Techmeme
December 8, 2023, 4:25 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
The UK CMA is considering an antitrust investigation into Microsoft and OpenAI's partnership, and is taking comments until January 3 before making a decision  —  - CMA seeking views on whether the relationship should be probed  — Move is less than two months since watchdog cleared Activision
Leah Nylen / Bloomberg:
Source: the US FTC is examining the nature of Microsoft's investment in OpenAI and potentially antitrust law violations but hasn't opened a formal investigation  —  - The agency hasn't opened a formal probe into Microsoft-OpenAI  — Microsoft didn't report deal to FTC due to non-profit status
Parmy Olson / Bloomberg:
Google's video demo of Gemini's multimodal AI capabilities wasn't carried out in real time or in voice; the model was shown still images and given text prompts  —  The tech giant's latest AI model is only marginally better than the one from OpenAI that's been out for eight months.
Steven Levy / Wired:
How author Steven Johnson, now a Google employee for over a year, helped create NotebookLM, which lets writers extract key themes from their research material  —  Author Steven Johnson helped Google create an app that can analyze a writer's research material and help them extract and explore the key themes.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Nikkei Asia:
Sources: in a first, Apple is working with China's BYD to move iPad product development to Vietnam, with test production set to begin around mid-February 2024  —  China's BYD helps American giant with shift to alternative tech hubs  —  Vietnam is emerging as an increasingly important production hub …
Wall Street Journal:
Sankalp Phartiyal / Bloomberg:
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
How Meta addressed the technical challenges of developing E2EE for Messenger, including creating an encrypted storage protocol and re-architecting chat features  —  Mark Zuckerberg personally promised that the privacy feature would launch by default on Messenger and Instagram chat.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: X has held preliminary talks with Amazon to make ads available via Amazon's ad-buying software, and PubMatic, seeking to attract more small advertisers  —  Social-media platform has had preliminary talks with Amazon to sell ads through e-commerce giant's ad-buying software
Jacob Knutson / Axios:
23andMe changed its TOS to prevent lawsuits days after its October data breach; to opt out, customers must email the company that they disagree within 30 days  —  Days after a data breach allowed hackers to steal 6.9 million 23andMe users' personal details, the genetic testing company changed …
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Mobile network companies have backed themselves into a corner by racing to roll out 5G, taking on piles of debt with few returns to show for their investments  —  Networks spent years telling us that 5G would change everything.  But the flashiest use cases are nowhere to be found …
Elizabeth Lopatto / The Verge:
Wall Street Journal:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is reorganizing its hardware engineering team as Tang Tan, its VP in charge of iPhone and Watch product design, plans to step down in February  —  - Tang Tan is set to leave the tech company in February  — Departure will spur changes at hardware engineering group

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Earlier Picks

Jessica Lyons Hardcastle / The Register:
Wall Street Journal:
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Ben Weiss / Fortune:
Wall Street Journal: