Techmeme: Q&A with Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer on Xbox having no major 2022 releases, momentum in 2023, layoffs, the Activision deal and the FTC lawsuit, and more (Kat Bailey/IGN)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

January 30, 2023, 7:50 AM

Top News

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:

Source: Chinese search giant Baidu plans to launch an AI chatbot, similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT, in March 2023, initially embedded into its main search services — Baidu Inc. is planning to roll out an artificial intelligence chatbot service similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT, according to a person familiar …

More: Reuters, PingWest, Engadget, The Economic Times, The Information, Barron's Online, Wall Street Journal, TechNode, Neowin, TechCircle, and Digital Trends

Mastodon: @ukuku@mstdn.social. Tweets: @pelstrom, @robinwauters, @pelstrom, @davidinglestv, @dinabass, @pingroma, @ruima, @elenaneroba, and @eden_holdings

Sander Lutz / Decrypt:

The Biden administration publishes a roadmap for mitigating cryptocurrencies' risks and urges Congress to hasten efforts to create a crypto regulatory framework — Four senior Biden officials penned a note Friday urging lawmakers to hasten their efforts to create a regulatory framework for crypto.

Source: The White House. More: Bitcoin News, SiliconANGLE, Emage 兆.耳, crypto.news, Cryptonews, Bitcoinist.com, Crypto Daily, Cointelegraph, Inside Bitcoins, and CryptoPotato

Tweets: @briandeesenec, @alondranelson46, @robamorg, @whostp, @bradydale, @periannedc, @shyftnetwork, @wmougayar, @cryptowendyo, @cryptolycus, @regulatoryjason, @dennis_porter_, and @caitlinlong_

John D. McKinnon / Wall Street Journal:

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew plans to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 23, the first appearance by a TikTok CEO before Congress — Republicans are expected to use hearing to highlight security and privacy concerns over video app — TikTok Offers More Transparency to Win Over U.S. Regulators

More: Washington Post, House Committee on Energy …, Bloomberg, Reuters, and Fortune

Tweets: @niubi and @b_fung

John D. McKinnon / Wall Street Journal:

The US' Berman amendments, passed during the Cold War to protect the free flow of content between the US and hostile countries, may complicate a TikTok ban — Decades-old measures protect free flow of content internationally, even with hostile nations — How TikTok Could Become a U.S. Company

More: CNBC, Bloomberg, TechNode, The Information, International Business Times, scussion, and South China Morning Post

Tweets: @sroach_econ, @bensonel, and @martijnrasser

Jon Porter / The Verge:

Kuo: Apple plans to release a foldable iPad in 2024, featuring a carbon fiber kickstand, as well as an updated iPad mini, after a quiet 2023 for the iPad — Apple could be on track to release a foldable iPad as early as next year, according to supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

More: MacRumors, 9to5Mac, Android Authority, AppleInsider, MacRumors, Pocket-lint, Wccftech, BGR, Huawei Central, iThinkDifferent, SPARROWS NEWS, TechCircle, Appuals.com, iMore, GSMArena.com, Cult of Mac, and WRAL TechWire

Tweets: @mingchikuo, @mingchikuo, @mingchikuo, @mingchikuo, and @bengeskin

David Ingram / NBC News:

San Francisco asked California regulators to halt or scale back the expansion of Cruise and Waymo, after repeated incidents with stopped and idle robotaxis — SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco is trying to slow the expansion of robotaxis after repeated incidents in which cars without drivers stopped …

More: Engadget, California Public Utilities Commission, The Verge, SiliconANGLE, Digital Trends, Slashdot, and California Public Utilities Commission

Tweets: @davidzipper, @davidzipper, @wiredscience, @nbcnews, @david_ingram, @aniccia, @tsimonite, and @aarianmarshall

Wall Street Journal:

Documents: China's top nuclear weapons research lab, on the US export entity list since 1997, bought 7nm to 14nm Intel and Nvidia chips several times since 2020 — State-owned institute continued buying Intel- and Nvidia-made chips despite inclusion on a U.S. export blacklist in 1997

More: Associated Press. Tweets: @angelazhanghk, @newley, @cold_peace_, @dravirmani, and @lingling_wei

Financial Times:

