Techmeme
March 8, 2023, 11:30 AM

Top News

Barbara Ortutay / Associated Press:
Elon Musk apologizes after mocking laid-off disabled Twitter employee Haraldur Thorleifsson, who joined in 2021 after Twitter acquired his startup Ueno  —  If you're not told you are fired, are you really fired?  At Twitter, probably.  And then, sometimes, you get your job back — if you want it.
More: BBC, The Guardian, TechCrunch, Ethan Zuckerman, BBC, Washington Post, Daring Fireball, Gizmodo, New York Times, Mashable, Axios, Forbes, Forbes, Insider, CNBC, Newser, TweakTown, RTÉ, Bloomberg, Fortune, and CNN
Bloomberg:
A look at Google's scramble to add generative AI to its products, reminding some employees of the rush to infuse Google+ into every key service starting in 2011  —  Artificial intelligence was supposed to be Google's thing.  The company has cultivated a reputation for making long-term bets …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources describe how Google stalled the release of a powerful chatbot for years due to the risk AI demos could pose to its reputation and search ads business  —  Researchers developed a powerful chatbot years before rival ChatGPT went viral.  After management stalled its release, they quit.
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Twitter lets the certificate for its Tor onion site expire, effectively killing off the privacy-preserving and speech-protecting service after one year  —  Twitter has allowed the certificate for its Tor onion site to expire, effectively killing off a privacy- and speech-protecting service that it introduced last year.
Politico:
TikTok announces Project Clover, outlining its plan to charm European regulators, including keeping user data on servers in Europe and allowing an audit  —  BRUSSELS — TikTok has launched its European counteroffensive to assuage politicians' fears over Chinese surveillance.
James Hunt / The Block:
Coinbase announces a “Wallet-as-a-Service” product, offering APIs to help companies create customizable wallets for their apps more easily  —  - Coinbase has announced a product called Wallet-as-a-Service (WaaS), designed to let companies build web3 experiences that have simple wallet onboarding.
Thomas Germain / Gizmodo:
DuckDuckGo launches OpenAI- and Anthropic-powered DuckAssist in beta, using Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica, and other sources to summarize answers  —  The new DuckAssist tool will source answers from Wikipedia for quick, conversational responses to some questions.
Ryan Tracy / Wall Street Journal:
Documents: the FTC demanded Twitter turn over internal messages on Elon Musk, details about layoffs, and the names of journalists with access to company records  —  Documents obtained by a House panel shed light on the probe into Twitter's compliance with settlement
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google schedules I/O 2023 with a “limited live audience” for May 10, when Android 14 details, Pixel 7a's debut, and a Pixel Tablet launch date are expected  —  Following the literal input/output puzzle this morning, Google has announced that I/O 2023 is taking place Wednesday, May 10.
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
YouTube plans to ease its restrictions on swearing in videos after finding its rules from November 2022 “resulted in a stricter approach than we intended”  —  YouTube will ease its restrictions on swearing in videos after an update it rolled out in November sparked backlash from several creators …
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Google and the Technical University of Berlin unveil PaLM-E, a visual language model with 562B parameters, integrating vision and language for robotic control  —  ChatGPT-style AI model adds vision to guide a robot without special training.  —  On Monday, a group of AI researchers from Google …
More: PaLM-ETweets: @dannydriess, @_akhaliq, @dergnz, and @suhail
Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
Biden's FCC nominee Gigi Sohn tells the White House she is dropping out after her nomination stalled for 16 months amid industry opposition and personal attacks  —  Gigi Sohn notified the White House she would drop out; her nomination was stalled for 16 months amid industry opposition
Harry McCracken / Fast Company:
An oral history of LinkedIn, which turns 20 in May, as told by Reid Hoffman and its co-founders, current executives, Satya Nadella, Richard Branson, and others  —  Social media, for work?  The world was skeptical.  But 20 years and a few white-knuckle moments later, LinkedIn has become synonymous …
CoinDesk:
A New York bankruptcy judge says Voyager Digital can sell its $1B+ worth of assets to Binance.US, overruling objections by the US SEC and state regulators  —  The bankruptcy judge in the Voyager Digital case chose to allow the deal with Binance.US over objections from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and state regulators.
Ellen Huet / Bloomberg:
How Silicon Valley became obsessed with effective altruism, championed by SBF before he dismissed it as a dodge, and doomsday scenarios like killer rogue AI  —  Sonia Joseph was 14 years old when she first read Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, a mega-popular piece of fan fiction …

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Deep analysis for deep questions  —  Introducing Superagent.  A new research product from Airtable: Subagents deeply interrogate your topic and turn it into boardroom-ready reports, slides, docs, or websites.
Clay:
Turn any GTM idea into reality  —  Clay helps GTM teams combine AI agents, enrichment, and intent data to move faster and turn insights into action.
Zoho:
Your next great hire is just a tap away  —  You're traveling for a recruitment conference and forgot your work laptop.  You still have to review a C-suite candidate's salary requirements, filter the best candidates …
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

Grit:
How Malwarebytes Is Protecting Millions In The Era Of AI Scams | Marcin Kleczynski
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI Closes in on $100 Billion, OpenClaw Acquired, AI's Productivity Question — With Aaron Levie
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:
The Pentagon vs. Anthropic + An A.I. Agent Slandered Me + Hot Mess Express
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.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Loyal's Celine Halioua: From Defying Doubters To Pioneering Dog Longevity
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Access:
Notion CEO Ivan Zhao on if AI is really killing software companies
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
His Excellency Khaldoon Al Mubarak: Investing in an AI-Driven World
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:30 AM ET, March 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

Bloomberg:
Brian Fung / CNN:
Todd Spangler / Variety: