Techmeme
February 8, 2023, 11:50 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:
Martin Coulter / Reuters:
Google's Bard announcement tweet had a GIF showing the AI chatbot giving an inaccurate answer to a question about the James Webb Space Telescope; GOOG drops 8%+  —  Google published an online advertisement in which its much anticipated AI chatbot BARD delivered inaccurate answers.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Google details AI updates: expanding multisearch globally on mobile, new features for EV drivers, Lens translation, and updates to Translate  —  Google announced a bunch of AI-enabled search, Maps, and Translate updates as part of its Google presents: Live from Paris event on Wednesday.
James Vincent / The Verge:
Google's AI demo event in Paris paled in comparison to Microsoft's “new Bing” announcement, highlighting Google's need to widely release its ChatGPT competitor  —  Google demoed its latest advances in AI search at a live event in Paris on Wednesday — but the features pale …
Parmy Olson / Bloomberg:
Google and Microsoft's race to add AI chatbots to search results comes loaded with risk; Bing shows results in a sidebar with citations, something Google lacks  —  Here's something you don't see everyday: Microsoft Corp. is serving up a snazzy web search tool.
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”  —  A congressional hearing today represents a moment of political reckoning more than two years in the making …
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
James Vincent / The Verge:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
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.
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.
Suvashree Ghosh / Bloomberg:
Binance executive Leon Foong says a full audit will take “a longer time”, arguing accountants are still learning about crypto, after Mazars retracted its report  —  Binance Holdings Ltd., operator of the world's largest digital-asset exchange, indicated a full audit of its assets …
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 …
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.

Sponsor Posts

ElevenLabs:
ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs  —  You know us for voice.  Now meet ElevenAgents — featuring Expressive Mode, our most human-sounding AI voice technology in 70+ languages with ultra-low latency.  Hear it for yourself.
Intel:
5G's most deployed platform  —  Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN.  That's the power of Intel Inside®
Zoho:
WorkDrive 6.0: Advancing toward intelligent enterprise content management (Phase 1)  —  Artificial intelligence is redefining how enterprises process data.  Large language models can understand context …
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

Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Brad Lightcap from OpenAI
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Why We Need to Pay Attention to Elon Musk Again
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.
Cheeky Pint:
Compliance at scale and why TAM is a distraction with Christina Cacioppo of Vanta
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ryan Roslansky: Turning AI Anxiety into Skills for the Future of Work
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.
Invest Like the Best:
Sergey Levine - Building LLMs for the Physical World
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:
'You're Going to Have the Niggles', With Christina Warren
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:50 AM ET, February 8, 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

Earlier Picks

Joseph Cox / VICE:
Ashley Capoot / CNBC: