Techmeme
September 30, 2023, 6:35 AM

Top News

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Researchers report critical vulnerabilities in the Exim mail transfer agent allowing remote code execution; Exim is used by as many as 253K servers  —  Remote code execution requiring no authentication fixed. 2 other RCEs remain unpatched.  —  Thousands of servers running the Exim mail transfer agent …
Olivia Solon / Bloomberg:
Research: ahead of Slovakia's parliamentary elections, AI-generated deepfake videos of politicians are spreading on Facebook, Telegram, and other platforms  —  Videos featuring AI-generated deepfake voices of politicians are spreading on social media ahead of the Slovak parliamentary elections this weekend …
Joel Khalili / Wired:
A look at FTX 2.0 Coalition, a group of creditors led by FTX CEO John Ray III that has almost 3,000 members and is looking to relaunch the exchange without SBF  —  As SBF's trial approaches, a group of FTX creditors want to relaunch the collapsed exchange.  It's not as crazy as it sounds.
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Meta quietly unveils Llama 2 Long, which has been trained with longer sequences, outperforming GPT-3.5 Turbo and Claude 2 when responding to long user prompts  —  Meta Platforms showed off a bevy of new AI features for its consumer-facing services Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp …
Taylor Lorenz / Washington Post:
A history of Vine's failure to build relationships with its top creators, who Vine leadership resented for gaming the app's ranking algorithm and their humor  —  The wildly popular video app's contentious relationship with its own power users offers a cautionary tale for social platforms
Natasha Mascarenhas / The Information:
Sources: Jasper, which offers an AI writing tool for marketers, cut its $140M ARR projections for 2023 by 30%+ and its internal valuation by 20% from $1.5B  —  Jasper AI, an early darling of the generative artificial intelligence boom, has cut the internal value of its common shares 20% …
New York Times:
Leaked internal messages from 2020 and 2021 detail Huawei's efforts to lobby Greek officials; filings: Huawei's 2022 sales in Greece rose 56% YoY to €258M  —  Leaked internal messages detail efforts by the Chinese tech giant to court Greek officials and fight an American-led effort against its technology.
William Gallagher / AppleInsider:
Report: Apple uses two microscopic QR codes on iPhone displays to track defects, which has helped cut its suppliers' faulty screen report rates from 30% to 10%  —  Apple spent millions to add a barcode to iPhone displays in order to save being charged hundreds of millions by manufacturers claiming faulty screens that may not have been.
Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Letterboxd's founders sell a majority stake to Canadian company Tiny; a source says the deal values the film-focused social network with ~10M users at $50M+  —  Two designers from New Zealand built a wildly popular social network for movie buffs.  Now, they're cashing in (and sticking around for the sequel).

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More News

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Earlier Picks

Elizabeth Pineau / Reuters:
Lex Fridman / Lex Fridman Podcast:
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Umar Shakir / The Verge:
Ash Parrish / The Verge: