Techmeme
January 1, 2024, 6:45 PM

Top News

Mohar Chatterjee / Politico:
A look at AI chatbots modeled on real experts, like US psychologist Martin Seligman, that are often created without permission, highlighting a policy gray area  —  New AI-generated digital replicas of real experts expose an unnerving policy gray zone.  Washington wants to fix it, but it's not clear how.
Ash Parrish / The Verge:
The scope and scale of layoffs in the video game industry in 2023 was far beyond a typical year, with an estimated 10,466 workers losing their jobs globally  —  Layoffs are an unfortunate reality of any industry, but the scope and scale of video game layoffs in 2023 are far beyond a typical year.
John Kruzel / Reuters:
In his year-end report, SCOTUS Chief Justice John Roberts says AI is a mixed blessing for the legal field, urging “caution and humility” as the tech is adopted  —  Artificial intelligence represents a mixed blessing for the legal field, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts …
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
Counterpoint: ~16M foldable phones were sold in 2023, just 1.3% of all 1.2B smartphones, as foldables start to gain traction in markets like the US and China  —  Samsung, Motorola and Huawei continue to invest in high-priced flip devices despite weak sales  —  Every large smartphone maker …
Nikkei Asia:
Nikon, Sony, and Canon are developing camera tech that embeds digital signatures in images so that they can be distinguished from realistic AI-generated fakes  —  Digital signatures to provide way to tell real photos from  —  Sony will release a firmware for professional-grade cameras to embed digital signatures to photos.
More: PCMag and TechLifeWeb
Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to.  X: @anastasiabekt, @stevesi, and @mikecane.  LinkedIn: Tariq Krim
Keza MacDonald / The Guardian:
A profile of Mario and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto, who joined Nintendo in 1977 and says he has no plans to retire as representative director at the company  —  Few people have influenced global pop culture as much as the creator of Mario and Zelda, widely considered the father of modern gaming.
Cristina Criddle / Financial Times:
A look at the rise of AI-generated virtual influencers, with some charging thousands of dollars to promote products, leading to concerns from human influencers  —  Hyper-realistic ‘virtual influencers’ are being used to promote leading brands — drawing ire from human content creators
Justin Garrison / Justin Garrison:
An AWS developer claims Amazon is “silently sacking” staff by pushing them to take a different role that they would quit later, to avoid the need for severance  —  Amazon has a stock problem.  It's not only Amazon, but they have more to lose.  If you're a customer, that's going to be bad for your business too.
Aaron Tilley / Wall Street Journal:
A profile of Joe Kiani, whose company Masimo spent ~$100M suing Apple, as some say his aggressive use of the US patent system stymies the innovation of others  —  Joe Kiani has taken on Apple in a patent dispute that has cost his company millions of dollars to pursue.  So far he is winning, but the fight isn't over.

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
What will the next generation of developers do when AI writes the code?  —  Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon are betting that the junior devs we train today will be the senior engineers of tomorrow.
Will Reed:
The best sales leaders aren't job hunting.  Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach.  —  Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.
Zoho:
UK tax compliance with Zoho Books  —  The evolving tax landscape in the UK has added an additional responsibility to business owners, accountants, and bookkeepers to ensure their choice of accounting software supports compliance …
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

Big Technology Podcast:
Anthropic IPO Panic, A Spy At OpenAI?, The Great Food Slop Debate
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.
Great Chat:
What happened to tech's backbone?
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.
The Upstarts Podcast:
The $7B Startup Mapping Your Health In Just One Hour | Neko's Hjalmar Nilsonne
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Cheeky Pint:
The company building underwater drones for $50,000
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
BG2 Pod:
Jensen Huang | Does AI Revenue Justify Capex, '27 AI Bottlenecks, Singularity, Open vs Closed & more
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
How to Run a Political Campaign in the TikTok Era (And How Not To)
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 6:45 PM ET, January 1, 2024.

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

J. Edward Moreno / New York Times:
Joan Westenberg:
Brendan Bordelon / Politico:

Earlier Picks

Anil Dash / Rolling Stone:
The Information: