Techmeme
March 21, 2023, 11:40 AM

Top News

James Vincent / The Verge:
Hands-on with Google's Bard, available via waitlist in the US and UK: quick and fluid, more constrained than Bing, three responses/query, disclaimers, and more  —  Today, Google is opening up limited access to Bard, its ChatGPT rival, a major step in the company's attempt to reclaim …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Microsoft begins rolling out Bing Image Creator to Edge, powered by OpenAI's DALL-E and accessible via Bing Chat, letting users create images from text prompts  —  Microsoft today announced that its new AI-enabled Bing will now allow users to generate images with Bing Chat.
Ashley Capoot / CNBC:
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
OpenAI temporarily shut down ChatGPT after a bug let some users see the titles of other users' chat histories; some chat histories are still missing  —  OpenAI temporarily shut down its popular ChatGPT service on Monday morning after receiving reports of a bug that allowed some users to see the titles of other users' chat histories.
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Adobe announces Firefly, a “family” of creative generative AI models, and releases a DALL-E-like image generator and a WordArt-like stylized text generator  —  Adobe is finally launching its own AI image generator.  The company is announcing a “family of creative generative AI models” …
James Vincent / The Verge:
TikTok refreshes its Community Guidelines, expanding a section to cover “synthetic and manipulated media”, or deepfakes, as pressure from the US increases  —  As the prospect of a US TikTok ban continues to grow, the video app has refreshed its content moderation policies.
Karl Bode / Techdirt:
Instead of myopically fixating on TikTok, the US should pass a real privacy law to regulate data brokers, who offer anyone info on US citizens, including China  —  from the you're-not-actually-fixing-the- problem dept  —  We've noted for a while now how the great TikTok moral panic of 2023 is largely a distraction.
David Shepardson / Reuters:
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch:
Google suspends Pinduoduo's app on the Play Store over “security concerns” and flags several Pinduoduo apps as malware, alerting users who had installed them  —  On Monday, Google announced that it had flagged several apps made by a Chinese e-commerce giant as malware …
Mandiant:
An overview of 55 zero-day vulnerabilities exploited in 2022, mostly in products from Apple, Microsoft, and Google; Chinese groups exploited more than others  —  - Mandiant tracked 55 zero-day vulnerabilities that we judge were exploited in 2022.  Although this count is lower …
Michael Kan / PCMag:
Study: GPT models and related technologies could seriously affect ~19% of workers in the US, with higher-income jobs potentially facing greater exposure  —  Researchers examine how OpenAI's GPT technology could affect the workforce, and find 'the influence spans all wage levels …
Varun Mishra / Counterpoint Research:
Global premium smartphone sales rose 1% YoY in 2022, taking 50%+ of the smartphone market's revenue for the first time; Apple took 75% of the premium market  —  Although overall global smartphone sales in 2022 fell 12% YoY due to macroeconomic difficulties, global premium (≥$600 wholesale price) …
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
eToro secures $250M at a $3.5B valuation via an Advanced Investment Agreement signed in 2021, after scrapping its SPAC plans in 2022 amid slowing growth  —  After calling off its plans to go public via a SPAC at a $10.4 billion valuation in 2022, trading platform eToro has secured $250 million in funding at a $3.5 billion valuation.
Noam Scheiber / New York Times:
A year after its Staten Island win, the Amazon Labor Union has endured setbacks and conflicts, including between president Chris Smalls and longtime organizers  —  Nearly a year after its victory on Staten Island, the Amazon Labor Union is grappling with election losses and internal conflict.
Jacquelyn Melinek / TechCrunch:
OP3N, which develops the blockchain chat app Superapp and aims to be the “Web3 version of WhatsApp meets Amazon”, raised a $28M Series A at a $100M valuation  —  OP3N, a web3 AI-powered platform, raised a $28 million Series A round that values the company at $100 million, the startup shared exclusively with TechCrunch.
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