Techmeme
December 25, 2023, 2:00 AM

Top News

Sharon Goldman / VentureBeat:
Researchers from Apple and Columbia University released Ferret, an open source multimodal LLM that can recognize and describe any shape in an image, in October  —  With little fanfare, researchers from Apple and Columbia University released an open source multimodal LLM, called Ferret, in October 2023.
Jeremy White / New York Times:
Researchers extract business and personal email addresses for 30+ NYT staff by fine tuning GPT-3.5 Turbo, bypassing the safeguards for privacy-related queries  —  This is a visualization of a large email database from the Enron Corporation, which is often used to train artificial intelligence systems, like ChatGPT.
Threads: @vishvanands and @carnage4lifeMastodon: @jeffjarvis@mastodon.socialX: @cbarrettForums: Slashdot
Wall Street Journal:
A look at Sam Altman's history at Loopt and Y Combinator, where his side activities and personal projects riled colleagues and forced his departure from YC  —  The OpenAI CEO lost the confidence of top leaders in the three organizations he has directed, yet each time he's rebounded to greater heights
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Ubisoft is investigating reports of a new security breach after security research collective VX-Underground shared screenshots of the company's internal tools  —  Ubisoft is investigating whether it suffered a breach after images of the company's internal software and developer tools were leaked online.
Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:
China approves 105 local games, including titles from Tencent and NetEase, after the announcement of a new set of restrictions led to a $80B rout last week  —  - Beijing approves games, seeks feedback on new restrictions  — Tencent and NetEase shares plunged on Friday on crackdown fear
More: Reuters
Bloomberg:
A look at TikTok Shop, as big companies shun the e-commerce app, which has a clunky interface and is full of dubious merchandise, like a $50 plastic fork  —  At best, the social platform's e-commerce arm is full of random impulse buys and silly trinkets.  At worst, it's a breeding ground for bad actors and shady products.
More: Denver Post, WOWT-TV, and Newser
Threads: @mattnavarraX: @jkarl26 and @business
Edd Gent / IEEE Spectrum:
Experts warn against unrealistic expectations for quantum computers, citing the challenges in making fault-tolerant systems, qubits' slow operating speeds, more  —  Hype is everywhere, skeptics say, and practical applications are still far away  —  The quantum computer revolution …
Ethan Zuckerman:
A study estimates that there are 13.3B+ videos on YouTube, of which 4B+ were posted to the platform in 2023, and the median YouTube video has 39 views  —  I got interested in this question a few years ago, when I started writing about the “denominator problem”.
Will Oremus / Washington Post:
Elon Musk is fielding complaints about Grok giving liberal responses on diversity, transgender rights, and inequality, despite promising an “anti-woke” chatbot  —  Grok, launched this month on X, has angered conservatives by endorsing diversity.  Musk says he's trying to fix it.
Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg:
A look at Take-Two's $12B Zynga deal in 2022, just as casual games peaked post pandemic, Apple introduced ATT, and the mobile game market headed into a downturn  —  Video-game giant's push into smartphone titles was expensive and late.  —  Excitement over the upcoming release of Grand Theft Auto VI …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26  —  Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Zoho:
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control  —  Picture this: It's Monday morning.  You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's 2026 Priority, Disney's AI Play, Datacenter Buildout Trouble
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:
Australia Kicks Kids Off Social Media + Is the A.I. Water Issue Fake? + Hard Fork Wrapped
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.
Access:
Why the next AI frontier is phone calls, with Beside CEO Maxime Germain
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Great Chat:
So what happens after AGI?
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.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Lachlan Cartwright Started in Tabloids. Now He's a Must-Read Media Gossip.
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:00 AM ET, December 25, 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

Sean O'Kane / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Forbes:
MacDonald Dzirutwe / Reuters:
Wall Street Journal:
The Block:
Jay Peters / The Verge: