Tesla lowers prices, Meta confirms the release of Llama 3 and Apple allows emulators in the App Store

Hello folks, welcome to Week in Review (WiR), JS’s regular newsletter that recaps the past few days in tech.

Google’s annual enterprise developer conference, Google Cloud Next, dominated the headlines – and there was a lot of attention paid to the event. But it wasn’t the only thing that happened (see: the spectacular solar eclipse).

Lorenzo wrote about how hackers stole more than 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 is unclear why.

Elsewhere, Sarah talked about Spotify’s personalized AI playlists, which allow users to create a playlist based on written prompts.

And Connie reported on the death of entrepreneur Mahbod Moghadam, who rose to fame as the co-founder of Genius, the online music encyclopedia. Moghadam died at the age of 41 due to complications from a recurring brain tumor.

Much more happened. We’ll 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 price drop: Tesla slashed the prices of unsold Model Y SUVs in the US by thousands of dollars in an effort to clear an unprecedented inventory backlog.

Snapchat turns off its solar system: Snapchat has tweaked a feature in its app that visualizes how ‘close’ you are to your friends, after reports found it was worsening teens’ anxiety.

Non-invasive anxiety treatment: Neurovalens, a startup developing technology to deliver non-invasive electrical stimulation of the brain and nervous system, won FDA approval thanks to a 2019 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 apps – within a month.

Emulators in the store: Apple has updated its App Store rules to give retro console game emulators an option to download titles worldwide.

AT&T Breach: AT&T began notifying US state authorities and regulators of a security incident after confirming that millions of customer records posted online last month were authentic.

Financing

Web3 and beauty: Kiki World, a beauty brand that uses web3 for co-creation and customer ownership, closed a $7 million round led by Andreessen Horowitz.

Analysis

Magnets in keyboards: Frederic writes about an intriguing development in mechanical keyboard design: magnetic switches, which can quickly change the actuation point – the point during the keystroke at which the switch registers a downward stroke.

WFH, here to stay: Working from home won’t go away, even if some CEOs want it to. Ron writes that most employees desire flexibility and work-life balance – who would have thought that?

Podcasts

On Shares During the startup-focused Wednesday show, the crew delved into Multiverse’s acquisition of Searchlight, the latest Guesty round, the Monad Labs transaction and a new venture capital fund focused on growth rounds in Africa.

In the meantime, Found it recommended Ben Christensen, the founder and CEO of Cambium, a startup that is reimagining the wood supply chain and reallocating previously wasted materials for use in new construction projects.

Bonus round

Microsoft passwords visible: Security researchers discovered an open and public database hosted on Microsoft’s Azure cloud service that stored internal information related to Microsoft’s Bing search engine. Microsoft says it has fixed the bug.