Silicon Valley Bank Possible Suitors; Meta Works on Twitter Competitor; Samsung Moon Shot Moon Photos; HomePod With 7 Inch Display Coming

It was alarm bells as the big story in both tech and banking over the weekend has been the takeover of Silicon Valley Bank. Now that the FDIC and other regulators have said that all depositors will have access to all their money, things are looking a bit better. According to axios.com, the agencies scrambled all weekend to get a buyer, but nothing worked out. At this moment, it appears that JPMorgan and PNC are potential suitors for SVB Financial group…that deal would exclude the commercial bank presently under government control. Apollo Management and Morgan Stanley are also in discussions about the holding company. The holding company without the commercial bank controls SVB Private, SVB Capital, and SVB securities…all of those together are much smaller than the SVB Bank itself. A British firm has already stepped forward to try to snap up SVB’s UK subsidiary, for a paltry one pound!

As Twitter continues to slowly melt down into a mess, Meta is at work on a decentralized Twitter competitor. Engadget.com reports that the platform is code-named P92, and it will let users post text-based updates, and will support the Activity Pub…the decentralized system used by Twitter competitor Mastodon. P92 will apparently carry Instagram’s branding and will let users log in with their Instagram credentials. At this point, we don’t know if the app is still just in the planning stage, or if Meta is already building a version of the app. 

Samsung has been touting its ’Space Zoom’ capable phones for a while now. The handsets take incredibly detailed pictures of the moon. Now, theverge.com says a Reddit post points out the massive computational processing Samsung is doing to get these shots, and in fact, actually adds detail that isn’t in the original shot. This was determined by shooting an intentionally blurry photo of the moon with an S23 Ultra…the phone added details…it didn’t just upscale blurry pixels or retrieve lost data. In response, Samsung says they use AI to detect the moon’s presence, and “then offers a detail enhancing function by reducing blurs and noises.” Whether adding detail that isn’t actually in the shot means its a fake picture of the moon or not is up to you…but it’s at least shady.

According to reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple will be fielding a new HomePod in 2024, with a built in 7 inch display. Think Amazon Echo Show. This is reportedly to enable “tighter integration with Apple’s other hardware products, marking a significant shift in the company’s smart home strategy.” At this point, it is unclear if Apple is just experimenting with adding a display to the present just freshened HomePod, or will make a totally new all-in-one device. There have already been concepts showing the present HomePod Displaying more information on its top display panel. 

I’m Clark Reid, and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.