Elon Musk sold roughly $8.5B worth of Tesla shares this week that could help him fund his purchase of Twitter. The Tesla CEO sold 4.4 million shares on Tuesday and Wednesday followed by more than 5 million shares on Thursday, regulatory filings show. More: - The 9.6 million shares sold this week equate to 5.6% of Musk's stake in Tesla.
- Following the disclosures on Thursday, Musk tweeted: “No further TSLA sales planned after today.”
- To complete his purchase of Twitter, Musk needs $21B in cash. The remainder will be financed with debt and a margin loan.
- Musk has now offloaded more than $24B worth of Tesla stock in six months.
Zoom-out: - The news comes after Musk reportedly told banks that he plans to cut costs at Twitter by lowering executive and board pay and finding new ways to monetize tweets.
- Twitter on Monday accepted Musk's $44B buyout offer to take the company private.
- On Thursday, Twitter reported quarterly revenue of $1.2B, up 16% YoY, and a 16% rise in monetized daily active users in its Q1 2022 earnings.
REUTERS 
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After reporting one of its strongest quarters in history, Apple warned that supply constraints will be "substantially larger" in the current quarter due to COVID disruptions and silicon shortages. The company expects to take a revenue hit of $4B to $8B this quarter as it struggles to meet customer demand for its products. More: - The constraints "will affect most of the product categories," CEO Tim Cook told analysts.
- The forecast comes after Apple reported financial results above analyst estimates.
- Apple reported revenue of $97.3B in the January-March period, up 9% from the same time last year.
- Its profit was $25B.
- Broken down by category, the company set March quarterly revenue records for iPhone, Mac, and Wearables/Home/Accessories divisions.
- iPhone sales grew 5% to $50.6B.
- The last seven quarters have been the best ever for Mac, according to CFO Luca Maestri.
- Apple reported growth in almost every category except for iPads, where supply chain issues caused sales to fall by 2% from last year.
Zoom-out: - Apple services business, its second-biggest after iPhones, also rose 17% to nearly $20B.
- Services include subscriptions to TV+, Music, and Fitness+.
- It expects Q3 revenue to be lower due to component shortages, China COVID-19 disruptions, inflation reducing consumer spending power, and other issues.
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China may pull back from its ongoing crackdown on domestic tech companies as it seeks to boost growth in a hazy economic outlook, the WSJ reports. China's internet regulator will hold talks with tech giants next week, a sign that it could dial back its regulatory campaign on the industry amid the rollout of social restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19, sources told the Journal. More: - Loosening regulations and supporting the tech sector could boost China's economy as the Omicron variant threatens to severely impact growth.
- Regulators could pause plans for rules that would restrict how much time young people can spend on mobile apps, a source said.
- China could also urge some of its tech giants to offer 1% equity stakes to the state and give Beijing "a direct role in corporate decisions."
- It has done this already for TikTok's ByteDance and Weibo but could expand this to firms such as Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Meituan.
- Leaders have reportedly pledged measures to support and "promote the healthy development" of China's internet economy, CNN reported.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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 Snap has started selling a flying camera drone that can follow around users to take photos and videos for its app. Called Pixy, the pocket-size device operates autonomously, meaning it lacks a controller. More: - Snap revealed the flying camera, its first such device, during its annual partners summit on Thursday.
- To operate the drone, users choose among four present flightpaths to have the device float, orbit, or follow them before it lands back in their hand.
- It weighs ~100 grams and has a swappable battery capable of 5-8 flights of 10-20 seconds each per charge.
- The drone is marketed specifically as a companion to the Snapchat app, meaning photos and videos it takes are automatically transferred wirelessly to Snapchat Memories.
- From there, users can use editing tools, Lenses, and Sounds to customize the footage.
- Snap is now selling the device for $230 in the U.S. and France.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
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Amazon uses data collected from its smart speakers to deliver targeted ads on its own Echo platforms and the web, conflicting with the company's privacy policies, according to new university research. Amazon argued that the research is based on "inaccurate inferences or speculation." More: - The research found that Amazon and third parties collect and share users' voice interactions with Alexa from Echo speakers.
- This data is shared with up to 41 different advertising partners to "infer user interests" and serve the targeted ads, researchers found.
- The smart speaker interactions reportedly generate auction bids from advertisers that are up to 30x higher than bids without the data, they concluded.
- The researchers, from University of Washington, UC Davis, UC Irvine, and Northeastern University, outlined their findings in a pre-print paper, "Your Echos are Heard: Tracking, Profiling, and Ad Targeting in the Amazon Smart Speaker Ecosystem."
Related: - On Thursday, Amazon released its latest quarterly earnings that showed its slowest revenue growth in two decades.
- Amazon reported a $7.6B loss on its Rivian investment after shares of the EV startup lost more than half their value in Q1.
THE VERGE
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 Unofficial render of the Project Cambria headset Meta will release a higher-end virtual-reality headset later this year that will focus on work-use cases. The wearable could eventually replace laptops and work setups, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. More: - The headset, codenamed Project Cambria, will have mixed reality capabilities to overlay the virtual world onto the real world, he said.
- The headset is expected to be more powerful than the Meta Quest 2, the top-selling VR headset that's geared for gaming and socializing.
- However, Cambria will focus on the workplace, presumably for immersive digital office experiences, as part of Meta's long-term plans for the metaverse.
Zoom-out: - In a Facebook post, Zuckerberg said Cambria will have built-in eye and face tracking so avatars can mimic the facial expressions and eye contact of users.
- This "dramatically improves your sense of presence," he wrote.
- The device will also have better ergonomics than the Quest 2 and full-color passthrough mixed reality.
- This improves upon the Quest 2 headset's capabilities, which have passthrough to view outside surroundings while wearing the device but are only in black-and-white.
PC MAG
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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 writing an illustrated book about climate change that will be published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House. 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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