Meta cuts jobs, Apple reportedly starts headset production in March
Our weekly recap: Meta is laying off many employees, but has also recently hired many new ones. The Apple headset will reportedly go into production in small numbers starting in March.
Meta is cutting jobs, but the bare numbers give a false picture
Declining revenues and platform growth, more competition and a weakening advertising business: Meta's enterprise value has been plummeting for months. After much hesitation, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is now putting the brakes on costs and laying off around 11,000 employees (13%). The XR division Reality Labs is also affected.
The Meta stock reacted positively to this news. Still, after the layoffs, Meta is only back to where it was in December 2021 - less than a year ago.
Sandbox VR review
Our colleague Max visited the first sandbox VR arcade in the EU and tells us why he had a very different kind of fun there than with home VR.
In Sandbox's VR Arcade, zombies come from all directions, even from above. | Bild: Maximilian Schreiner
Apple headset reportedly goes into production in March
Rumors from suppliers suggest that Apple is planning to mass-produce a tech headset starting in March. However, "mass" is a relative term when you consider Apple's usual production volumes: Reportedly, only up to one million XR headsets will roll off the production line.
This rather low number of units fits with earlier rumors that Apple sees the first own XR headset more as an experiment and development version - possibly comparable to the Quest Pro.
Why is a large AI language model able to solve simple math problems?
When scaling large AI models, they can develop so-called emergent abilities. Language models, for example, then solve simple math problems instead of just lining up word after word. Researchers have now investigated what the phenomenon of emergent capabilities is all about.
Also in our AI magazine THE DECODER: Two researchers warn about AI systems that improve based on their own feedback. And the app "Draw Things" brings the open-source image AI Stable Diffusion to the iPhone.
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