Techmeme
December 14, 2023, 11:10 PM

Top News

Forbes:
Google confirms that it will no longer respond to geofence warrants after making changes to the way Maps stores users' location data  —  “Geofence warrants,” which allow law enforcement to get location data across a wide area, have become commonplace in recent years.
Stacy Elliott / Decrypt:
Crypto wallet maker Ledger updates Connect Kit, saying a former employee “fell victim to a phishing attack” that let a hacker insert malicious code  —  Crypto wallet manufacturer Ledger has confirmed an exploit that led it to warn users to “stop using dapps” started because a former employee fell for a phishing scam.
Paul Alcorn / Tom's Hardware:
Intel 5th-Gen Xeon Platinum 8592+ review: the $11,600 64-core chip outperforms AMD's 64-core EPYC Genoa in several benchmarks, particularly in AI workloads  —  The sun shines brighter for Intel. … Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products …
Gavin Bonshor / AnandTech:
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Ben Horowitz / Andreessen Horowitz:
Andreessen Horowitz says “we will, for the first time, get involved with politics by supporting candidates who align with our vision and values” for technology  —  As software has eaten the world, it has become integral to every industry and nearly every endeavor in our society.
Will Douglas Heaven / MIT Technology Review:
Google DeepMind's FunSearch model cracks the unsolved cap set problem in pure mathematics, the first time an LLM has solved a long-standing scientific puzzle  —  They had to throw away most of what it produced but there was gold among the garbage.  —  Google DeepMind has used a large language model …
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch:
Email: Cruise lays off 900 staff, or ~24% of its workforce, targeting non-engineering jobs, as part of a plan to slash costs and attempt to revamp the company  —  Cruise, the embattled GM self-driving car subsidiary, is laying off 900 employees, or about 24% of its workforce …
Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:
The confusion around Dropbox's AI toggle highlights an AI trust crisis where many users don't believe OpenAI's claims that their data won't be used for training  —  Dropbox added some new AI features.  In the past couple of days these have attracted a firestorm of criticism.
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Meta launches Threads in the European Union, following the US, the UK, and 100+ other countries, and adds a way for EU users to browse Threads without a profile  —  Meta's Twitter competitor, Threads, is now available in the European Union, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced.
Jon Victor / The Information:
Sources: Google plans to use Gemini across nearly its entire line of products and in Pixie, an upcoming AI assistant that will be exclusive to its Pixel devices  —  For Google, it was a moment to savor its apparent triumph over the doomsayers.  —  Last week, the company released the first version …
Umar Shakir / The Verge:
Google plans to test Tracking Protection and blocking third-party cookies on January 4 for ~1% of Chrome users globally, ahead of a phased rollout in H2 2024  —  Google is about to launch its grand plan to block third-party cookies in Chrome that many websites use to track your activity across the web for profit.
Aria Alamalhodaei / TechCrunch:
Amazon validates Project Kuiper's optical inter-satellite links, which use infrared lasers to move data around 30% faster than terrestrial fiber optical cables  —  Amazon's Project Kuiper successfully validated key technology that will increase throughput and reduce latency for customers using …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google launches a Pixel Diagnostic App and repair manuals in English in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and European countries where Pixel devices are sold  —  Besides the new Repair Mode introduced with Android 14 QPR1 and the December Feature Drop, Google is widely launching …
Guthrie Scrimgeour / Wired:
A look at Koolau Ranch, Mark Zuckerberg's 1,400-acre, $270M+ compound in Kauai, Hawaii, with a 5,000 sq. ft. underground shelter, a project shrouded in secrecy  —  Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is building a sprawling, $100 million compound in Hawaii—complete with plans for a huge underground bunker.
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Sources: LinkedIn shelves its effort, announced in 2019, to relocate its data centers out of its physical facilities and into Azure, a setback for Microsoft  —  - LinkedIn called off a plan to move technology to Microsoft Azure, a setback for its parent company, which is chasing Amazon Web Services.
Will Knight / Wired:
OpenAI details how its Superalignment research team is exploring ways to control stronger AI models like GPT-4 using weaker supervisor models like GPT-2  —  The “superalignment” team led by OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever has devised a way to guide the behavior of AI models as they get ever smarter.

Sponsor Posts

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.
Soxton:
AI-powered law for startups  —  Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better.  We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts.  Join the waitlist for early access!
Zoho:
Event-driven document automation using webhooks in Zoho Writer  —  Instantly generate and send documents based on triggers from any form builder, business app, or automation workflow.We are excited …
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

Great Chat:
No one won the AI Bowl
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Big Technology Podcast:
Who's Winning The AI Race? + Software's Future — With Sridhar Ramaswamy
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
How Odd Lots' Joe Weisenthal Turned Curiosity Into a Career, and a Hit Podcast
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Access:
OpenAI's Fidji Simo on why ads are coming to ChatGPT
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Invest Like the Best:
Alex Behring and Daniel Schwartz - Inside 3G Capital
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Special Edition: Key findings from the Microsoft AI Diffusion Report
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 11:10 PM ET, December 14, 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

Bloomberg:
Cristina Criddle / Financial Times:

Earlier Picks

Jaspreet Singh / Reuters:
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Subrat Patnaik / Bloomberg:
Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
AJ Vicens / CyberScoop: