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Google on Tuesday said it's piloting a new feature in Chrome called Device Bound Session Credentials (DBSC) to help protect users against session cookie theft by malware. The prototype – currently tested against "some" Google Account users running Chrome Beta – is built with an aim to make it an open web standard, the tech giant's Chromium team said. "By binding authentication sessions to the

Google on Tuesday said it's piloting a new feature in Chrome called Device Bound Session Credentials (DBSC) to help protect users against session cookie theft by malware. The prototype – currently tested against "some" Google Account users running Chrome Beta – is built with an aim to make it an open web standard, the tech giant's Chromium team said. "By binding authentication sessions to the Newsroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]

Recent enhancements have been made to GitHub Actions , a feature of GitHub that enables automation and CI/CD processes for developer teams. The updates focus on boosting security and power for GitHub-hosted runners, virtual machines that execute workflows.

A recent data breach incident disclosed by the OWASP Foundation due to a wiki misconfiguration highlights a critical concern for security practitioners, specifically Linux admins and infosec professionals. The breach exposed personal information from members who joined the foundation between 2006 and 2014.

Attack surface management (ASM) and vulnerability management (VM) are often confused, and while they overlap, they’re not the same. The main difference between attack surface management and vulnerability management is in their scope: vulnerability management checks a list of known assets, while attack surface management assumes you have unknown assets and so begins with discovery. Let’s look at

Attack surface management (ASM) and vulnerability management (VM) are often confused, and while they overlap, they’re not the same. The main difference between attack surface management and vulnerability management is in their scope: vulnerability management checks a list of known assets, while attack surface management assumes you have unknown assets and so begins with discovery. Let’s look at The Hacker Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]

The banking trojan known as Mispadu has expanded its focus beyond Latin America (LATAM) and Spanish-speaking individuals to target users in Italy, Poland, and Sweden. Targets of the ongoing campaign include entities spanning finance, services, motor vehicle manufacturing, law firms, and commercial facilities, according to Morphisec. "Despite the geographic expansion, Mexico remains the

The banking trojan known as Mispadu has expanded its focus beyond Latin America (LATAM) and Spanish-speaking individuals to target users in Italy, Poland, and Sweden. Targets of the ongoing campaign include entities spanning finance, services, motor vehicle manufacturing, law firms, and commercial facilities, according to Morphisec. "Despite the geographic expansion, Mexico remains theNewsroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]

Remember the HomeGroup on Windows 7? This feature made it easy and simple to share files among PCs on your home network. Then Microsoft axed it in Windows 10, making the sharing-files-between-PCs experience more complicated.

The good news is that there are still many great options for sharing files between Windows 10 and Windows 11 PCs. (Some are even easier than using a HomeGroup.)

Looking for the best Windows PC newsletter? My free Windows Intelligence newsletter delivers all the best Windows tips straight to your inbox. Plus, you’ll get free copies of Paul Thurrott’s Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (a $10 value) just for subscribing!

Use wireless Nearby Sharing between PCs

Up first: Windows itself has a built-in “Nearby Sharing” feature that lets you wirelessly send files between nearby PCs. It’s built into both Windows 10 and Windows 11 — it’s like Microsoft’s answer to Apple’s AirDrop or Google’s Nearby Share tool (which Google recently renamed Quick Share).

You can activate it by heading to Settings > System > Nearby sharing (on Windows 11) or Settings > System > Shared experiences (on Windows 10). Once it’s turned on, you can send files to other nearby PCs using Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. All you need to do is use the Share option in File Explorer. (Here’s how to use Nearby Sharing.)

This is an easy-to-set-up, low-effort way to quickly send files. But it’s not exactly an alternative to the traditional HomeGroup for network file sharing; you have to choose to push specific files to another PC at a given moment in time. You can’t just let someone on the other PC browse a file share and grab whichever file they like.

With Nearby Share, File Explorer can send files to other nearby PCs via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

Chris Hoffman

Share files in the cloud via OneDrive

OneDrive is probably the biggest reason Microsoft wanted to ditch HomeGroups. The company wants you to store all your files in OneDrive and then use OneDrive’s built-in sharing features to share them with other people — or access them from other PCs.

Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud storage is integrated into Windows, so this is fairly easy if you use OneDrive. But there’s no reason you couldn’t choose a different cloud storage tool such as Google Drive or Dropbox, if you prefer.

Just store your files in OneDrive and access them there on other PCs. You can right-click a file stored in OneDrive in File Explorer and use the OneDrive menu to configure sharing, if you like. You can even get a link for the file here and send that link to whomever you like.

The other person doesn’t have to be on your local network, which means OneDrive sharing is very convenient in many situations. But it’s not necessarily ideal for sharing large files on your local network, as those files would have to be stored in a cloud and then repeatedly uploaded and downloaded via your internet connection.

Windows stores folders like your Documents and Desktop in OneDrive by default, making cloud-based sharing easy.

Chris Hoffman

Set up traditional Windows network file sharing

Microsoft may have removed HomeGroups, but it didn’t remove traditional network file sharing in Windows. Businesses still use the feature, and it’s built into modern Windows 10 and Windows 11 Home PCs.

Network file sharing is a tad confusing — in fact, HomeGroups were designed to make this technical stuff easier to set up and use for the average user. With HomeGroups gone, you’re dealing with the raw and finicky network file sharing bits of Windows again.

Before you continue, bear in mind that this feature should only be used on private networks — such as your Wi-Fi network at home — and not on public networks like those at coffee shops or hotels.

The basic process for setting up network file sharing on your home network is simple:

• First, you need to tell your PCs they’re on a private network. To do so, open the Settings app, select “Network & internet,” click “Wi-Fi” if you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network or “Ethernet” if you’re connected to a wired network, and click the name of the network. Ensure it’s set to “Private” under the network profile area.

Windows automatically marks Wi-Fi networks as public when you connect to them for security reasons. Mark them as private to enable features like network file sharing.

Chris Hoffman

• Next, open File Explorer and click “Network” in the left sidebar. If you see a banner saying “File sharing is turned off” at the top of the window, click it and then select “Turn on network discovery and file sharing.”

Windows automatically marks Wi-Fi networks as public when you connect to them for security reasons. Mark them as private to enable features like network file sharing.

Chris Hoffman

Be sure to follow the above steps on each PC you want to participate in the file sharing.

Now, file sharing is ready to go — as long as you’re connected to a private network. But you won’t see any shared files.

To eliminate confusion over usernames and passwords, some people create local user accounts to make sharing permissions work nicely. You could certainly do this. But Microsoft recommends something simpler: Creating a network file share that’s shared with everyone on your network, thereby avoiding any username and password issues.

• First, consider what you want to share. I recommend just creating a new folder for shared item — I personally created a new folder at C:\Shared Files.
• Next, right-click that folder in File Explorer. Select Give access to > Specific people. If you are using Windows 11, you’ll have to click “Show more options” in the context menu before you see the “Give access to” submenu.
• Now, in the Choose people to share with window, click the little down arrow in the box at the top of the window, select “Everyone,” and click “Share.”

Microsoft recommends sharing a folder with “Everyone” on your home network for maximum simplicity.

Chris Hoffman

You can now open File Explorer on another PC on your network, click “Network,” and double-click the name of the PC sharing the files — and you’ll find the shared files. I successfully used this method to share files between Windows 10 and Windows 11 PCs with no further configuration.

As the name implies, this will share the files you choose with everyone on your network, so act accordingly. The files will only be shared when you’re on a network marked private, however — so just be sure to leave public Wi-Fi networks marked public in Windows after you connect.

This is an easy way to quickly and easily set up file sharing on your home network without any concerns about usernames, passwords, and access rules.

Use network-attached storage or USB drives

Sometimes, the old ways are best. In many cases — especially with modern, lightning-fast USB drives — it might be faster to plug an external drive into one computer, copy files to it, and then move that drive to another computer. A large, fast, inexpensive USB drive may be all you need. If you go this route, you won’t have to worry about networking issues at all.

Another option is to rely less on Windows file sharing and more on a dedicated network attached storage device, also known as a NAS. Your NAS becomes your primary network-attached file server. Unlike your PC, the NAS is always on, storing files and making them accessible to all your computers — and it will use less power than a PC, too. NAS hardware is also packed with other features — for example, a NAS could function as a networked media server you can stream media from or even let you access those shared files over the internet. You can also use your NAS as a backup location for your PC.

While it’s true that Microsoft nudged HomeGroups aside to make way for a greater emphasis on OneDrive cloud storage, it’s also true that many computer geeks who would have previously used HomeGroups on Windows now rely on NAS hardware instead. If you want to have a big network file share the old-fashioned way, NAS is your best option.

Get even more Windows PC tips and tricks with my Windows Intelligence newsletter — three things to try every Friday and free Windows Field Guides as soon as you sign up!

File Sharing, Microsoft, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 11

Generative AI-assisted coding allows developers to write code faster — and often, more accurately — using digital tools to create code based on natural language prompts or partial code inputs. (Like some email platforms, the tools can also suggest code for auto-completion as it’s written in real time.)

AI-assisted code generation tools are increasingly prevalent in software engineering, and somewhat unexpectedly, have become low-hanging fruit for most organizations experimenting with generative AI (genAI). Adoption rates are skyrocketing. That’s because even if they only suggest a baseline of code for a new application, automation tools can eliminate hours that otherwise would have been devoted to manual code creation and updating.

Evans Data Corp., a market research firm that specializes in software development, conducted a multinational survey of 434 AI and machine learning developers. When asked what they most likely would create using genAI tools, the top answer was software code, followed by algorithms and large language models (LLMs). They also said they expect genAI to shorten the development lifecycle and make it easier to add machine-learning features.

By 2027, 70% of professional developers will be using AI-powered coding tools, up from less than 10% in September 2023, according to Gartner Research. And within three years, 80% of enterprises will have integrated AI-augmented testing tools into their software engineering toolchain — a significant increase from approximately 15% early last year, Gartner said.

One of the top tools used for genAI-automated software development is GitHub Copilot. GitHub Copilot is powered by generative AI models developed by GitHub, OpenAI, and Microsoft, and is trained on all natural languages that appear in public repositories.

Since GitHub Copilot for business was launched last year, more than 50,000 organizations have signed up to use it, including digital natives such as Etsy and HelloFresh, as well as leading enterprises including Autodesk, Dell Technologies, and Goldman Sachs, according to Amanda Silver, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Developer Division. (Microsoft acquired GitHub in 2018.)

GitHub Copilot now has more than 1.3 million paid subscribers, according to Silver. “With 50,000 licenses, Accenture is now GitHub’s largest Copilot customer to date,” Silver said.

Along with GitHub’s Copilot, some of the most popular code-generation tools include Google Bard, Amazon CodeWhisperer, Microsoft 365 Copilot (powered by GPT), Replit, Divi AI, Tabnine, Refact.ai, and Codeium. Most are free or come as part of a larger AI-enabled subscription service.

AI-powered software augmentation tools can have an enormous impact on developer efficiency and productivity. Amazon Web Services (AWS), for example, ran a productivity challenge and found developers who used its CodeWhisperer code development tool were 27% more likely to complete tasks successfully and did so an average of 57% faster than those who didn’t use the tool. 

(Amazon Q is a genAI-based chatbot developed by Amazon for enterprise use and it underpins its CodeWhisperer tool. Amazon Q is powered by Amazon Bedrock—which offers access to a selection of models including from the Amazon Titan family.)

According to an AWS-Persistent study, developers using Amazon CodeWhisperer’s customization capability completed their tasks an additional 28% faster than without customizations.

For example, a team of five Amazon developers used Amazon Q Code Transformation to upgrade 1,000 production applications from Java 8 to Java 17 in just two days. The average time per application was less than 10 minutes compared to the two days it used to take to upgrade one app, according to an Amazon spokesperson.

Since becoming generally available in April 2023, Amazon CodeWhisperer has garnered more than 100,000 customers. For example, software development and outsourcing services company HCLTech is rolling out Amazon CodeWhisperer to more than 50,000 HCLTech engineers, cloud practitioners and developers to build secure applications for use both internally and for clients.

Over the next two years, Accenture plans to enroll 50,000 development engineers in AWS AI services, including Amazon Q and Amazon CodeWhisperer.

Because genAI software development tools are based on LLMs, they’re  trained on millions or billions of lines of code, with the most popular platforms capable of working with any number of coding languages, from C to Python.

Amazon’s CodeWhisperer is available as part of the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio (VS) Code and JetBrains. It currently supports Python, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, C#, Go, Rust, PHP, Ruby, Kotlin, C, C++, Shell scripting, SQL, Scala, JSON, YAML, and HCL.

“In our early experimentation, we were doing a lot of work in Python, JavaScript and languages like that,” GitHub COO Kyle Daigle said in an earlier interview with Computerworld. “GitHub is mainly a Ruby company, but we also write in Go, and C, and FirGit. And so we were expanding our use cases of Copilot and using it in different languages. But overall, Copilot is able to work on the vast majority of languages that are in the public sphere.”

Relying on nothing more than user prompts based on natural language processing, genAI-assisted code generators can offer software code suggestions ranging from snippets to full functions. And updates can make the tools even better.

Amazon, for instance, said updates to its CodeWhisperer tool increased code acceptance rates from around 20% on average to 35% across all languages and use cases. 

“Now, with Amazon Q included with CodeWhisperer, developers can ask about their code, and leverage Amazon Q’s capabilities to find bugs, optimize, and translate code they are working on,” Doug Seven, general manager of Amazon CodeWhisperer and director of software development for Amazon Q, said in a blog.

Why is AI-assisted coding so powerful?

One of the more heralded aspects of AI-assisted coding is that users don’t have to be versed in software development. Natural language processing allows even business users to simply write a prompt and get back the software needed for any number of projects.

For example, users can write a comment in natural language that outlines a specific task in English, such as, “Upload a file with server-side encryption.” Based on that information, CodeWhisperer recommends one or more code snippets directly in the development platform to accomplish the task, according to an Amazon spokesperson.

Many of the coding tools also come with enhanced code securitycapabilities scans and code remediation suggestions. Some even come with “bias” filtering and reference trackers, which detect whether a code suggestion might be similar to open-source training data. The latter are important features in an AI-based coding assistant.

Amazon and other providers are also experimenting with tools to assist non-developers in producing apps for business purposes. For example, an Amazon spokesperson said the company sees the engagement of non-developers as a priority for making AI accessible. They released PartyRock, an edutainment generative AI application builder that allows non-developers to work with genAI and LLMs in a sandbox environment, publicly after it went viral internally.

“You can experiment with building different applications,” Seven said in an interview with Computerworld. “We’ll see an increase in different tools for different personas that will use generative AI. I think we’re just scratching the surface on where we’ll see genAI in different places. We’ll start to see more and more of these tools.”

Accuracy rates vary

Seven said code acceptance rates for CodeWhisperer are around 30% to 40%, but that doesn’t mean the code it wrote was incorrect or error ridden. The acceptance rate refers to whether the genAI tool correctly interpreted what the developer asked it to do.

Seven described something akin to a conversation between a developer and an AI-code generator, where the developer asks it to produce something and then modifies the request with follow-up requests. The ability of CodeWhisperer to produce error-free, usable code is “quite high,” though Seven said Amazon doesn’t reveal internal metrics. 

Anecdotally, developers and IT leaders have placed the ability of popular AI-based code augmentation tools to correctly generate usable code at anywhere from 50% to 80%.

“We had this as a hypothesis. Now we’re starting to see this in actual studies,” said Derek Holt, CEO of AI-powered software delivery provider Digital.ai.

According to a study by Cornell University last year, there’s a wide variance between various genAI coding tools. The study showed ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot and Amazon CodeWhisperer generate correct code 65.2%, 64.3% and 38.1% of the time, respectively.

While the study is a year old, the accuracy rates for the AI-assisted code tools is “more or less the same” today, according to Burak Yetiştiren, the paper’s lead author and a graduate student researcher at UCLA’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science.

A study by GitClear, a developer tool for GitHub and GitLab that provides code analysis and git stats, examined more than 153 million lines of code from 2020 to 2023. Highlighting key shifts in code churn, duplication, and age, it explored the impact of AI tools like GitHub Copilot on programming practices.

Among GitClear’s findings was that developers write code 55% faster when using Copilot. When GitClear looked at GitHub’s code quality and maintainability compared to what would have been written by a human, it found less experienced developers have a greater advantage with AI-assisted programming compared to veteran developers.

GitHub’s own data suggests that junior developers use Copilot about 20% more than more experienced developers, the research found.

GitClear conducted a corresponding survey of 500 developers and asked, “What metrics should you be evaluated on, when actively using AI?” The top three issues they named were code quality, time to complete task, and number of production incidents.

“When developers are inundated with quick and easy suggestions that will work in the short term, it becomes a constant temptation to add more lines of code without really checking whether an existing system could be refined for reuse,” GitClear’s paper said.

More code, but more errors?

Developers are producing 45% more code with the automation tools, according to Digital.ai’s Holt, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.

“The main challenge with AI-assisted programming, however, is that it becomes so easy to generate a lot of code which shouldn’t have been written in the first place,” Adam Tornhill, founder & CTO at CodeScene, said on X/Twitter. 

Another wrinkle is that when code is not generated by humans, it is more opaque. As a result, quality challenges are emerging, including questions about whether code can effectively be tested for errors and security holes.

In a survey of software engineers last year (96% of whom used AI-based coding tools) by developer security platform Snyk, more than half said insecure AI code suggestions were common. 

“That shouldn’t surprise us,” Holt said. “It’s early days and we’re training these models on all of the code in certain repositories. All you’re going to do is repeat the mistakes that were made by the developers who wrote that original code.”

Given that much of a developer’s time is spent fixing existing code — not writing new features — the ability to read code and find issues when it’s not written by humans becomes yet another issue, Holt said.

Even with those issues, developers wouldn’t be adopting tools like Copilot if they didn’t believe it accelerated their ability to produce code. GitHub’s research on the former point found “developers are 75% more fulfilled when using Copilot.”

In a study of 450 Accenture developers using Copilot for six months, 88% of suggested code was retained, build success rate increased by 45%, and every developer surveyed reported Copilot was useful, according to Microsoft’s Silver.

Churn, moved and copy/paste code issues

GitClear, however, also found that with the increased use of AI-assisted programming, the amount of “Churn,” “Moved,” and “Copy/Pasted” code increased significantly.

“Churn” is the percentage of code that is pushed to the repository, then subsequently reverted, removed or updated within two weeks. It was relatively rare when developers authored all their own code; only 3% to 4% of code was churned prior to 2023. 

But overall code churn jumped 9% the first year Copilot was available in beta — the same year that ChatGPT became available. 

From 2022 through 2023, the rise of AI assistants was strongly correlated with “mistake code” being pushed to the repository. Copilot prevalence — its use in generating code — was 0% in 2021, 5% to 10% in 2022, and 30% in 2023, GitClear found. 

“If the current pattern continues into 2024, more than 7% of all code changes will be reverted within two weeks, double the rate of 2021,” GitClear’s report said.

There is perhaps no greater scourge to long-term code maintainability than copy/pasted code. That’s because code that’s simply reused can also contain previous mistakes, security holes or other issues.

“I have no doubt we’ll be able to figure out the problems, and we’ll be able to train models on small amounts of code created only by our best developers,” Holt said. “But right now you’re getting a junior developer, and if you’re not paying attention to what that means to the broader software development lifecycle, you’re going to be running some risks.”

Amazon’s Seven argued that one of the strengths of CodeWhisperer and other products is their ability to examine existing code for errors and then suggest changes. “So, it’ll actually give you the code to make that change,” Seven said. “The advantage of using Amazon Q [CodeWhisperer] in this context is as a developer, you have a debugging companion.”

That “could be particularly useful in checking for discrepancies in existing code that may not be familiar to developers. And Q is really good at that,” he said.

Another advantage of automated tools is that they can be used in a set-and-forget mode, where a developer or engineer simply explains a task and then the tools complete it independently – whether developing a new application or debugging an existing one. “In either case, the accuracy of the code, and the quality of the code, is really quite high,” Seven said.

What’s not in question is that over time, software generation tools will continue to improve — though there will always be the need for a human in the loop.

 “My gut tells me there will always be roles for developers, whether that’s reviewing or catalogizing or a mixture of both,” Holt said. “We’re not even talking about the fact that delivering code is not the goal. …Delivering great features that customers love is the actual goal. 

“So, from my view, I still have a long career ahead of me in software development.”

Developer, Emerging Technology, Generative AI

A critical security flaw impacting the LayerSlider plugin for WordPress could be abused to extract sensitive information from databases, such as password hashes. The flaw, designated as CVE-2024-2879, carries a CVSS score of 9.8 out of a maximum of 10.0. It has been described as a case of SQL injection impacting versions from 7.9.11 through 7.10.0. The issue has been addressed in version

A critical security flaw impacting the LayerSlider plugin for WordPress could be abused to extract sensitive information from databases, such as password hashes. The flaw, designated as CVE-2024-2879, carries a CVSS score of 9.8 out of a maximum of 10.0. It has been described as a case of SQL injection impacting versions from 7.9.11 through 7.10.0. The issue has been addressed in version Newsroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]

After two years of massive layoffs at IT companies, 2024 was expected to be a year of recovery for the IT industry. While there are early signs of that, with global IT spending expected to increase 8% to cross $5.1 trillion in 2024 according to Gartner, jobs continue to be impacted in the sector. Some of the layoffs being seen this year are an extension of job cuts announced in 2023.

Last year, tech giants including Amazon, Cisco, Facebook parent company Meta, Microsoft, Google, IBM, SAP, and Salesforce—as well as many smaller companies —announced sweeping job cuts.

The problem: Big Tech went on a hiring binge during the pandemic when lockdowns sparked a tech buying spree to support remote work and an uptick in e-commerce, and now they face revenue declines.

According to data compiled by Layoffs.fyi, the online tracker keeping tabs on job losses in the technology sector, 1,186 tech companies laid off about 262,682 staff in 2023, compared to 164,969 layoffs in 2022. In 2024, 168 tech companies have already laid off 42,324 employees.

Here is a list—to be updated regularly—of some of the most prominent technology layoffs the industry has experienced recently.

