Apple earnings, Big Tech layoffs, and Google on trial: Tech news

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Image for article titled Apple earnings, Big Tech layoffs, and Google on trial: This week in tech — Graphic: Images: Idrees Abbas/SOPA Images/LightRocket, Idrees Abbas/SOPA Images/LightRocket, Bennett Raglin, Kevin Frayer

This week was a mixed bag for the tech industry.

The AI talent shortage continues to challenge companies, and Meta was put on blast for advertising AI “girlfriend” chatbots in violation of its own policy. Google laid off 200 employees, and Meta’s Oversight Board is planning job cuts. But those reductions aren’t a sign of struggle. Google’s profits have surged, and Meta’s stock price is up 85% from last year.

Apple also had a good week. While the company reported weaker iPhone sales, its second-quarter earnings beat expectations. And the company’s stock price surged as investors cheered the company’s approval of its largest-ever $110 billion stock buybacks.

Google and the Department of Justice are also presenting their closing arguments in a landmark antitrust trial, which is said to be the biggest of the 21st century.

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Meta’s Oversight Board for controversial content is planning layoffs, report says

Meta’s Oversight Board is planning job cuts, The Washington Post reported Monday, citing anonymous sources.

The Oversight Board is a Meta-funded, independent group of experts who help decide whether controversial content should be banned from Facebook and Instagram. Basically, users report posts for being violent, sexually explicit, hateful, or other controversial attributes, and the board is responsible for determining whether those posts stay or go. But the board has been scrutinized for being too slow — taking months to decide whether they’ll take a case and more months to make a decision. In one quarter in 2022, the group took on only three of 347,000 cases submitted by users, The Verge reported. Some critics also say the board has too-limited authority to make substantial decisions for Meta.

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Explicit AI girlfriend chatbot ads are flooding Facebook and Instagram

Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger host thousands of advertisements for sexually explicit AI “girlfriend” chatbots, according to a new report. The generative artificial intelligence chatbots engage with users and generate images and suggestive texts. They also collect a lot of user data.

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Bill Gates remains a quiet Microsoft power broker, report says

Bill Gates sitting in a chair with both his arms up as if he's confused — Bill Gates

Despite publicly distancing himself from the company he founded, Bill Gates has quietly remained active behind the scenes of Microsoft’s artificial intelligence strategy and company operations, according to a new report.

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Sanctions can’t stop Huawei from soaring past Apple in China

People line up outside the Huawei flagship store on September 25, 2023 in Beijing, China.

Photo: Kevin Frayer (Getty Images)

Chinese smartphone-maker Huawei reported a rise in profit for the fourth consecutive quarter, outpacing its rival Apple, and showing its resilience against U.S. sanctions.

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AI powered big profits at Samsung

People walk past the Samsung logo displayed on a glass door at the company’s Seocho building in Seoul.

Photo: JUNG YEON-JE/AFP (Getty Images)

AI has been a big boon for the electronics giant Samsung this year — something the company expects to continue throughout 2024. In a new earnings release, the South Korean company’s chip division saw its operating profit more than triple to 1.9 trillion won ($1.4 billion) during the first quarter from last year.

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Google is dealing with an AI talent shortage — and wants the U.S. to change immigration policy to fix it

Google signage outside its office — Google office in Mountain View, California.

Unlike other parts of the tech industry, the artificial intelligence sector is struggling to find the right recruits, and now a major tech company is asking the U.S. government to update its immigration policies to not lose out on AI talent.

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Microsoft’s fear of Google’s AI dominance likely led to its OpenAI partnership, email shows

Kevin Scott speaking in front of a backdrop that includes pink and black letters on a black and yellow background — Kevin Scott, chief technology officer and executive vice president of AI at Microsoft

Microsoft’s multi-year, multi-billion dollar partnership with OpenAI likely came out of a fear of Google dominating the AI race, an email shows.

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Google is laying off hundreds as it moves ‘Core’ jobs abroad

Google laid off at least 200 staffers on its “Core” team in California, CNBC reported Wednesday. Some of those jobs are relocating to its offices in India and Mexico, the outlet said.

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Amazon CEO’s anti-union comments ‘threatened’ employees and violated labor laws, judge rules

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy (left) speaks with Andrew Sorkin during the New York Times DealBook Summit on November 30, 2022 in New York City.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had a lot to say about his employees’ efforts to unionize in 2022. But those comments, made casually to media outlets, violated federal labor laws, a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) judge ruled this week.

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Google’s landmark antitrust trial is coming to a close

Google and the Department of Justice are presenting their closing arguments in the biggest antitrust trial of the 21st century this Thursday and Friday.

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Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet terminals keep working in places they’re not supposed to

Starlink dish and router, two white rectangular boxes, in a grassy field — Starlink dish and router

Starlink satellite internet terminals are reportedly still operating in unlicensed places, despite the company’s warning last month that the service would be shut down by May 1 in those areas.

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Huawei is secretly funding U.S. research despite being blacklisted, report says

Photo: David Ramos (Getty Images)

Despite being on the U.S. trade blacklist since 2019, Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has secretly been the sole funder of a research competition involving U.S. universities that is administered by a Washington, D.C.-based foundation, a report found.

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Apple’s largest-ever $110 billion stock buyback has investors jacked

Apple’s approval of its biggest-ever, $110 billion stock buyback has investors very excited — so excited that they’re willing to overlook its weak iPhone sales. Immediately following Apple’s announcement of the share repurchases in its fiscal second quarter earnings report, its stock price surged 8% in after-hours trading.

Apple earnings, Big Tech layoffs, and Google on trial: This week in tech

Plus, Bill Gates remains a quiet Microsoft power broker