A preview of CES 2024, 23andMe blames victims and MIT's anti-obesity pill – TechCrunch

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Welcome, folks, to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch's regular newsletter recapping the tech week back then. I hope the holidays were restful for those who observed them. For our part, we at TC are gearing up for an eventful next week at CES in Las Vegas – and, as always, keeping an eye on the news cycle.

In this edition of WiR, we take a look at Brian's CES 2024 preview, 23andMe blames data breach victims, GitHub makes Copilot Chat generally available, and Frontdesk lays off its entire staff. Also on the agenda are spiders and body butter, Fidelity lowers the rating of

There's a lot to tackle, so we won't hesitate. But first, we'd like to remind you to sign up here to receive WiR in your inbox every Saturday if you haven't already.

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CES 2024: Brian provides an in-depth overview of what to expect at CES 2024, including – but not limited to – generative AI, robotics, TVs, cars, smartphones and health technology. He writes that he is optimistic about the show overall, especially given the consumer electronics industry's move toward more decentralized manufacturing and the quality of startup pitches received so far.

Your fault, not ours: 23andMe is facing over 30 lawsuits from victims of a data breach involving approximately 6.9 million customers. Now 23andMe is deflecting blame and trying to absolve itself of any responsibility. In a letter, the genetic testing company wrote that users “negligently recycled and failed to update their passwords following these past security incidents unrelated to 23andMe.”

Copilot Chat starts: GitHub has introduced Copilot Chat, a ChatGPT-like programmatic chatbot generally available to all paid Copilot users and free to verified teachers, students, and maintainers of certain open source projects. The chatbot is based on GPT-4, OpenAI's flagship model of generative AI, and is specifically tailored to development scenarios.

Front desk implodes: Mary Ann writes that Frontdesk, a startup that manages more than 1,000 furnished apartments in the U.S., laid off its entire 200-person workforce on Tuesday after attempts to raise more capital failed. Frontdesk CEO Jesse DePinto said Frontdesk will file for federal bankruptcy, an alternative to bankruptcy, according to TechCrunch's sources.

Spiders and Body Butter: Sol de Janeiro's Delícia Drench body butter went viral on social media after users claimed they were chased, bitten and (unsuccessfully) wooed by wolf spiders when they applied the moisturizer, thanks to the chemicals it allegedly contained, who find spiders sexually arousing. But Sol de Janeiro – and independent experts – tell TechCrunch that the rumors are unfounded.

X's rating drops. . . again: Mutual fund company Fidelity has marked down its investment in X Holdings, the parent company of X (formerly Twitter), by 71.5% from the stock's original valuation, Ivan reports. Fidelity spent $19.2 million to acquire a stake in X in October 2022.

Quest 2 reduced: Months after Meta launched the Quest 3, the company is cutting prices on the VR headset's predecessor, the Quest 2, by $50. The 128GB version goes from $299 to $249 and the 256GB version goes from $349 to $299 – with plenty of accessories on offer.

Vibrate away the fat: Brian writes about an MIT anti-obesity team's new pill-like vibration capsule designed to send signals to the brain to simulate the feeling of fullness. Early tests are promising – giving animals the pill 20 minutes before eating reduced their consumption by about 40% – but the capsule is a long way from human trials.

Audio

Need new podcasts to add to your rotation? Don’t panic – TechCrunch is here for you.

In a retro episode of Equity capitalMorgan interviewed Shruti Dwivedi – the co-founder and CEO of health technology startup Duly, which focuses on simplifying and personalizing contraception for young women in India and beyond – at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023. The two spoke about the stigma surrounding contraception and Cultural Obstacles Real Faces and What’s Next for the Startup.

In the meantime, Found went down under with Rebecca and spoke to Alex Zaccaria, the co-founder and CEO of Australia-based Linktree. The two chatted about how the startup scaled the freemium model to grow its now-massive social media referral landing page business.

And further Chain reactionAs anticipation grew, Jacquelyn revisited the latest developments in spot Bitcoin ETF applications in the US. Fred Thiel, the CEO of Marathon Digital Holdings, a digital asset technology company and the largest publicly traded Bitcoin mining company, joined the episode to talk about crypto specialty businesses.

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TC+ subscribers get access to in-depth commentary, analysis and polls – what you know if you're already a subscriber. If not, consider signing up. Here are a few highlights from this week:

Another supposedly cool superconductor: Tim tells the story of the newest team of scientists who claim to have discovered a near-room-temperature superconductor. He is not convinced that the paper, which has not been peer-reviewed, will stand up to scientific scrutiny; we will see.

Decline in Crypto Losses: As malicious actors continue to hack the crypto industry to make money, the dollar amount has dropped significantly compared to last year – by 51%, writes Jacquelyn.

The coming challenges of copyright law: When it was announced last year that AI heavyweight OpenAI and Axel Springer had reached a financial agreement and partnership, it seemed to bode well for the harmony between people who write words and technology companies that use them to create AI. Create and train models. But maybe that's not the case, Alex suspects.