Techmeme
August 23, 2023, 11:45 AM

Top News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Sony announces the PlayStation Portal, an 8-inch handheld console that will stream PS5 games over Wi-Fi in 1080p at 60fps, available later in 2023 for $200  —  Sony is officially launching its portable PlayStation later this year, the PlayStation Portal remote player.
Bo Moore / IGN:
Hands-on with Sony PlayStation Portal: a slightly weird design but lighter than the Switch, expansive and vibrant 60Hz LCD screen, no Bluetooth, and needs a PS5  —  PlayStation Portal-ble  —  Sony has a storied, if a bit neglected, history with handheld gaming.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
IBM unveils watsonx Code Assistant for IBM Z, which uses a code-generating AI model to translate COBOL code into Java, set for general availability in Q4 2023  —  COBOL, or Common Business Oriented Language, is one of the oldest programming languages in use, dating back to around 1959.
Ryan Weeks / The Block:
The FBI details North Korea's TraderTraitor-affiliated actors, responsible for Alphapo, CoinsPaid, and Atomic Wallet hacks, and warns over cashing out $40M+ BTC  —  - The warning, issued today, comes after a series of high profile crypto heists carried out by North Korea-affiliated Lazarus Group in recent years.
Elizabeth Napolitano / CoinDesk:
A US judge sentences ex-OpenSea product head Nate Chastain to three months in prison for making ~$50K via insider trades, in the first NFT insider trading case  —  Chastain was found guilty on charges of buying and selling NFTs from collections he knew would later be featured on his former company's home page.
Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
AirPods Max can malfunction or suddenly stop working because of users' sweat or condensation inside of earcups, an issue Apple has not publicly acknowledged  —  Apple's $550 flagship headphones have a problem: They can malfunction, or suddenly stop working entirely, because of users' sweat …
Wall Street Journal:
Investigation: despite scaling back in Russia in 2022, Binance continues to handle substantial ruble trading, helping clients evade sanctions via intermediaries  —  Binance is helping Russians move money abroad, potentially adding to its sprawling legal problems in the U.S. The cryptocurrency giant …
Laura Noonan / Financial Times:
Bank for International Settlements: crypto has amplified rather than reduced financial risks in less developed economies, offering only an “illusory” appeal  —  Currency's appeal as a low-cost solution for countries with high inflation is ‘illusory’, says BIS
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
An analysis of Google's policy dilemma as YouTube and UMG explore AI licensing, Google scrapes the web to train its AI, and lawsuits could upend copyright law  —  Google has made clear it is going to use the open web to inform and create anything it wants, and nothing can get in its way.
Bloomberg:
SIA: Huawei is building secret chip fabrication facilities across China that would let the company skirt US sanctions and is receiving ~$30B in state funding  —  - Tech giant is reportedly getting $30 billion in state support  — Biden administration monitoring and ready to take action
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
OpenAI adds fine-tuning to GPT-3.5 Turbo, letting developers customize models with their own data to make them perform better for their use cases for a fee  —  OpenAI customers can now bring custom data to the lightweight version of GPT-3.5, GPT-3.5 Turbo — making it easier to improve …
Elad Gil / Elad Blog:
LLMs, Transformers, and diffusion models represent an entirely new era for AI and discontinuity from the past capabilities of the CNN/RNN/GAN world  —  Rather then view LLMs, Transformers, and diffusion models as part of a continuum with past “AI”, it is worth thinking of this as an entirely new era and discontinuity from the past
Yueqi Yang / Bloomberg:
Binance.US partners with MoonPay to let users use debit or credit cards and Apple Pay or Google Pay to buy Tether, which can then be used to buy other tokens  —  - Payment partnership allows users to convert dollars to Tether  — Exchange has been unable to process users' dollars directly
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Meta says it remains committed to rolling out default E2EE for Messenger, which has opt-in E2EE, by the end of 2023, and shortly afterwards for Instagram DMs  —  Meta plans to roll out default end-to-end encryption for its Messenger product by the end of this year, the company confirmed in a blog post Tuesday.
Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:
LinkedIn is benefiting from recent social media upheavals with a jump in sharing, leveraging its position as a place where old-school self-promotion still works  —  The professional network is benefiting from upheavals elsewhere in the social media landscape.  —  The biggest social media platforms all have their niches.

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 11:45 AM ET, August 23, 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

Kevin Jiang / Toronto Star:
Scharon Harding / Ars Technica:

Earlier Picks

Ioannis Kouvakas / Just Security:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Dave James / PC Gamer:
Tom Warren / The Verge: