Hey guys, welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch's regular newsletter recapping the past few days in tech.
Google's annual enterprise-focused development conference, Google Cloud Next, dominated the headlines — and we got big coverage of the event. But it wasn't the only thing afoot (see: stunning eclipse).
Lorenzo wrote about how hackers stole over 340,000 Social Security numbers from government consulting firm Greylock McKinnon Associates (GMA). It took GMA nine months to determine the extent of the breach and notify victims; So far, it's not clear why.
Elsewhere, Sarah got the story into Spotify's custom AI playlists, which allow users to create a playlist based on written prompts.
Kony reported on the death of businessman Mahboob Moghaddam, who rose to fame as co-founder of the online music encyclopedia Genius. Moghaddam died at the age of 41 due to complications from a recurrent brain tumor.
A lot happened. We recap it all in this edition of WiR – but first, a reminder to sign up to receive the WiR newsletter in your inbox every Saturday.
News
Tesla Prices Drop: Tesla has cut prices of unsold Model Y SUVs in the US by thousands of dollars in an effort to clear an unprecedented inventory backlog.
Snapchat is turning off its solar system: Snapchat has tweaked a feature in its app that depicts how “close” you are to your friends after reports revealed it was increasing teen anxiety.
Non-invasive anxiety treatment: Neurovalens, a startup developing technology to deliver non-invasive electrical stimulation to the brain and nervous system, has received FDA approval thanks to a 2019 agency rule change aimed at encouraging innovations targeting insomnia and anxiety.
Llama 3: At an event in London, Meta confirmed that it is planning an initial release of Llama 3 – the next generation of its AI model used to power chatbots and other applications – within the month.
Emulators in the Store: Apple has updated its App Store rules to universally allow emulators of legacy console games the option to download titles.
AT&T breach: AT&T has begun notifying state authorities and US regulators of a security incident after confirming that millions of customer records posted online last month were real.
Finance
Web3 and Beauty: Kiki World, a beauty brand that uses web3 to co-create and co-own clients, has closed a $7 million round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
analysis
Magnets in Keyboards: Frederic writes about an interesting development in mechanical keyboard design: magnetic switches, which can quickly change the actuation point—the point during a key press where the key registers a downstroke.
WFH, here to stay: Working from home isn't going away — even if some CEOs want it to. Ron writes that most employees crave flexibility and work-life balance—who knew?
Podcasts
On Equity's startup-focused Wednesday show, the crew delved into Multiverse's acquisition of Searchlight, the latest guest round, the Monad Labs deal and a new venture capital fund targeting growth rounds in Africa.
At the same time, I found it special Ben Christensen, founder and CEO of Cambium, a startup working to reimagine the timber supply chain and repurpose previously wasted materials for use in new construction projects.
Bonus round
Microsoft Passwords Revealed: Security researchers discovered an open, public database hosted on Microsoft's Azure cloud service that was storing internal information related to Microsoft's Bing search engine. Microsoft says it has resolved this vulnerability.