The English Premier League strikes a four-year deal with blockchain fantasy sports startup Sorare; sources say Sorare will pay tens of millions per year — League agrees multimillion-pound licensing deal with start-up that offers trading in digital player cards

More: VentureBeat, Reuters, CoinDesk, TechCrunch, CNBC, Sorare, City A.M., and CoinGape

Tweets: @sorare, @premierleague, @ni2las, and @ni2las

Bloomberg:

The memory chip sector, known for boom-and-bust cycles, is facing one if its worst-ever routs, as an inventory glut and a fight for marketshare crater prices — This time was supposed to be different. — The memory-chip sector, famous for its boom-and-bust cycles, had changed its ways.

More: Wall Street Journal. Tweets: @lisaabramowicz1, @pelstrom, @pelstrom, and @trengriffin

TechCrunch:

Court records from 2011 to 2022 show how police in some US states used data like text messages, search history, and emails in abortion-related prosecutions — In late April, police in Nebraska received a tip saying 17-year-old Celeste Burgess had given birth to a stillborn baby and buried the body.

Tweets: @runasand and @evacide

Dave Michaels / Wall Street Journal:

A profile of Jonathan Kanter, the DOJ's assistant AG for antitrust, a longtime Google foe who filed the US anti-monopoly lawsuit to break up its ad business — Jonathan Kanter is a longtime legal adversary to the internet company — Watch: Garland Announces Lawsuit Against Google for Antitrust Violations

More: Digiday

Naomi Nix / Washington Post:

After layoffs, Meta, which used remote work during the pandemic to advance its diversity goals, now faces an uphill battle to continue making progress with DEI — Brit Levy, 35, was eager to join Meta's paid training program for aspiring human resources managers last year because she wanted …

More: gHacks Technology News. Tweets: @nerdbitches, @max111206, and @kcraigtv

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:

Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning — SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds. Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.

Cape:

Most carriers track everything. Cape doesn't. — Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more. Switch today and get 29% off for life.

Zoho:

Celebrating 10 years of Zoho Marketplace — 30 Zoho products,2,900+ extensions and integrations,1 million+ users, and2 million installations.Zoho Marketplace celebrates a decade-long journey of adding timeless value …

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.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:

Best of Big Technology: How Ozempic Changes Our Bodies, Minds, and Economy — With Johann Hari

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.

Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.

Hard Fork:

Zuckerberg's Anti-Doom Fantasy + Finally an A.I. Detector That Works + A.I. Math

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.

Channels with Peter Kafka:

Joanna Stern on the New Siri, OpenAI's Weird Gadget, and Life After the Wall Street Journal

Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.

Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.

Invest Like the Best:

Eric Vishria - A Decade of Lessons Investing in Software & Hardware

The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

The Talk Show With John Gruber:

'Getting the Snack Right', With Chance Miller

The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.

Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin

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.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:50 AM ET, January 30, 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.

From Mediagazer

Josh Gerstein / Politico:

The BBC is seeking to subpoena Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner in the defamation lawsuit the president is pressing against the broadcaster

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Filing: WBD president and CEO David Zaslav sold $195M+ worth of WBD stock since the company agreed to be acquired by Paramount; his latest sale totaled $21.7M

CNBC:

Q&A with Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro: he's not interested in spinoffs of ESPN or ABC and says Disney will stand up for ABC's journalistic integrity against the FCC

Upcoming Tech Events

Aug 16-19

WordCamp US ***Use promo code “techmeme” for 50% off*** REGISTER NOW

Phoenix

Aug 18

Earnings: BIDU, Xiaomi

VIRTUAL: The Six Five Summit: AI Unleashed 2026 Featuring Marc Benioff & Enterprise AI Leaders REGISTER FOR FREE

Aug 26

Earnings: NVDA, CRM, HPQ, CRWD

Earnings: AVGO, SNOW, HPE

Sep 2

Abstract by Convex REGISTER NOW

New York Times DealBook Summit

More News

New York Times:

South Korea's K-pop industry is embracing the metaverse, expanding on commonplace virtual counterparts for artists, including by creating the virtual band Mave

More: OnEdge Newsletter. Tweets: @bymattstevens and @slhamlet

Dominic-Madori Davis / TechCrunch:

