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In a pre-holiday shocker, Spotify is laying off 17 percent of its workforce across the company, CEO Daniel Ek announced in a company press release. The cuts are being made due to what Ek called "the challenges ahead" and he elected to make them immediately instead of doing smaller reductions over time. Affected employees will be notified later today, he added."I realize that for many, a reduction of this size will feel surprisingly large given the recent positive earnings report and our performance," Ek wrote. "We debated…

Spotify is eliminating about 17% jobs, its third round of layoffs, as the music streaming looks to become “both productive and efficient.” In a note to employees Monday, Spotify founder and chief executive Daniel Ek said the right-sizing of the workforce is crucial for the company to face the “challenges ahead.” He cited the slow economic growth and rising capital costs among reasons for the job cuts, saying the firm took advantage of lower-cost capital in 2020 and 2021 to invest significantly…

Image Source : FREEPIK Matrimonial site scam (Representational Image) Another day, another online scam!  A 32-year-old woman in Delhi was duped of Rs. 6 lakhs by a man pretending to be a merchant navy officer from Sweden. Narrating her ordeal, the Pratap Nagar resident informed the police that she had been talking to the man named Pradeep Kumar Thakur since September…

Image Source : FILE Samsung Galaxy S24 series to launch in January Samsung is set to launch the biggest offering in the coming year as the company is set to launch their high-end Galaxy S24 series. The company is expected to launch around two to three smartphones in the series- highlighting the Galaxy S24 Ultra, Galaxy S24+ and Galaxy S24. It is rumoured that the…

The company announced it would open up its GPT store, where users will be able to charge for access to custom-made versions of ChatGPT for tackling specific tasks, such as the much-castigated Laundry Buddy, later in November. We are, of course, now in December, and the tumult that faced the company these past few weeks has delayed the storefront’s unveiling to early 2024, according to a company email sent to subscribers of its GPT Builder. (When the future of an $80 billion company is on the line, it’s not surprising that…

The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free. Welcome back to The Station, your central hub for all past, present and future means of moving people and packages from Point A to Point B. Electric vehicles are one of the main characters in this newsletter, so I thought it would be worth noting a less visible — yet fundamental — aspect of the EV storyline here in North America.…

MoveinSync, an Indian startup offering mobility solutions to blue-chip companies for workplace commute, is engaging with investors to raise a growth round, according to people familiar with the deliberations. The 14-year-old startup is engaging with investors to raise about $50–$60 million, part of which is to offer partial exit to some early backers, the people said, requesting anonymity as the matter is private. Bessemer Venture Partners is one of the investors that is engaging with MoveinSync, two people said.…

Back in August, Meta unveiled its multimodal AI translation model, SeamlessM4T, which supports nearly 100 languages for text and 36 for speech. With an updated "v2" architecture, the tech giant is now expanding on this tool to make conversational translations more spontaneous and expressive — the latter a missing key to an authentic conversation across languages.The first of the two new features is "SeamlessExpressive" which, as you can tell by the name, ports your expressions over to your translated speech. These include…

Indonesia’s construction industry is growing quickly, driven by residential and industrial building, alongside infrastructure development plans by the government. Sourcing skilled labor is still a time-intensive process, however, and often relies on personal networks and lengthy recruitment efforts. The founders of Gravel want to change that by making it easier to find workers and other construction professionals. The Jakarta-based startup announced today it has raised $14 million. Investors include New Enterprise…

Image: Warner Bros.With shifting release dates and mandated radio silence due to the Hollywood strikes, the buildup to Dune: Part Two has been nothing short of eventful. While there’s still a few more months before audiences can see it, Warner Bros. is getting the promo ball rolling again with footage screened at CCXP to join the first looks for its other 2024 blockbusters, Furiosa and Kong x Godzilla: The New Empire.Picking up where the last Dune left off, Paul Atreides and his mother Jessica have been taken in by…