Techmeme
October 7, 2023, 7:20 PM

Top News

Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Hackers posted an initial data sample from 23andMe on BreachForums earlier in the week, claiming that it had 1M data points exclusively about Ashkenazi Jews  —  At least a million data points from 23andMe accounts appear to have been exposed on BreachForums.
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Even though the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro have the same Tensor G3 chip, features like Night Sight Video and enhanced Magic Eraser are exclusive to the Pixel 8 Pro  —  I can't believe Google finally did it.  I'm still in disbelief. … It's unheard of.  It's historic.
Anthropic:
A research paper details how decomposing groups of neurons in a neural network into interpretable “features” may improve safety by enabling monitoring of LLMs  —  Neural networks are trained on data, not programmed to follow rules.  With each step of training …
Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios:
Y Combinator hires Yelp policy chief Luther Lowe, best known for his public criticism of Google, to lead public policy, as the accelerator embraces politics  —  Best known for his relentless public criticism of Google as a monopoly, longtime Yelp public policy chief Luther Lowe has a new gig: heading up policy efforts for Y Combinator.
Reuters:
The US adds 42 tech companies from China and seven companies from India, UK, and other countries to an export control list over their support for Russian army  —  The U.S. Commerce Department on Friday added 42 Chinese companies to a government export control list over their support …
Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
Amazon's Alexa has been claiming that the 2020 election was stolen citing sources from Rumble and Substack; Amazon says the errors were fixed  —  The popular voice assistant says the 2020 race was stolen, even as parent company Amazon promotes the tool as a reliable election news source — foreshadowing a new information battleground
Reuters:
The Delhi police accuse Xiaomi, Vivo, and others of helping transfer funds illegally to news outlet NewsClick, which is accused of spreading Chinese propaganda  —  Indian police have formally accused Chinese smartphone makers Xiaomi Corp and Vivo Mobile of helping transfer funds illegally …
Wall Street Journal:
Political advertisers have raised concerns about X's Community Notes after major brands like Apple, Samsung, and Uber had critical notes attached to their ads  —  Major brands including Apple and Samsung have had critical notes attached to ads.  Political advertisers have raised concerns about the tool heading into campaign season.
CNBC:
Several users on Seller Central, Amazon's forum for merchants, welcomed the FTC's lawsuit against the company, while others remain skeptical about its outcome  —  - Amazon's massive third-party seller base anxiously anticipated the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust complaint, which was years in the making.
More: Tech Xplore

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More News

Paresh Dave / Wired:
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Anissa Gardizy / The Information:

Earlier Picks

Matt Binder / Mashable:
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Andrew Hayward / Decrypt:
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Katherine Sayre / Wall Street Journal: