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| Welcome to the latest edition of Inside Tech! Here are today's highlights: - A judge has allowed Twitter's age discrimination lawsuit to proceed.
- Google sent out invites for its Pixel launch event on Oct. 4
- Redwood Materials, an EV battery recycling startup, raised $1B.
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p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | A California judge rejected a bid to dismiss a lawsuit against X, formerly Twitter, which claims that older workers were disproportionately laid off during Elon Musk's acquisition. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston determined that plaintiff John Zeman provided enough evidence that the layoffs had a greater impact on older employees, allowing the case to proceed. More: - After acquiring the platform last October, Musk reduced Twitter's workforce by roughly half in the first week, impacting around 3,750 employees.
- In his lawsuit, Zeman claims that Twitter, now X, laid off 60% of those aged 50 or older and almost 75% of employees above 60, versus only 54% under 50.
- While the judge dismissed the claim that X intentionally singled out older workers for layoffs, she gave Zeman a month to amend the suit with more details.
Zoom out: - After Musk's acquisition, Twitter has reduced its headcount from about 8,000 employees to 1,500, an 80% reduction.
- Since then, multiple lawsuits have emerged against the company, claiming inadequate layoff notice, disability-related displacement, and unpaid severance.
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| 2 | | Google's Pixel device launch is scheduled for Oct. 4 in New York City, with invitations sent just a day after Apple announced its own Sept. 12 iPhone 15 event. Both companies are expected to unveil their flagship phones less than a month apart. While Pixel shipments have increased this year, Apple continues to dominate as the most popular brand for smartphones in the U.S. 
Details: Google's event is expected to introduce the much-awaited Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro flagship models. Earlier this week, an image of the Pixel 8 Pro was leaked from a Google Store page, with the alt text confirming its identity as a "Pixel 8 Pro phone in Porcelain." The leak hints at possible design and feature changes, including an advanced camera array with improved sensors. The bigger picture: The events join an already crowded roster of fall tech events, including Meta's Connect event on September 27-28, Microsoft's "special event" on Sept. 21, and Amazon's rumored hardware event scheduled for Sept. 20. Considering its popularity and market share, Apple's fall event will likely take center stage, with major announcements including the iPhone 15 series, Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Ultra 2, and iOS 17. Question: Which fall tech event are you most excited about and why? Join the conversation here. | | | |
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| 3 | | Redwood Materials, an EV battery recycling startup founded by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, has raised $1B in new funding to expand its U.S. operations. The funding comes after the company secured a conditional $2B loan commitment from the Energy Department to build a $3.5B recycling and re-manufacturing facility in Nevada focused on electric vehicle battery materials. More: - The company recycles used electric vehicle batteries, extracting metals like nickel, copper, cobalt, and lithium to create new components for EV batteries.
- Its latest funding round, a Series D, was co-led by Goldman Sachs, Capricorn, and T. Rowe Price, with new investors including Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund and the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System.
- Redwood said it will use the funding to continue building out capacity, expand its U.S. battery supply chain, and allow customers to buy U.S.-made battery materials.
Zoom out: - Redwood, based in Carson City, Nevada, was formed in 2017 by Straubel, a Tesla board member, co-founder, and CTO for 14 years.
- The company, which has raised about $2B since 2019, is now valued at over $5B.
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| 4 | | Apple is experimenting with 3D printing to create the steel chassis for certain Apple Watch Series 9 models, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The company is expected to launch the next-generation smartwatch during its Sept. 12 event. More: - According to Gurman, Apple is still testing the new manufacturing process, which could speed up product assembly and cut down on the environmental impact.
- Using "binder jetting," Apple can print a device's close-to-actual shape using a powdered material. A second process applies heat and pressure to create a steel-like substance, refined through milling.
- According to Gurman, Apple has secretly worked on the technology for three years.
- His report backs up Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo's previous claim that the next-generation Apple Watch Ultra would include 3D-printed mechanical parts.
Zoom out: - The new method would only apply to a small portion of Apple Watch sales, as most customers choose the more affordable aluminum models, with the stainless steel version comprising around 10% of total sales
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| 5 | | JBL is introducing premium speakers that support both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant — a first-of-its-kind capability, according to JBL. Amazon and Google have allowed for universal device commands to control each other's assistant, with no sharing of voice recordings. More: - The Authentics collection of three connected speakers competes against Sonos.
- JBL's models support multi-room audio, automatic self-tuning, Bluetooth, WiFi, and Ethernet connectivity.
- While the priciest one features Dolby Atmos sound, all three can simultaneously run Google Assistant and Alexa.
- The speakers draw inspiration from JBL's 1970s L100 model, with a grille pattern, an aluminum frame wrapped in leather, and a black/gold color combination.
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| 6 | | Google has introduced SynthID, a tool to watermark AI-generated images like deepfakes. Currently in beta, the technology adds a digital watermark within image pixels, visible for identification yet indiscernible to humans. More: - Following a July White House meeting, Google and six other AI companies pledged to watermark AI-created audio and visual content.
- Google's DeepMind unit pioneers with SynthID, offering three confidence levels for AI image recognition: "Digital watermark detected," "Digital watermark not detected," and "Digital watermark possibly detected."
- Google assures that SynthID can't be easily removed through editing or compression, safeguarding image quality.
- It's planning an initial release for select business clients of Vertex AI, its cloud-powered machine learning platform. the watermark is exclusively accessible via Imagen, Google Cloud's proprietary text-to-image model.
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- CRM software giant Salesforce is set to report earnings after the close of trading today.
- Sony is bumping up the prices of its PlayStation Plus subscriptions starting Sept. 6, with the Essential, Extra, and Premium plans rising to $80, $135, and $160 respectively.
- WhatsApp Messenger has announced that it has launched its native app for MacOS.
- Microsoft's Bing AI is now widely supported in Google's Chrome desktop browser.
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 | AI and technology writer | | Beth is the curator and writer of the AI and Tech newsletters at Inside. With a career in journalism and editing that began in 2007, she has written for publications including USA Today, The Arizona Republic, Arizona Business Gazette, and more. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@yahoo.com. | | This newsletter was edited by NO ACCOUNT ASSOCIATED WITH THE EDITOR | |
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