Tech layoffs in 2024

• Dell
• Cisco
• Docusign
• Microsoft
• SAP
• EBay
• Google
• Alphabet

April 1: Dell acknowledges 13,000 job cuts

Dell Technologies’ latest 10K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission disclosed that the company had laid off 13,000 employees over the course of the 2023 fiscal year; it characterized the layoffs and other reorganizational moves as cost-cutting measures. “These actions resulted in a reduction in our overall headcount,” the company said. A comparison to the previous year’s 10K filing, performed by The Register, found that Dell employed 133,000 people at that point, compared to 120,000 as of February 2024. Dell announced layoffs of 6,650 staffers on Feb. 6, but it is unclear whether those cuts were reflected in the numbers from this year’s 10K statement.

Feb. 14: Cisco cuts 5% of workforce

Cisco will shed 4,200 of its 84,900 employees as it refocuses on more profitable areas of its business, including AI and security. The company’s last major round of layoffs was in November 2022. Cisco’s sales of telecommunications equipment have been hit by delays at telcos in rolling out equipment they havealready purchased. AI, on the other hand, is a growing business for Cisco, with AI-related sales in the billions—and that’s before it announced its recent partnership with Nvidia, which is making bank on sales of chips for AI applications. 

Feb. 6 DocuSign will lay off 6% of workforce in restructuring

Digital workflow company DocuSign will lay off 440 of its 7,336 staff as it seeks to cut costs. The lay-offs come amid reports that attempts to sell the company to investment firms have fallen apart after a failure to agree on price.

Jan. 25: Microsoft axes 1,900 workers in its gaming division

Roughly 8% of Microsoft’s Gaming division is headed for unemployment, the company announced Thursday, with the lion’s share of job cuts affecting the newly acquired Activision Blizzard subsidiary. Microsoft completed its purchase of Activision Blizzard in October 2023, paying nearly $69 billion. About 1,900 employees will be let go, along with two executives at Blizzard: Mike Ybarra and Allen Adham. A pending survival game title, according to Reuters, has also been cancelled. The layoffs were largely expected in the wake of the Microsoft acquisition.

Jan. 24: SAP announces $2.2B restructuring program that’ll impact 8,000 jobs

German enterprise software giant SAP said this week that 8,000 jobs will be “impacted” by a large-scale shift in company priorities towards generative artificial intelligence (genAI). It’s unclear how many of the affected employees will be laid off, as the company has said many of the impacts will involve “voluntary leave programs and internal re-skilling measures.” SAP said the restructuring will not result in an overall loss of headcount. The company cut more than 3,000 jobs in 2023. Analysts expect the move to skew SAP’s workforce younger and more expert in genAI.

Jan. 23: EBay slashes 1,000 jobs as expenses rise

Online retailer eBay plans to cut nearly 10% of its workforce—about 1,000 jobs—saying “in an official blog post that “headcount and expenses have outpaced the growth of our business.” All of the company’s US workforce was told to work from home Wednesday as the firings were carried out via Zoom. Additionally, eBay said it would “scale back” on its work with outside contractors in a further attempt to rein in costs. The company fired 500 workers last year after sales slackened in the wake of the pandemic boom, according to NPR.

Jan. 17: Google to replace part of ad sales team with AI

Google’s ad sales team lost several hundred staff from its large customer department, part of the company’s move to automate some jobs with machine learning. Reports suggest that more staffers from the ad sales team were also let go in October 2023. The company also laid off hundreds more employees from its digital voice assistant, Fitbit, and Pixel teams earlier in the week. Google has been steadily shedding jobs since January 2023, when parent company Alphabet downsized its entire workforce by 6% across the board, putting 12,000 people out of work.

Jan. 11: Alphabet lays off hundreds from engineering, hardware, and digital assistant teams

Alphabet announced that it is laying off hundreds of employees from several teams, including engineering and the teams responsible for its digital voice assistant and hardware products, including Fitbit wearable devices and Pixel smartphones. The reorganization of the hardware teams will see a consolidation of different teams responsible for different devices, such as Nest, Pixel, and Fitbit, combined under a single team, which will be responsible for all devices, the news portal reported, adding that the activity has also seen the departure of Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman.

Tech layoffs in 2023

• Broadcom
• Amazon
• Splunk
• Stack Overflow
• Qualcomm
• Meta
• Alphabet
• Cisco
• Oracle
• Red Hat
• …and more

Dec. 4: Twilio sheds jobs in third round of layoffs

Twilo’s third significant staff reduction in the past year saw the likely loss of 300-400 workers at the cloud communications company. The most heavily affected were workers in the sales teams for the company’s contact center software and consumer data products. Twilo said in a statement that the layoffs were necessary to “optimize” the company’s technology, data and analytics business for growth. The employees affected were given 12 weeks of salary as a severance package, plus additional pay for every year worked at the company. The costs of the layoffs and associated severance payments were estimated by Twilo at between $25 million and $35 million.

Dec. 1: Broadcom to lay off over 1,200 VMware employees as deal closes

Mere days after the final closing of Broadcom’s mammoth $69 billion acquisition of VMware, Broadcom laid off 1,267 VMware employees. The move had been long feared among VMware workers, according to multiple reports. The affected employees mostly worked at VMware’s Palo Alto offices, and a filing with the California Employment Development Department detailed that further job cuts were on the table. Stephen Elliot, a group vice president at IDC, said that the layoffs were likely to be greeted with approval by VMware’s customers and partners, and viewed as a refocusing of the company’s efforts.

Nov. 20: Amazon to cut jobs at Alexa unit to sharpen focus on generative AI 

Amazon confirmed that it is planning to lay off several hundred workers at its Alexa division as part of a shift in focus to generative AI. “As we continue to invent, we’re shifting some of our efforts to better align with our business priorities, and what we know matters most to customers—which includes maximizing our resources and efforts focused on generative AI,” the company said in a statement. Amazon has already undertaken multiple rounds of layoffs in the last 12 months and this is not the first time Amazon’s devices and services team, which includes those working on the company’s Echo devices and Alexa, has been cut back. Employees in this department were part of 18,000 jobs Amazon axed at the start of 2023.

Nov. 1: Splunk cuts 7% of workforce ahead of Cisco acquisition

Network management and visualization vendor Splunk announced it would be cutting about 560 jobs as part of a global restructuring. The announcement comes after Splunk announced a first wave of 325 job cuts in February. “The overall market has retracted and we expect the macro environment will continue to be unpredictable for the foreseeable future,” said Splunk president and CEO Gary Steele in message to employees. He added that the job cuts are unrelated to the company’s pending $28 billion acquisition by networking giant Cisco, which was initially announced in September of this year, stating that the changes were simply the continuation of “important initiatives” Splunk has undertaken to align its resources and operating structure.

Oct. 19: Nokia to cut 14,000 jobs in an attempt to salvage falling profits

Telecom giant Nokia announced it will be cutting up to 14,000 jobs, a decision it blamed on the slowing demand for 5G equipment. The news comes after the company reported that its third-quarter net sales declined by 20% year-on-year, with profit over the same period dropping by 69%. Nokia said that as a result, it will be implementing cost-cutting measures to try and save between $842 million and $1.2 billion by 2026, eliminating $422 million worth of costs in 2024 and a further $316 million in 2025.

Oct. 16: Generative AI forces Stack Overflow to lay off 28% of its workforce

Stack Overflow said it was laying off nearly a third of its workforce to replace it with generative AI-driven coding assistants, such as Microsoft Copilot, Amazon CodeWhisperer, and Google Bard. The downsizing activity, which impacted the go-to-market and support teams, was a result of the company’s strategy to focus on its products and move toward profitability, especially at a time when macroeconomic conditions are uncertain, company CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar wrote in a blog post.

Oct. 13: Qualcomm to lay off 1,258 employees from its California offices

Qualcomm is set to cut 1,258 employees by December this year, according to filings made to the state’s Employment Development Department. Layoffs at the chipmaking giant will affect its San Diego and Santa Clara offices and encompass roles such as engineers, analysts, software developers, and employees in finance, legal, and human resources. These job reductions are a response to the company’s recent financial struggles, with revenue down 23% year-on-year and net income down 52% for the quarter ending June.

Oct. 4: Meta to lay off staffers at its Facebook Agile Silicon Team: Report

Facebook’s parent, Meta, laid off employees from its metaverse custom silicon unit, affecting Facebook’s Agile Silicon Team or FAST, according to a Reuters report. FAST is home to nearly 600 Facebook employees, according to the report. The job cuts at FAST come just days after the company released its Quest 3 mixed reality headsets, which are expected to offer a metaverse play.

Sept. 15: Low-code platform provider Airtable enacts new round of layoffs

Airtable, a low-code software company, underwent its second round of layoffs within nine months, cutting around 237 employees, equivalent to 27% of its workforce. CEO Howie Liu explained that these measures aim to target large enterprise clients and regain control over spending. This move follows a similar downsizing effort in December 2022, which affected 254 employees. Airtable anticipates achieving cash-flow positivity after these layoffs. The decision reflects a post-pandemic shift from hypergrowth to a more sustainable business model.

Sept 14: Alphabet layoffs: Company trades recruitment team for tech talent

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, initiated another round of layoffs, this time affecting hundreds of employees within its recruiting team. The move is part of Alphabet’s ongoing efforts to streamline its operations and increase efficiency amid economic uncertainties. The tech giant is grappling with fierce competition from industry rivals like Microsoft, AWS, IBM, and Oracle, particularly in the field of generative AI and artificial intelligence. In a strategic shift, Alphabet is focusing its workforce toward engineering and technical roles, reflecting a broader trend in the tech industry.

August 14: SecureWorks lays off 15% of workforce

Cybersecurity company SecureWorks announced it is laying off 15% of its workforce, around 300 employees. This constitutes the second round of layoffs enacted by company this year, with the company announcing a 9% reduction in the size of its workforce in February. In a regulatory filing, SecureWorks said that it would incur about $14.2 million in expenses due to the layoffs, mostly related to employee termination benefits and real-estate costs. “We are announcing actions to simplify and scale our business and to deliver profitable growth,” wrote CEO Wendy Thomas in an email to employees on August 14, adding that the company would be “continuing to invest in the growth of our business, aligned to our strategic priorities.”

August 8: Cybersecurity company Rapid7 cuts 18% of workforce

US cybersecurity firm Rapid7 announced plans to lay off 18% of its workforce, approximately 400 global employees. “As we accelerate our delivery of the leading security operations solution and service platform experience to customers, we have determined it is necessary to restructure our operations, including the difficult decision to reduce our team in the near term,” CEO Corey Thomas said in a letter to staff. In a regulatory filing with the SEC, Boston-based Rapid7 estimated that the restructuring plan will incur costs of between $24 million-$32 million in charges and will be “substantially complete” by the end of the fourth quarter of 2023. The company added that it also plans to permanently close a number of undisclosed office locations as a result of the restructuring, which will cost an additional $4 million. The announcement was made in tandem with Rapid7’s 2023 second quarter financial results, where the company reported a loss of $66.8 million during the three-months ending June 30.

July 20: Cisco says this week’s layoffs were announced last November

Networking giant Cisco Systems announced another round of layoffs. Despite employees viewing the move as fresh cuts, the company clarified that these layoffs were part of the restructuring plan announced in November 2022, which included eliminating around 5% of its 83,000 workforce. The reduction aims to rebalance the organization and prioritize investments in key areas, Cisco said. Cisco reiterated that the layoffs aren’t solely driven by cost savings, but by the need to adapt to the changing technology landscape. The company plans to support affected employees with generous severance packages and assistance in finding new roles. However, disgruntled employees expressed dismay, highlighting the impact of losing jobs regardless of whether they were previously announced.

July 8: Evernote lays off US, Chile staff as it moves to Europe

Evernote, the maker of the note-taking app of the same name, is laying off most of its staff in the US and Chile and moving to Italy, the home of its corporate parent, Bending Spoons. “Going forward, a dedicated (and growing) team based in Europe will continue to assume ownership of the Evernote product,” company CEO Francesco Patarnello said in a message to employees. He did not specify the number of staff to be laid off, but said that affected employees in most cases will receive 16 weeks of salary, up to one year of health insurance coverage, and a performance bonus. Bending Spoons, which acquired Evernote in November last year, had enacted a round of layoffs in February that affected more than 100 employees.

June 16: Despite growth, Oracle reported to cut jobs at Cerner healthcare unit

Oracle laid off hundreds of employees and rescinded job offers for its Cerner healthcare unit, acquired earlier this year for $28 billion, according to a report by Insider. The layoffs were reportedly due to problems with Cerner’s project for the US Department of Veterans Affairs Office. The VA has raised concerns about technical glitches and patient safety issues with its new electronic health record system, and the layoffs cast a shadow over Oracle’s optimistic outlook for Cerner. Company executives expect Cerner to be a crucial factor in future growth, considering the healthcare industry’s ongoing digital transformation as the sector adopts electronic healthcare records. Just days before the Cerner layoffs came to light, Oracle announced that quarterly cloud revenue experienced a significant surge, increasing 54% year-over-year and contributing to record sales for the fiscal year.

June 1: Zendesk to lay off another 8% of its staff, cites macroeconomic issues

CRM software provider Zendesk implemented a new round of layoffs, reducing its workforce by a further 8% due to ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty and increased competition from rivals. The move came just six months after the company laid off 300 employees for similar reasons. CEO Tom Eggemeier announced the decision in an email to all employees, which was later posted as a blog. Eggemeier highlighted the need to align the company’s employee structure with customer goals, as enterprise customers consider adopting newer technologies like generative AI. Eggemeier said he believes Zendesk has an opportunity to lead in the new era of intelligent customer experience (CX), with solutions such as Zendesk AI and Conversational Commerce.

May 11: Developer-focused portal Stack Overflow lays off 10% of staff

Stack Overflow, the question-and-answer portal for developers, announced that it will lay off 10% of its workforce, affecting at least 58 employees. The job cuts come as the company shifts its focus to profitability amid macroeconomic concerns, according to a blog post by CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar. Affected employees include UX designers, HR professionals, product designers, and senior software developers. To improve profitability, Stack Overflow plans to launch AI and ML-based offerings in the coming months. This move is likely in response to demand from enterprises for generative AI and natural language processing capabilities, as vendors like AWS, IBM, and Google have launched new product offerings in this space.

May 9: LinkedIn lays off 716 staffers, to shut China job app

Employment-focused social media platform LinkedIn on Tuesday said it would let go of 716 staffers as it shuts down a job search app in China and prepares for tapering revenue growth.  According to a letter to employees from CEO Ryan Roslansky, the layoffs were designed to reorganize the company and become more agile. He noted that the company had experienced shifts in customer behavior and slower revenue growth in recent months. In addition to the layoffs, the company will spin up 250 new roles in specific segments of its operations, new business, and account management teams starting May 15. The company will also phase out the local job app InCareer by August 9, 2023, as part of its business strategy changes in China.

May 4: Cognizant cuts 3,500 jobs in post-COVID, hybrid work restructuring plan

Technology services and consulting company Cognizant is set to cut around 1% of its global workforce, or approximately 3,500 employees, in a bid to reduce costs. Despite posting a 3% increase in net profit year-on-year for its most recent quarter, Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar said the company was monitoring an uncertain macroeconomic environment and potential shifts in client priorities. The job cuts are part of the company’s NextGen program, which aims to simplify its operating model and realign office space. Cognizant has not confirmed where the affected workers are based, but it did say the cuts would mostly affect non-billable roles. In a statement, Cognizant said the changes reflect the post-pandemic hybrid work environment, and its drive for simplification includes operating with fewer layers to enhance agility and enable faster decision-making.

April 27: Dropbox lays off 16% of staff to refocus on AI, as sales growth slows

Facing a slowdown in revenue growth, cloud storage company Dropbox announced that it is laying off 500 employees, or 16% of its workforce, mainly in order to be able to hire staff with AI expertise. Although revenue for the fourth quarter last year—the last quarter for which Dropbox reported earnings—was up by 5.8% year over year to $598.8 million, the company has experienced a slowdown in sales recently. Meanwhile, in order to stay competitive, the company needs to ramp up its AI capabilities, CEO Drew Houston said in a note to employees.

April 24: Red Hat cuts 4% of global staff

Enterprise Linux giant Red Hat announced it will lay off almost 4% of its global staff, or about 800 workers, noting that the cuts will affect general administrative staff, not technical workers or sales people. The company has helped boost sales for corporate parent IBM, which reported that in the first quarter of the year, Red Hat revenue jumped 8% year over year. Despite the sales growth Red Hat CEO Matt Hicks said that a staff restructuring was necessary to ramp up efforts to bolster the company’s open hybrid cloud strategy, particularly for the industries including  telecommunications and automotive.

April 20: Technical teams hit by Meta’s latest wave of layoffs

Facebook’s parent company, Meta, initiated another round of  layoffs. These were previosuly announced—the difference this time is that many of the cuts reportedly affect technical employees. The latest wave of job cuts will see approximately 4,000 employees laid off from the company, including those in user experience, software engineering, graphics programming, and gameplay programming. The timeline for the cuts may differ, depending on the locations employees, Meta said. Instagram, a Meta subsidiary, is also downsizing or relocating UK-based staff, with the app’s head, Adam Mosseri, moving back to the US.

March 30: Kyndryl lays off staff in search of efficiency

Kyndryl, the managed IT services provider that spun out of IBM, announced layoffs affecting its internal IT services to streamline operations and become more competitive. The exact number of affected employees was not disclosed, but anonymous comments on job-loss monitoring website The Layoff.com suggested that staff in IT asset management roles and Kyndryl’s own CIO organization were among those let go. Kyndryl, which employs 90,000 globally, has been facing declining revenue and slow growth since its separation from IBM.

March 23: Accenture to lay off 19,000 to cut costs amid economic uncertainty

IT services and consultancy firm Accenture announced it would lay off 19,000 employees, or 2.5% of its workforce, over the next 18 months to reduce costs amid uncertain economic conditions. Tech workers were expected to be largely spared though, as the company said the cuts would primarily affect non-billable corporate functions. The decision came as demand for services stabilized following post-pandemic growth, and Accenture also lowered its fiscal year 2023 revenue growth forecast. Despite the reduced forecast, Accenture’s diversified business and industry mix is expected to provide stability for the tech services giant.

March 20: Amazon to lay off 9,000 more workers, including some at AWS

Amazon said it plans to lay off about 9,000 more workers from several business units, including AWS, PXT (People Experience and Technology, the company’s HR arm), Advertising, and Twitch. The announcement came two months after Amazon unveiled plans to lay off 18,000 employees. AWS is a big revenue generator for Amazon but has not been immune to current macroeconomic conditions. Revenue growth slowed sharply in the fourth quarter of 2022, to 20% in year-on-year terms. That’s well below the 27.5% and 33% figures seen in the previous two quarters. 

March 14: Meta cuts an additional 10,000 jobs from global workforce

Four months after social media giant Meta confirmed that it would cut 13% of its global workforce—amounting to 11,000 jobs—the company announced a further 10,000 layoffs. Additionally, Meta said that it would leave 5,000 currently empty roles unfilled. Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg cited difficult macroeconomic conditions and a focus on “flattening” the company’s organizational structure as key factors in the decision to cut more staff.

March 7: Atlassian lays off 5% of staff to refocus on cloud, ITSM

Collaboration software company Atlassian said that it plans to fire 500 employees, or around 5% of its overall workforce. The Australia-based company said that the job losses were organizational, and not driven by a need to cut costs—despite posting a net loss in its February financials, Atlassian saw its revenue grow 27%, to $873 million in the last quarter.

Feb. 27: Twitter stealthily lays off 10% of remaining workers, including tech staff

This round of Twitter layoffs saw the embattled social media platform lose 10% of its remaining workers, as about 200 were fired. The layoffs included startup founders whose companies had been absorbed by Twitter, including Esther Crawford, most recently the head of Twitter Blue. Twitter has fewer than 2,000 workers left on staff, down from about 7,500 just before Elon Musk bought the company in late October 2022.

Feb. 13: Twilio announces fresh round of layoffs, impacting 17% of its workforce

Twilio announced that it would slash its workforce by roughly 1,400, months after laying off an additional 816 during the fourth quarter of 2022. The cloud communications company said also that it would reorganize internally, creating two new business units, Twilio Communications and Twilio Data & Applications, in an official blog post. Before these two recent rounds of layoffs, the company employed nearly 9,000 workers.

Feb. 10: Microsoft cuts HoloLens, Xbox, Surface jobs as industrial metaverse team said to fold

Microsoft confirmed that it is cutting employees working on its HoloLens, Surface laptop and Xbox products, as reports surfaced that the tech giant will be laying off 100 employees working for its industrial metaverse team and closing that unit. The move to cut staff working on HoloLens and in its industrial metaverse team came as a surprise since the the company had made recent moves to expand efforts to move its augmented reality,  virtual reality and metaverse initiatves from the consumer to the enterprise side. In a statement, though, Microsoft said it was committed to the industrial metaverse. The company did not specify how many jobs it would cut in those areas, though a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) from Washington state Friday noted that Microsoft had reported that 617 employees would be laid off in Redmond, Bellevue and Issaquah.

Feb. 10: Yahoo to lay off 20% of its staff as it cuts advertising tech business

Yahoo said it will lay off about 20% of its staff, or apporximately 1,600 workers, by the end of year, according to media reports confirmed by the company. The move is aimed at restructuring the company’s advertising technology business unit and reallocating its finances more efficiently. The layoffs mark the end of Yahoo’s attempts to be a direct competitor to Google and Meta in the digital advertising market.

Feb. 9: GitHub lays off 10% workforce, plans to go fully remote to cut costs

Microsoft-owned software development and version control service provider GitHubowned by Microsoft said it would be cutting 10% of its workforce, or about 300 employees, and moving  the remaining staff to remote work in order to safeguard the company’s immediate financial stability.

The layoffs came about a month after the company enacted a hiring freeze.

Feb. 7:  Zoom lays off 15% of its workforce after growth spurt during pandemic

Cloud-based videoconferencing service provider Zoom said that it was laying off 15% of its workforce, fearing uncertain macroeconomic conditions. The move came after the company went on a hiring spree during the pandemic.

In addition, Zoom said it is also making changes in team structure and several members of its leadership team will take pay cuts.

Feb. 6: Dell Technologies to lay off 6,650 staffers

 Due to declining PC sales and infrastructure requirements, Dell Technologies said it would lay off 6,650 workers, or about 5% of its total workforce. In addition to the downsizing, Co-Chief Operating Officer Jeff Clarke said the company would introduce changes that include changing the structure of its sales team and integrating the services division of its consumer and infrastructure businesses.

