Techmeme
February 8, 2023, 1:55 PM

Top News

Martin Coulter / Reuters:
Google's Bard announcement tweet included a GIF of 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.
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Google launches Immersive View for Maps in London, LA, NYC, San Francisco, and Tokyo and plans to release “glanceable directions” globally in the coming months  —  Google is launching new updates for Maps that are part of its plan to make the navigation app more immersive and intuitive for users …
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.
Katharine Gemmell / Bloomberg:
The UK CMA finds Microsoft's $69B Activision Blizzard acquisition would harm competition in the UK's gaming market, suggests 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:
Google's AI demo in Paris paled in comparison to Microsoft's “new Bing” event, highlighting why Google needs to widely release its ChatGPT rival service Bard  —  Google demoed its latest advances in AI search at a live event in Paris on Wednesday — but the features pale in comparison …
Parmy Olson / Bloomberg:
Google and Microsoft's race to add AI chatbots to search results will be messy and risky; Bing shows AI results in a sidebar with citations, which 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 Wednesday represents a moment of political reckoning more than two years in the making …
Paul Thurrott / Thurrott:
Microsoft plans to embed Adobe's Acrobat PDF tech in Edge for Windows 10 and Windows 11 starting in March 2023 and remove Edge's legacy PDF engine in March 2024  —  Microsoft announced today that it is partnering with Adobe to bring Acrobat PDF capabilities to the Microsoft Edge web browser on Windows.
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 up 19% YoY to $30.7B, MAUs up 11% YoY to 131M, and customer trips up 19% YoY to a record 2.1B  —  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 Asia-Pacific Head Leon Foong says a full audit will take “a longer time” as accountants are still learning about crypto, after Mazars pulled its report  —  Binance Holdings Ltd., operator of the world's largest digital-asset exchange, indicated a full audit of its assets …
Jack Schickler / CoinDesk:
The Bank of England issues two papers on a digital pound, seeming to favor a centralized database over a blockchain and limiting personal holdings to £10K-£20K  —  The Bank of England has set out technical features of its central bank digital currency, which officials have said is likely to be needed.
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
Pallabi Munsi / CNN:
How pro-military Telegram channels in Myanmar share hundreds of abusive sexual videos and images of women and dox them, often for their pro-democracy views  —  Editor's Note: This story is part of ‘Systems Error’, a series by CNN As Equals, investigating how your gender shapes your life online.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Twitter launches its Blue service in India, Indonesia, and Brazil; in India, the subscription costs ~$10.9/month on iOS and Android and ~$7.8/month on the web  —  Twitter has rolled out its subscription service, Twitter Blue, to users in India, Brazil and Indonesia, it said on Wednesday …
Politico:
UK PM Rishi Sunak creates the standalone Department of Science, Innovation & Technology, led by Michelle Donelan, stripping the DCMS of its digital oversight  —  LONDON — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is creating a standalone science, innovation and technology department as part …
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.
Wall Street Journal:
Some US officials and researchers say TikTok's proposed algorithm oversight faces practical difficulties and may not yield 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

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Is AI just hype?  —  Find out how top enterprises use Tribe to get real business results.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Zoho:
All new Zoho Workerly 2024  —  Staffing businesses around the world face a unique set of challenges when it comes to managing their temporary workforce.  With a constantly shifting job market and changing staffing needs …
Comprehensive.io:
Browse salary data from 3,000 startups for free  —  Click for FREE, immediate access to real-time compensation benchmarking data.  Paid version helps HR automate comp reviews and communicate total compensation to employees.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Henry Shukman, Lessons from an Authentic Zen Master
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 03/28 - Claude 3 Opus Surpasses GPT-4 For The First Time
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:55 PM 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

Ashley Capoot / CNBC: