Top tech news for Thursday, January 19, 2023 - The Verge

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Elon Musk gives a thumbs up while smiley faces melt in the background

If the CEO of a publicly traded company were to tweet that they planned to take their company private, and said they had “funding secured,” you’d be forgiven for assuming that, well, they planned to take their company private and had secured funding to make it happen. “Not so fast,” argue Elon Musk’s lawyers, in response to being sued by Tesla investors over this tweet that the investors say caused them to lose millions.

“It isn’t clear what funding secured even means in a tweet phrase,” say the Tesla CEO’s lawyers, “It’s not self-evident how one could be just considering something, and yet, all the details are set.”

Next up, a new rumor suggests Apple’s smart home ambitions are kicking into a higher gear. The company revealed a new Matter-compatible HomePod yesterday, and shortly afterwards a report claimed it’s working on a new iPad-like smart display to compete with similar devices from Google and Amazon.

Finally, in the US the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited Amazon for alleged safety law violations in its warehouses. It’s proposed $60,269 in penalties. Amazon says it disagrees and intends to appeal.

For now, here’s a silly tweet to start your day:

Stay tuned, as we continue to update this list with the most important news of today: Thursday, January 19th, 2023.

Jan 18, 2023, 10:54 PM UTCAndrew J. Hawkins

The plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that Musk’s ‘funding secured’ tweets were reckless and cost ‘regular people’ millions of dollars, while Musk’s attorneys said they ‘didn’t matter.’
Jan 18, 2023, 9:00 PM UTCChris Welch

The resurrected smart speaker still has big sound and a very familiar design. We’ll need more listening time to determine whether some internal changes affect more than just the price.