Feb. 2: Splunk to lay off 4% of its workforce to reduce costs

In a company filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Splunk said it would be laying off 4% of its workforce as part of broader measures to optimize costs and processes ahead of uncertain macroeconomic conditions. The decision to downsize will affect 325 employees at the company, mostly in the North America region.

Feb. 1: PayPal to lay off 2,000 employees

In a message shared with PayPal employees and posted on the company’s online newsroom, PayPal President and CEO Dan Schulman said the company was set to cut 2,000 jobs, about 7% of its workforce.

Although the company beat analyst expectations in November when it reported its third quarter financial results, PayPal downgraded its forecast for the fourth quarter, citing a challenging macro environment and slowing e-commerce trends.

Jan. 26:  SAP announces 2,800 job cuts, says they’re unrelated to over-hiring or performance

Despite revenue rising 11% in 2022, during an announcement about its fourth quarter financial results, SAP said that due to net income dropping by 68%, the company would be undertaking some restructuring, resulting in layoffs.

Whereas companies such as Google or Salesforce announced across-the-board layoffs based on performance review criteria to reverse over-hiring during the pandemic period, CEO Christian Klein said that the job cuts are part of “a targeted restructuring” and not performance-based.

“We definitely didn’t over-hire,” Klein said, noting that revenue grew faster than SAP employee growth in 2022.

Jan. 26: IBM cuts 3,900 remaining employees after double asset disposal

After spinning off most of its infrastructure management division as a new business, Kyndryl, in November 2021, and selling some assets of its Watson Health business in January 2022, on the same day as IBM’s Q4 2022 results were announced, the company said it was eliminating 3,900 job roles, or 1.5% of its global workforce.

On a conference call with analysts to discuss the results, CFO Jim Kavanaugh didn’t directly mention the job cuts, instead alluding vaguely to the situation by acknowledging the business would have some “stranded costs” to address in early 2023, resulting in a “modest” charge of about $300 million

Later that day, in an interview with Bloomberg, Kavanaugh explained that those stranded costs related to staff left with nothing to do following the asset disposals and as a result, they would be laid off from the company.

In a statement, a spokesperson for IBM said it was important to note the charge is entirely related to the Kyndryl spinoff and healthcare divestiture.

Jan. 20: Google announces it’s cutting 12,000 jobs globally

Google’s parent company Alphabet announced it was cutting 12,000 jobs, around 6% of its global workforce. An internal memo from Sundar Pichai said that he takes “full responsibility for the decisions that led us here.”

The company will be paying affected employees at least 16 weeks of severance and six months of health benefits in the US, with other regions receiving packages based on local laws and practices.

The news comes four months after Alphabet posted lower-than-expected numbers for its third financial quarter, where it fell behind both revenue and profit expectations. However, while overall revenue growth slowed to 6% in the quarter for Alphabet, Google Cloud grew 38% year-on-year to $6.9 billion.

Jan. 18: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella confirms plan to lay off 10,000 workers

On Jan. 18, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella confirmed in a blog post that the company would be cutting almost 5% of its workforce, impacting 10,000 employees. 

The chief executive chalked up the downsizing maneuver to aligning its cost structure with its revenue structure while investing in areas that the company predicts will show long-term growth.

The Seattle-based tech giant reported its slowest growth in five years for the first quarter of its fiscal 2023, due largely to a strong US dollar and an ongoing decline in personal computer sales, causing net income to fall by 14% to $17.56 billion from this time last year. Rising cloud revenue helped to soften Microsoft’s growth slowdown.

Jan. 16: Google-backed ShareChat lays off 20% of staff

Google-backed, India-based social media startup ShareChat said it is laying off 20% of its workforce to prepare for oncoming economic headwinds.

“The decision to reduce employee costs was taken after much deliberation and in light of the growing market consensus that investment sentiments will remain very cautious throughout this year,” a spokesperson said.

The move is expected to impact over 400 employees out of the company’s approximately 2,200 staffers. The company did not disclose the roles and the exact number of workers affected by the decision.

Jan. 13: Alphabet robotics subsidiary Intrinsic lays off 20% of staff

Alphabet, Google’s corporate parent, also announced there would be layoffs at its Mountain View, California-based robotics subsidiary Intrinsic AI, eliminating around 20% of its workforce or roughly 40 employees.

“This (downsizing) decision was made in light of shifts in prioritization and our longer-term strategic direction. It will ensure Intrinsic can continue to allocate resources to our highest priority initiatives, such as building our software and AI platform, integrating the recent strategic acquisitions of Vicarious and OSRC (commercial arm Open Robotics), and working with key industry partners,” according to a company statement.

Jan. 12: Alphabet-owned Verily cuts 15% of workforce

Verily—a life sciences firm also owned by Alphabet and headquartered in San Francisco—is downsizing its workforce by 15% to simplify its operating model. The move comes just months after the company raised $1 billion.

According to an email sent by CEO Stephen Gillett to all its employees, the downsizing is part of the company’s One Verily program, which aims to reduce redundancy and simplify operational aspects within the company.

As part of the new One Verily program, the company said it will move from multiple lines of business to one centralized product organization with increasingly connected healthcare systems.

Jan. 11: Informatica to lay off 7% of its workforce to cut costs

Enterprise data management firm Informatica announced plans to lay off 7% of its total workforce through the first quarter of 2023, the company said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The move by Informatica, headquartered in Redwood City, California, will incur nonrecurring charges of approximately $25 million to $35 million in the form of cash expenditures for employee transition, notice period, severance payments and employee benefits, the company filing showed.

The company said it expects the layoffs to be completed by the first quarter of 2023 but added that there might be limited exceptions.

Jan. 4: Salesforce to cut 8,000 in restructuring plan

At the beginning of 2023, San-Francisco based Salesforce announced it will lay off about 10% of its workforce, roughly 8,000 employees, and close some offices as part of a restructuring plan.

In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company disclosed that its restructuring plan calls for charges between $1.4 billion and $2.1 billion, with up to $1 billion of those costs being shouldered by the company in the fourth quarter of 2023.

In a letter sent by Salesforce’s co-CEO Marc Benioff and attached to the SEC filing, he told employees that as Salesforce’s revenue accelerated through the pandemic, the company over-hired and can no longer sustain its current workforce size due to the ongoing economic downturn. “I take responsibility for that,” Benioff said.

Jan. 4: Amazon confirms more than 18,000 employees to be laid off

Seattle-based tech behemoth Amazon said it would be laying off more than 18,000 staff, with the bulk of job cuts coming later this month. The news confirmed a December Computerworld article reporting that Amazon layoffs were expected to mount to about 20,000 people at all levels While several teams are impacted, the majority of the job cuts will be in the Amazon Stores and People, Experience, and Technology (PXT) organizations.

According to a note from CEO Andy Jassy, the layoffs are a result of “the uncertain economy.” He also said that Amazon had “hired rapidly over the last several years,” but added that the layoffs will help the company pursue more long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure.

Hiring, Technology Industry

Microsoft is extending a move it’s already taken in the European Union (EU) to unbundle its Teams collaboration app from its Microsoft Office suite for global customers in a bid to avoid further antitrust scrutiny or litigation, both in Europe and abroad.

The company said Monday that the popular workplace collaboration app — with more than 300 million global users as of 2023 — will now be sold separately from its productivity suite worldwide.

“To ensure clarity for our customers, we are extending the steps we took last year to unbundle Teams from M365 and O365 in the European Economic Area and Switzerland to customers globally,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement.

