Techmeme
February 8, 2023, 10:00 AM

Top News

Katharine Gemmell / Bloomberg:
The UK CMA finds Microsoft's proposed $69B Activision Blizzard acquisition will harm competition in the UK's gaming market and asks Microsoft for remedies  —  Microsoft Corp.'s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. will harm competition in the UK gaming market …
Financial Times:
James Vincent / The Verge:
Microsoft unveils an updated Bing search engine and Edge browser powered by a next-gen custom OpenAI LLM, calling the duo an “AI-powered co-pilot for the web”  —  Microsoft has announced a new version of its search engine Bing, powered by an upgraded version of the same AI technology that underpins chatbot ChatGPT.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
A recap of Microsoft's event, where the company detailed the new Bing and Edge powered by OpenAI's next-gen model, AI progress, OpenAI partnership, and more  —  Microsoft is holding a surprise event at its Redmond headquarters today, where it's expected to focus on its OpenAI partnership and introduce a version of Bing with ChatGPT.
Joanna Stern / Wall Street Journal:
Hands-on with the new AI-powered Bing, which, when asked for the 2023 Grammys winners, made a list with citations in a minute; search will never be the same  —  Our columnist got an early look at the software's new ChatGPT-like powers  —  Bing with AI: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Why Search Is Changed Forever
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Martin Coulter / Reuters:
Google's Bard announcement on Twitter included a GIF that shows the AI chatbot offering an inaccurate answer to a question about the James Webb Space Telescope  —  Google published an online advertisement in which its much anticipated AI chatbot BARD delivered inaccurate answers.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Washington Post:
A live blog of the House Oversight Committee hearing with ex-Twitter executives Vijaya Gadde, James Baker, and Yoel Roth on Hunter Biden laptop “censorship”  —  Updated just now  —  A congressional hearing today promises a moment of political reckoning more than two years in the making …
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
At the State of the Union, Biden called for Congress to strengthen data privacy protections and antitrust enforcement to stop Big Tech from self-preferencing  —  President Joe Biden threw his support behind tougher rules regulating Silicon Valley during his Second State of the Union speech Tuesday night.
Jack Schickler / CoinDesk:
The Bank of England publishes two papers on a new digital pound, seeming to favor centralized databases over a blockchain and limiting to £10K-£20K per person  —  The Bank of England has set out technical features of its central bank digital currency, which officials have said is likely to be needed.
Thomas Claburn / The Register:
Mozilla says the company is doing “exploratory work” for a Gecko-based browser on iOS in case Apple drops its WebKit requirement, after a similar move by Google  —  Work on a Gecko-based version of Firefox for iOS is underway, again  —  UPDATED Mozilla is planning for the day when Apple …
Kellen Browning / New York Times:
Uber reports Q4 revenue up 49% YoY to $8.6B, gross bookings rose 19% YoY to $30.7B, and a record 2.1B customer trips, up 19% YoY; UBER jumps 7%+ pre-market  —  The company, which was hit hard in the early stages of the pandemic, saw revenue jump 49 percent from the same period a year ago.
Ashley Capoot / CNBC:
Zoom plans to cut ~1,300 staff, or ~15% of its workforce, offering US employees up to 16 weeks severance, including salary, health care, and bonus; ZM jumps 5%+  —  - Zoom on Tuesday announced plans to cut about 1,300 workers, or 15% of its workforce, according to a blog post shared to the company's website.
Pallabi Munsi / CNN:
How pro-military groups in Myanmar are using Telegram channels, many with ~10K followers, to share abusive sexual videos and images of women and to doxx them  —  Editor's Note: This story is part of ‘Systems Error’, a series by CNN As Equals, investigating how your gender shapes your life online.
Politico:
UK PM Rishi Sunak creates the standalone Department of Science, Innovation & Technology, led by Michelle Donelan, stripping the DCMS of its tech oversight  —  LONDON — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is creating a standalone science, innovation and technology department as part …
Wall Street Journal:
US officials and researchers say TikTok's proposed algorithm oversight faces practical difficulties and may not offer answers on possible Chinese influence  —  Concerns mount over TikTok's plan to address potential Chinese influence over what videos Americans see  —  How TikTok Could Become a U.S. Company
Joseph Cox / VICE:
Voice actors are increasingly being asked to sign away rights to their voices so clients can make synthetic AI versions that may eventually replace them  —  Motherboard spoke to multiple voice actors and advocacy organizations, some of which said contracts including language around synthetic voices are now very prevalent.

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