," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.
- Meta plans to release more Llama 3 models with features like multilingual conversation in the coming months.
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| 3 | | The Biden administration will award up to $6.1B in grants to Micron Technology to help build chip factories in New York and Idaho. The pending award comes from the U.S. Chips and Science Act, which earmarked $39B in direct grants and $75B in loans to boost U.S. semiconductor manufacturing. 
The news: With the government backing, Micron plans to invest $100B in New York over 20 years, creating 9,000 direct and 40,000 construction jobs, alongside a $15B memory chip plant in Boise, Idaho. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., confirmed the $6.1B amount, saying it would help Micron build "state-of-the-art fabs" in both his home state and Idaho. Schumer personally lobbied Micron to build four chip factories near Syracuse, including two by the decade's end. What's next: President Biden is expected to announce the award on April 25. Micron's package will also include loans similar to those given to Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Zoom out: So far, the Commerce Department has announced $23.2B in grants and up to $17.6B in loans through the Chips Act. Intel, TSMC, and Samsung recently received grants of $8.5B, $6.6B, and $6.4B, respectively, to expand their U.S. manufacturing operations. Currently, the U.S. makes about 10% of the world's semiconductors, with a goal to produce 20% of the most advanced chips by 2030. | | | |
| 4 | | Huawei has started selling its latest high-end smartphones in China. The launch of the Pura 70 series could help boost Huawei's comeback in China and intensify its competition with Apple. More: - On Thursday, Huawei released two models of the Pura series, the Pro and Ultra.
- The standard and Plus versions will go on sale Monday, April 22.
- The starting price for the lineup is 5,499 yuan ($760), compared to 5,999 yuan for Apple's iPhone 15 in China.
Zoom out: - Huawei already saw a 64% jump in phone shipments in China earlier this year, driven by the success of its Mate 60 series competing against Apple, which saw its iPhone sales fall 24% during the same time.
- While the Mate phones focus on performance and business tools, the Pura lineup offers advanced cameras and a sleeker design.
- Counterpoint's Ivan Lam predicts Huawei will ship 60 million phone units this year, nearly doubling last year's sales, with the Pura 70 series being a key driver.
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| 5 | | 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki is exploring a buyout to take the company private, according to a new SEC filing. Wojcicki is working with advisers to potentially buy the consumer genetics and research company, which she co-founded in 2006. More: - The filing says Wojcicki plans to retain control of the company and resist other potential buyers.
- Her 49.99% voting power makes a third-party acquisition nearly impossible.
- The transaction would take 23andMe private three years after it went public via a SPAC merger.
- As of Thursday, 23andMe's stock was trading at 45 cents per share, following a Nasdaq warning in November to increase its share price above $1.
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| 6 | | Alphabet's innovation lab will provide AI technology to the U.S. National Guard to better analyze disaster zones. The effort, known as Project Bellwether, is expected to improve emergency response times during the wildfire season. More: - The National Guard, which coordinates military-led disaster recovery efforts in the U.S., currently uses people to manually assess damages from natural disasters.
- However, Bellwether, an X moonshot, worked with the Defense Innovation Unit to develop an AI system that automatically analyzes aerial images of disaster zones.
- The system identifies critical infrastructure damage in photos, using Google's geospatial data to compare pre-disaster conditions.
- The damages are highlighted and sent to first responders.
- The National Guard aims to deploy the new AI tools by the summer wildfire season.
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 | AI and technology writer | | Beth is a contributing editor and writer of Inside's AI and Tech newsletters. She has written for publications including USA Today, the Arizona Business Gazette, and The Arizona Republic, where she received recognition with a Pulitzer Prize nomination and a First Amendment Award for collaborative reporting on state pension cost increases. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@yahoo.com. | | This newsletter was edited by Beth Duckett | |
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