The move was made to address “feedback from the European Commission by providing multinational companies more flexibility when they want to standardize their purchasing across geographies,” the spokesperson said.

Though figures vary by country and currency, new commercial customers now will pay in the range of $7.75 to $54.75 per user per month for Office without Teams, while Teams Standalone will cost $5.25 per user per month. When renewing their subscriptions, existing customers may continue with their current bundled plans or switch to plans without Teams. A Microsoft blog post has more information about plans and pricing.

Antitrust threat

Microsoft Teams allows corporate workers in disparate locations to hold video meetings, as well as collaborate and share files via chat. Like similar apps, Teams exploded in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many traditional office workplaces went remote.

In July 2020, Teams’ inclusion as part of the well-established and widely used Office suite drew a competition complaint from software rival Slack, now owned by Salesforce. The complaint alleged that Microsoft was engaging in the “illegal and anti-competitive practice of abusing its market dominance to extinguish competition in breach of European Union competition law” by “force installing it for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers.”

In response to that complaint and subsequent threat of antitrust action by EU regulators, Microsoft publicly announced in August it would start unbundling the collaboration app from Office and Microsoft 365 packages in the European Economic Area, which includes countries in the region such as Switzerland that are not part of the EU itself.

That didn’t stop the EU from continuing to proceed with its investigation for a formal antitrust complaint against Microsoft, one that is expected to come within the next few months, according to Reuters.

Microsoft is no stranger to opening its coffers to pay EU antitrust fines, having already racked up 2.2 billion euros ($2.4 billion) in fines in the past decade for tying or bundling products together in a way that was deemed anticompetitive by regulators. If found guilty of antitrust in the case of Teams, the company risks a fine of as much as 10% of its global annual revenue.

Lip service or competitive concession?

At least one watchdog organization said that the forthcoming EU antitrust complaint and any that may follow will be warranted despite Microsoft’s unbundling move. Separating out Teams from Office is not enough to address“the systemic problems caused by its anticompetitive software licensing policies,” according to a statement by the leader of the Coalition for Fair Software (CFSL).

“By simply extending the changes offered in Europe in August 2023, this announcement pays lip service to fair competition but leaves interoperability and licensing restrictions in place that prevent true customer choice,” CFSL Executive Director Ryan Triplette said in a statement.

However, one the move by the tech giant demonstrates that it “is capable of making changes when held accountable by regulators,” he said, which could bode well for competition if further antitrust measures are taken.

Another technology expert didn’t think calling out Microsoft for antitrust was the right move for regulators, as it could set a dangerous precedent for other vendors with packaged products.

“It highlights that tightly bundling products previously (or in other geolocations or industries) sold independently and able to be operated independently are viable targets for antitrust complaints by competitors to even the playing field,” noted Claude Mandy, chief evangelist, data security at Symmetry Systems, an AI-powered data security management firm.

Collaboration Software, Microsoft, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Teams, Office Suites, Productivity Software, Regulation

Every time I ask Siri to play some music and it thinks I want it to switch on the lights, I realize how applied artificial intelligence (AI) is nothing without some understanding of context. Apple’s AI dev teams know this, too. And they have a plan.

You see, the latest slice of the ever rolling deluge of AI-related news is that Apple researchers have published fresh research that shows an AI tool more contextually aware than Open AI’s ChatGPT. It’s all about Reference Resolution As Language Modeling (ReALM).

What does it do?

Among other things, this contextual understanding seems to have been built to facilitate even better human-device communications. 

The paper specifically talks about the machine being able to tell which app a user is referring to — you might be checking an important PDF in Mail but want the music changed in your Music app. The research suggests a contextual understanding that can figure out what you are doing, even if it isn’t the main thing you are doing at any moment. 

There are obvious uses to boost accessibility: You should be able to point at something on the screen to find out more about that object, for example. 

The team also looked at conversational understanding and comprehension of ongoing background tasks. For example, ReALM should be able to understand when you respond to a notification you just received, even if you are doing something else at the time.

What is Reference Resolution?

Apple’s research is included in a paper published on Arxiv.org that looks at  “Reference Resolution.” According to one respected guide, reference resolution is a way to express the problem a computer (AI) has to “Find out which object is referred to by an expression, thus gradually building a representation of the objects with their features and evolution.”

In other words, the computer must aim to be as effective as human communication and understanding, such as when we use words like “they” or “those” and the person we are speaking with contextually understands what we are trying to say.

The paper offers an example in which someone might ask ReaLM to show nearby pharmacies. The tech presents the list, and the person could say something vague such as “Call the bottom one,” or “Call this number” (if the number is on screen). Existing virtual assistants would struggle with this, but the researchers’ own tech handles these tasks. They even claim their invention can “substantially outperform” Chat GPT4 in some ways, while matching its performance in others.

When the going gets tough, Siri goes pro

“Critically, we demonstrate how entities that are present on the screen can be passed into an LLM [large language model] using a novel textual representation that effectively summarizes the user’s screen while retaining relative spatial positions of these entities,” they wrote.

In other words, you can anticipate highly effective spoken word control of what’s on screen, perhaps augmented by Apple’s existing Voice Over UI — with obvious implications for its visionOS product line.

This is just one of the many nuggets of information to emerge from Apple’s AI development teams as the company prepares to (hopefully) wow developers at WWDC 24. These many clues also describe technology to support task-focused AI at the edge; superior image intelligence; partnerships with LLM providers such as Google Gemini; augmentation to the company’s existing apps, including Xcode; and more. 

Apple has also reportedly acquired interesting AI companies in a tech-question mode, including Darwin AI and brighter AI.

When can we expect it?

While we can’t be sure the extent to which all these promises will translate into shipping products in such a short time frame, we can expect the first chapters in this part of Apple’s AI story to open up later this year. 

Apple CEO Tim Cook promised this when he explained how he does, “look forward to sharing with you the ways we will break new ground in generative AI, another technology we believe can redefine the future.”

The accumulation of evidence, published reports, and promises coming from within Apple suggest just how seriously the company takes this push into advanced artificial intelligence.

Please follow me on Mastodon, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.

Apple, Artificial Intelligence, Chatbots, Generative AI, Machine Learning

Ransomware targeting Linux systems is a growing threat, particularly in IoT ecosystems. Cybersecurity analysts are presenting live forensic techniques to detect ransomware infections on Linux machines. Let's examine Linux ransomware's unique challenges and its potential impact on the IoT industry.

The importance of prioritizing memory-safe programming languages has never been greater. Using memory-safe programming languages such as Python, Java, C#, Go, Rust, and Swift offers significant security advantages for admins and programmers, while avoiding the vulnerabilities associated with memory-unsafe languages like C++.

The malicious code inserted into the open-source library XZ Utils, a widely used package present in major Linux distributions, is also capable of facilitating remote code execution, a new analysis has revealed. The audacious supply chain compromise, tracked as CVE-2024-3094 (CVSS score: 10.0), came to light last week when Microsoft engineer and PostgreSQL developer Andres Freund

The malicious code inserted into the open-source library XZ Utils, a widely used package present in major Linux distributions, is also capable of facilitating remote code execution, a new analysis has revealed. The audacious supply chain compromise, tracked as CVE-2024-3094 (CVSS score: 10.0), came to light last week when Microsoft engineer and PostgreSQL developer Andres Freund Newsroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]

Cloud solutions are more mainstream – and therefore more exposed – than ever before. In 2023 alone, a staggering 82% of data breaches were against public, private, or hybrid cloud environments. What’s more, nearly 40% of breaches spanned multiple cloud environments. The average cost of a cloud breach was above the overall average, at $4.75 million. In a time where cloud has become the de facto