10 things in tech you need to know today

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Tuesday.

1. President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Monday halting a variety of immigration visas. It temporarily suspends H-1B, H-2B, H-4, J-1, and L-1 visas, affecting the tech industry, students, and au pairs, among others.
2. Amazon, Google, Twitter, and other major tech companies are criticizing Trump's move to halt certain immigration visas. The companies said it will make American firms less competitive and less diverse.
3. Apple on Monday unveiled a new processor that the company says will replace Intel chips in MacBooks, iMacs, and Mac Pros going forward. Apple's chip, called Apple Silicon, will make app architecture more consistent across Mac, iPhone, and iPad, the company said at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, which took place virtually.
4. SoftBank Vision Fund executives are set to lose out on millions after a complex investment in scandal-hit German fintech Wirecard, according to the Financial Times. One of the executives behind the deal, Akshay Naheta, lashed out at Wirecard's auditor EY on Twitter on Thursday, saying the auditor had "materially failed in their fiduciary duties."
5. Apple unveiled the next big update to iOS, unveiling major changes to the iPhone's software. iOS 14 includes new features for the home screen such as App Library, which will automatically organize your apps based on type, and widgets that you can pin and alter in size.
6. Apple's update to the Apple Watch finally brings a long-awaited sleep tracking feature, which will use motion sensors, heart-rate sensors, and microphones to gather sleep data. It's a noteworthy addition that brings the Apple Watch up to speed in one key area where it's lagged behind rivals like Fitbit and Garmin.
7. More than 1,600 Google employees have signed a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai that asks the company to stop selling its technology to police forces. About 20 workers wrote the letter, which outlines ways that employees are "disappointed" in the company's response to the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
8. An AI tool which reconstructs pixelated pictures to look like clear images ended up making Barack Obama to look like a white man, garnering immediate criticism for algorithmic bias. Experts in machine learning speculated that the tool, Face Depixelizer, had a common problem — its training set of images was not diverse enough.
9. UK payments firm Checkout.com is now valued at $5.5 billion after raising $150m of new cash. The firm is eyeing an IPO, according to the Financial Times.
10. Microsoft is shutting down its Twitch competitor Mixer and partnering with Facebook going forward — even after spending millions on deals with top streamers. Mixer has struggled to compete against Twitch, despite a string of high-profile exclusivity deals with major streamers like Tyler "Ninja" Blevins and Mike "Shroud" Grzesiek said to be worth millions of dollars each.

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