Techmeme
January 24, 2023, 11:50 AM

Top News

Tiernan Ray / ZDNet:
Meta Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun says ChatGPT is “not particularly innovative” in its underlying techniques and other research labs are doing similar work  —  Much ink has been spilled of late about the tremendous promise of OpenAI's ChatGPT program for generating natural-language utterances in response to human prompts.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Amazon launches RxPass, letting US Prime users pay $5 per month to get as many generic versions of medications as needed, starting with drugs for 80 ailments  —  More than two years since announcing Amazon Pharmacy to take some of the prescription drugs business away from big (and smaller) …
Jesse Hamilton / CoinDesk:
The FBI says North Korea-backed hacking groups Lazarus and APT38 are behind the June 2022 theft of ~$100M in ETH, USDT, and wBTC from Harmony's Horizon bridge  —  Lazarus Group and APT38, both associated with North Korea, are responsible for the attack in June, the agency concluded.
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
LastPass parent GoTo confirms hackers stole encrypted backups, an encryption key for some data, billing info, and more, in a breach first disclosed last year  —  GoTo (formerly LogMeIn) is warning customers that threat actors who breached its development environment in November 2022 stole …
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
A manager at Activision Blizzard's Blizzard unit, who oversaw World of Warcraft Classic, departs after internally criticizing the company's stack ranking system  —  A manager at video game developer Blizzard Entertainment said he was ousted after refusing to give a low evaluation to an employee …
Kevin McLaughlin / The Information:
Source: CEO Satya Nadella voiced concerns for years that Microsoft was slow to commercialize its AI research; in 2022, its researchers said rivals seemed ahead  —  For more than a decade, Microsoft Research, the company's in-house research group, has touted artificial intelligence breakthroughs …
Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg:
Binance acknowledges mistakenly storing collateral for some of its tokens in the same wallet as customer funds; reserves for around 47 coins are in one wallet  —  Binance Holdings Ltd., the world's largest crypto platform, acknowledged that it mistakenly keeps collateral for some of the tokens …
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:
How Esther Crawford, Twitter's director of product management, became one of the most influential leaders from the old guard in Elon Musk's “hardcore” Twitter  —  Days after Elon Musk had completed his $44bn buyout of Twitter, Esther Crawford shared a picture of herself sleeping …
Joseph Menn / Washington Post:
A second Twitter whistleblower told the FTC and Congress last year that engineers can access “GodMode” and tweet from any account, supporting Mudge's complaint  —  Too many people can still access a program that lets them tweet under any account, he says in a complaint
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
At a town hall, Sundar Pichai asked staff to stay motivated as Google faces competition in areas like AI and indicated there would be executive bonus cuts  —  - Google CEO Sundar Pichai and executive leaders addressed employee questions at a town hall meeting on Monday after last week's job cuts.
David Pan / Bloomberg:
Sources: bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi plans to sell $160M of loans backed by ~68K bitcoin mining rigs; some have already defaulted or seem undercollateralized  —  Bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi Inc. plans to sell about $160 million of loans backed by around 68,000 Bitcoin mining machines …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple's ~$3,000 MR headset will have eye and hand tracking, a 3D iOS-like interface, AR and VR modes, a Mac external display feature, and more  —  Apple Inc.'s long-anticipated mixed-reality headset is an ambitious attempt to create a 3D version of the iPhone's operating system …
Bloomberg:
Sources: the DOJ is poised to sue Google this week over dominating the US digital ad market, the fifth major US case challenging its business practices  —  The US Justice Department is poised to sue Alphabet Inc.'s Google as soon as Tuesday regarding the search giant's dominance …
New York Times:
A look at Sam Bankman-Fried's $400M investment in obscure hedge fund Modulo, shortly before FTX collapsed; Modulo's executives had close ties to SBF and FTX  —  After the collapse of FTX, prosecutors and lawyers have scrutinized its discredited founder's huge investment in Modulo Capital.
Jon Christian / Futurism:
An investigation finds extensive evidence that AI used by CNET appears to have plagiarized the work of competitors and human writers at Bankrate and even CNET  —  CNET's AI-written articles aren't just riddled with errors.  They also appear to be substantially plagiarized.

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:
Fast, affordable law for startups  —  Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better.  We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts.  Join the waitlist for early access!
F5:
Accelerate AI Adoption at F5's AI Virtual Summit  —  Learn how to architect, secure, and scale AI for production with real-world insights from industry leaders on June 23.  Register now to save your spot.
Zoho:
Say hello to Zia Answer Bot: Your organization's knowledge, on-demand in every Zoho Lens session.  —  Imagine your technician is halfway through a live remote assistance session.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

The Upstarts Podcast:
Mutiny's Jaleh Rezaei: Walking Away From Millions In Software To Grow Even Faster With Sales AI
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Hard Fork:
'Hard Fork' Live, Part 3: Differing Visions of an A.I. Future
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Access:
The billionaire paying AI researchers to stay out of Big Tech
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
The Race to the Middle
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Great Chat:
After you ring the bell
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:50 AM ET, January 24, 2023.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Wired:
Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Vitalik Buterin / Vitalik Buterin's website:
Mahmoud Itani / XDA Developers:
PYMNTS.com:
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Eva Mathews / Reuters: