A week's worth of tech news that takes you 5 minutes to read

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Before we get started, let's get the depressing stuff out of the way 👎🏼:

• Pinterest is laying off 150 employees, or less than 5% of its workforce, but declined to share where the cuts were being made. This follows a first round of layoffs in December.

• PayPal said it’s laying off 2,000 employees, or around 7% of its workforce in the coming weeks.

• Car-sharing service Getaround is laying off 10% of its staff

• Groupon laid off another 500 employees in a second round of layoffs.

Did recent layoffs impact you? Check out Stillhiring.today for a comprehensive list of open roles, particularly for those of us in tech sales. You can also scroll to the bottom for a list of job openings that have been sent to us via Linkedin and email.

Have an opening to share? Send it over, and we'll post it for free!

Ok, let's get on with the good stuff. Highlights of this week's issue include:

• What is a spy balloon, really?

• 100 business leaders were surveyed regarding cyber security. The results are in...

• Is your job at risk of being replaced by AI?

Total read time: 4 minutes and 35 seconds. Let's goooooo! 🚀

ChatGPT coming to Teams

Microsoft launched a premium Teams messaging product powered by ChatGPT on Wednesday to streamline meetings using the Silicon Valley-favorite AI chatbot. Microsoft said the premium service will cost $7 per month in June and $10 in July.

Teams users can use OpenAI-owned ChatGPT to design meeting templates, produce meeting notes, recommend tasks, and generate new and creative ways to tell people that they forgot to mute themselves on conference calls.

Microsoft, which invested billions in OpenAI earlier this month, plans to integrate ChatGPT's technology into all its businesses, putting it in direct rivalry with Google.

The chatbot, which can write prose or poetry on command, is the top-ranked generative AI software in which more big tech companies are investing.

Jobs AI could Kill 🪦

OpenAI's ChatGPT has been used to compose cover letters, construct a children's book, and even help students cheat on their essays. Business Insider interviewed experts and researched to build a list of jobs most vulnerable to AI replacement.

Here are the top ten (in no particular order):

• Coders and programmers

• Media jobs (journalists, content writers)

• Legal jobs (paralegals, legal assistants)

• Market research analysts

• Teachers

• Finance jobs (financial analysts/advisors)

• Traders

• Graphic designers

• Accountants

• Customer service agents

Spy Balloons are all the rage

The news media was obsessed with Chinese Spy Balloons as it was discovered that a balloon equipped with spy equipment was spotted over Montana. Of course, there are plenty of opinions on what should/shouldn't have been done, but we'll save that for the political newsletters.

What we do want to talk about is the technology behind the art of spy ballooning (balloon spying?) to understand why China would even bother with spy balloons when they have access to satellite images and Tiktok on everyone's phone.

A little background: Balloons are one of the oldest forms of surveillance technology. The Japanese military used them to launch incendiary bombs in the US during World War Two. They were also widely used by the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Here's what they look like:

According to experts, balloons may be outfitted with current technology, such as spy cameras and radar sensors. There are several benefits to employing balloons for surveillance, the most important of which is that they are less expensive and easier to deploy than drones or satellites.

The slower speed of the balloon also allows it to hover over and observe the target area for extended periods. On the other hand, the movement of a satellite is limited to its orbital pass.

The balloon was first spotted over Montana and eventually followed a path down to Missouri and out to the Atlantic ocean. Here at Smartology, we were given an exclusive first look at images the spy balloon sent down as it passed over Missouri:

Want to see a video of the balloon getting shot down to an amazing musical backdrop? Click here.

Starlink coming to the Philippines

Starlink, the satellite internet unit of Elon Musk's SpaceX, is on track to enter the Philippine market this year. The high-speed, low-latency broadband internet service will be "game-changing" for the Southeast Asian archipelago. Only seven out of every 100 people in the Philippines have fixed broadband subscriptions. Philippine customers would have to shell out an initial $599 per unit and $99 for monthly connectivity service for a download speed of 200 Mbps.

IBM teams up with NASA

As part of the space agency's Open-Source Science Initiative, IBM and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center will collaborate on using artificial intelligence to build novel technologies that extract insights from Earth data.

According to the firm, the collaboration will see IBM use its data analytic capabilities and NASA's expertise in space exploration to perform research on climate change, natural disasters, and sustainable development.

For the first time, the collaboration will deploy IBM's AI foundation model technology for the space agency's Earth-observing satellite.

IBM and NASA have a shared history going back to the Apollo missions when IBM leveraged their computers and wrote complex software to help launch the first astronauts into space.

Blind: It's like Linkedin but honest

If you haven't heard of Blind, it has become a resource for tech workers laid off in Silicon Valley. Blind is a professional networking site different from Linkedin because it's anonymous (so you don't have to worry about impressing anyone). Blind has emerged as a lifeline for IT workers seeking information and help as layoffs have swept across the country in recent months.

Blind differs from LinkedIn (which is also having a moment as more individuals in tech and media are now #OpenForWork) in that it allows employees to communicate about their workplace anonymously, which often leads to more open and candid talks about some of America's largest corporations.

Blind users confirm their employment at a specific company by joining up using a work email address which lends credibility when people share behind-the-scenes information regarding their companies. What you see on LinkedIn is kind of the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what's really going on at the big tech corporations.

Even a year ago, many posts on Blind bragged about eye-popping salaries, bonuses, and stock packages from big brand companies. However, now, Blind is flooded with posts from workers consoling one another about how to survive spells of unemployment.

M&A and Funding this week:

• Former Twitter staffers are building a competitor to Twitter called Spill, which has already received 60,000 reservations for user handles and raised $2.75 million in a pre-seed round of funding.

• The Egyptian fintech and e-commerce platform MNT-Halan was able to secure up to $400 million in funding between stock and loans, primarily through Chimera Investments, based in Abu Dhabi. Halan is a digital wallet software that allows you to pay bills, shop online, get rides, and get loans. This is the most significant singular investment in any company in the Middle East since 2021.

• The U.K.-based neo-bank Zopa has completed a £75 million (about $93 million) all-equity financing round without a lead investor. The business stated was an "internal round," including participation from previous backers.

• Minu, a Mexican startup focused on employee wellness, has raised $30 million through a mix of equity and debt.

Spotlight story

Security Survey Says...

Back in November, EisnerAmper surveyed 113 business leaders (CEOs, CIOs, and CTOs of companies in the $50 to $500 million range) on their current security status, and the results are telling. Here are the highlights:

• Preparedness: 51% say they are only somewhat prepared, 39% feel very prepared, 6% feel they are not at all prepared in their cyber defense strategies

• Training: 50% said they are conducting cybersecurity training regularly. A total of 44% held a training within the prior six months, 25% held a training more than seven months ago, and an alarming 31% said they had never held a single training event.

• Budget: 71% said they'll keep their IT budget the same even during a recessionary economy, 21% said they'll decrease their IT budgets, and only 8% expect to increase budgets.

• Staffing: 5% of those surveyed said they plan to reduce staff, while 24% plan increases. The largest share, 67%, said they'll keep staffing the same.

Rapid Fire

• Apple releasing a foldable iPad with a kickstand 

• VRBO wants to kill the party 

• Samsung S23 feature leak

• Twitter working on their own payment platform "Twitter Pay"

• The science behind strong passwords

• Tesla's new Cybertruck beta prototype spotted

• LivePerson enhances Conversational AI with ChatGPT

• Elon Must not guilty of defrauding investors with his tweets 

• Instagram's original co-founders launching a news app

Job Openings:

• Cloudflare is hiring for sales and engineering roles 

• AlphaConnected in Ann Arbor, MI Inside Sales role

• Aeris Communications is hiring for Enterprise Security Sales

• Intermedia is looking for an Account Executive

Are you or your company hiring for sales, marketing, engineering, or support roles? Send us an email with the listing to publish it for free next week!

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