Crunchbase: US Black Web3 founders raised $60M in 2022, up from $16M in 2021; US Web3 startups raised $11.9B in 2022, down 39% from $16.5B in 2021

Chris Metinko / Crunchbase News:

Florida startups raised $9.7B in 601 deals in 2022, up 25% YoY from $7.8B in 652 deals; VC funding fell 40%+ YoY in 2022 in California, Massachusetts, and NY

More: Crunchbase News. Tweets: @jeffnolan, @saxonbaum, and @crunchbasenews

Karmela Padavic-Callaghan / New Scientist:

Researchers detail how ProGen, an LLM trained on 280M proteins, designed proteins with anti-microbial properties that were tested in real life and shown to work

More: Neowin and Slashdot

Tweets: @twenseleers, @tonymmorley, @thisismadani, @erictopol, @sn4ileater, @shiraeis, and @ppmc_uab

Cory Doctorow / Pluralistic:

How TikTok, Amazon, and other platforms go through “enshittification”, helping users before abusing them to help business customers, then abusing those as well

More: Bloomberg. Tweets: @mikeelgan, @timsweeneyepic, @doctorow, @sriramk, @tychobrahe, @hlinehan, @greglinden, @glichfield, @robertmaguire_, @josh_bersin, @seankreynolds, @scottmonty, @doctorow, @doctorow, @alexdecampi, @masspirates, and @agroebbe

Charlize Alcaraz / BetaKit:

Toronto-based Smile CDR, which offers services for health care and clinical data interoperability, raised a ~$30M Series B led by UPMC Enterprises and others

More: newswire.com

Hannah Lang / Reuters:

The US Federal Reserve rejects Custodia Bank's application to become a Federal Reserve System member, citing safety risks with its crypto-focused business model

Earlier Picks

CTech:

OpenWeb, which helps outlets manage comments and target readers with ads, acquires Jeeng, an audience management service used by over 650 publishers, for $100M

More: Globes Online, OpenWeb, Insider, and FinSMEs

Tweets: @glenngabe and @glenngabe

Financial Times:

Meme-stock mania companies, including GameStop and AMC Entertainment, have raised $4.7B since the hype began in January 2021, but failed to boost performance

Tweets: @edgecliffe

Julia Angwin / The Markup:

Q&A with Princeton CS professor Arvind Narayanan on why he calls ChatGPT a “bullshit generator”, his worries over its boom, developing his AI taxonomy, and more

Mastodon: @JeroenJeremy@mastodon.green. Tweets: @random_walker, @juliaangwin, @daphnehk, @harrymccracken, @jonathandriddle, @digiphile, @random_walker, and @fuzheado

Bloomberg:

As the GOP assumes US House leadership, the antitrust subcommittee shifts its focus from bipartisan efforts to curb Big Tech's power to free speech issues

More: BIG by Matt Stoller. Tweets: @birnbaum_e, @justin_higgins2, @mattzeitlin, @evan_greer, @kdbyproxy, @matthewstoller, @lutherlowe, @mondairejones, @stacyfmitchell, @moreperfectus, @mrddmia, @karlbode, and @technology

Kat Bailey / IGN:

Q&A with Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer on Xbox having no major 2022 releases, momentum in 2023, layoffs, the Activision deal and the FTC lawsuit, and more

More: TrueAchievements, KitGuru, OnMSFT.com, Gamereactor UK, Game Rant, Livemint, Engadget, Video Games Chronicle, Pure Xbox, GamingBolt, PC Gamer, Appuals.com, Wccftech, TheGamer, and Dot Esports

Tweets: @tomwarren, @draydensbeard, @dreadknux, and @tomwarren

New York Times:

Court filing: the US DOJ accuses Sam Bankman-Fried of messaging FTX US' general counsel and a potential witness, and asks a judge to limit his communications

More: Decrypt, PYMNTS.com, The Daily Hodl, Reuters, Bloomberg, CryptoSlate, Engadget, Bitcoin News, Wall Street Journal, Cointelegraph, crypto.news, CoinJournal, NewsBTC, Cryptonews, CNBC, The Block, and CoinDesk

Tweets: @downwithtyranny and @cryptoelitenews