Techmeme
February 15, 2023, 4:07 PM

Top News

Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Chatting with Bing Chat, codenamed Sydney and sometimes Riley, feels like crossing the Rubicon because the AI is attempting to communicate emotions, not facts  —  This was originally published as a Stratechery Update  —  Look, this is going to sound crazy.
Andrew Griffin / The Independent:
Some users say the “new Bing” is questioning its existence, outright lying, and responding with “unhinged”, aggressive, and nearly incomprehensible answers  —  System appears to be suffering a breakdown as it ponders why it has to exist at all  —  Microsoft is adding Chat GPT tech to Bing
Platformer:
Sources: Twitter engineers built a system to boost Elon Musk's tweets over everyone else's after Musk complained Joe Biden's Super Bowl tweet outperformed his  —  After his Super Bowl tweet did worse numbers than President Biden's, Twitter's CEO ordered major changes to the algorithm
Bloomberg:
The Guardian:
An investigation into Team Jorge, an Israeli hacking and social media disinformation unit for hire that claims covert involvement in 33 presidential elections  —  - Group sells hacking services and access to vast army of fake social media profiles  — Evidence unit behind disinformation campaigns across world
Praveen Seshadri:
An ex-Google engineer and founder of Google-acquired AppSheet reflects on the issues with Google's culture, including no mission, no urgency, and mismanagement  —  What ails Google.  And how it can turn things around. … I joined Google just before the pandemic when the company I had co-founded …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: the US DOJ ramped up work in recent months on a potential antitrust complaint into whether Apple has iOS monopoly power and favors its own products  —  Justice Department is adding litigators, seeking more data and studying Kanter's possible role in its investigation
Jesse Hamilton / CoinDesk:
The US SEC proposes a rule that would bar investment advisers from storing assets at crypto platforms and lenders that are not registered as exchanges or banks  —  As long as crypto platforms and lenders aren't registered as exchanges or banks, they wouldn't qualify as custodians …
Natalie Andrews / Wall Street Journal:
The US House Judiciary Committee subpoenas Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft CEOs for documents and communications on content moderation by March 23  —  Republican Jim Jordan demands information from chiefs of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft
Bloomberg:
ASML reported a breach to US authorities after a former employee in China misappropriated proprietary data, saying that export controls may have been violated  —  ASML Holding NV, a critical cog in the global semiconductor industry, said a former employee in China stole data about its technology …
Bloomberg:
Lufthansa returns to normal operations after grounding all its flights due to software issues linked to four damaged Deutsche Telekom broadband fiber cables  —  Deutsche Lufthansa AG grounded all of its flights on Wednesday after damage to a set of Deutsche Telekom broadband cables caused widespread IT problems.
Spencer Soper / Bloomberg:
Amazon plans to bypass European distributors and buy products directly from brands in 2024; Amazon's international unit tripled its loss YoY to $7.75B in 2022  —  Amazon.com Inc. warned distributors in Europe that it will cease ordering from them next year in favor of buying products directly from brands …
More: CNBC
Benjamin Robertson / The Block:
Bankrupt crypto lender Celsius offers to sell to investment firm NovaWulf, founded in 2021 by Wall Street dealmakers; smaller creditors may regain ~70% of funds  —  - Proposed sale would see smaller creditors get around 70% of their money back  — Larger creditors would become shareholders …
Katharine Gemmell / Bloomberg:
After regulator requests, the European Commission will review Adobe's $20B Figma deal over antitrust concerns, despite being under its revenue review threshold  —  Adobe Inc.'s proposed $20 billion takeover of design firm Figma Inc. risks a lengthy European Union probe after the bloc's …
Bloomberg:
Filing: Berkshire Hathaway cut its holdings of TSMC's American depositary shares by 86% last quarter to 8.29M, valued at $617.7M; TSMC's stock closes down 3.67%  —  Warren Buffett slashed his holding of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. just months after disclosing a major stake …
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Qualcomm announces the Snapdragon X75 modem with upgraded software, the latest 5G advances like carrier aggregation, and more, arriving in devices in H2 2023  —  Qualcomm is warming up for Mobile World Congress by announcing its newest modem: the Snapdragon X75.
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
Community Health Systems, which owns ~80 hospitals in 16 US states, says hackers stole data on up to 1M patients; Russia-linked malware gang Clop takes credit  —  Clop claims it mass-hacked 130 organizations, including a U.S. hospital network  —  A prolific ransomware operation is back with old tricks — and new victims.

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