Techmeme: Xbox President Sarah Bond says that “Apple's new policy is a step in the wrong direction”, in response to an X post by Spotify's CEO about Apple's DMA changes (Tom Warren/The Verge)

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January 30, 2024, 8:15 AM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:

X has lifted its ban on Taylor Swift searches, but “will continue to be vigilant”, following the spread of explicit AI-generated images of the singer — Social-media site restricted queries for the singer's name after the digitally altered images hit the platform

More: Bloomberg, The Hollywood Reporter, The Register, Reuters, Reuters, Associated Press, New York Post, and The Messenger

Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media:

Microsoft adds safeguards to its AI text-to-image tool Designer, after fake AI images of Taylor Swift went viral and a report of 4chan users misusing the tool

Washington Post:

X blocking “Taylor Swift” searches as explicit AI images spread was a blunt measure to accomplish a basic moderation task after gutting “trust and safety” staff

More: Android Headlines, Associated Press, Business Today, Ars Technica, MobileSyrup, and TechCrunch

Threads: @drewharwell, @renee.diresta, and @drewharwell

Mastodon: @malwarejake@infosec.exchange, @vrandecic@mas.to, and @homelessjun@mas.to

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft Edge imported open Chrome tabs after a Windows update despite Edge's import tool being disabled; Windows users have reported the behavior for months — Last week, I turned on my PC, installed a Windows update, and rebooted to find Microsoft Edge automatically open with the Chrome tabs I was working on before the update.

More: PCWorld, WinBuzzer, Laptop Mag, MSPoweruser, Ghacks, MobileSyrup, and Neowin

Mastodon: @joesteel@duck.haus, @noodlejetski@masto.ai, and @czottmann@norden.social

X: @wolfiechristl and @tomwarren

Forums: Hacker News, r/privacy, r/technology, and Beehaw

Juli Clover / MacRumors:

Source: Apple has sold upwards of 200K Vision Pro units; Apple began accepting pre-orders for the Vision Pro on January 19 — Apple has sold upwards of 200,000 Vision Pro headsets, MacRumors has learned from a source with knowledge of Apple's sales numbers.

More: Mashable, iMore, Wareable, Business Insider, BGR, MIXED Reality News, Appleosophy, Wccftech, Supercharged, UploadVR, Spyglass, and GSMArena.com

Mastodon: @danyork@mastodon.social. X: @ideafella, @nathanwchan, @cixliv, and @benobi2000

Forums: r/apple, r/technology, and MacRumors Forums

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:

Zoom details its visionOS app, which will support 3D file sharing, “real-world pinning” of up to five meeting participants, Apple's Persona feature, and more

More: Zoom, Computerworld, TechCrunch, Tom's Guide, T3, Android Headlines, MacRumors, Digital Trends, iThinkDifferent, MacRumors, iPhone in Canada Blog, MIXED Reality News, PYMNTS.com, ZDNet, iMore, UC Today, XR Today, TweakTown, Engadget, PCMag, and The Verge

X: @scobleizer, @kantrowitz, and @berkowitzbt

Ashley Capoot / CNBC:

Elon Musk says Neuralink implanted its device in a human for the first time on January 28, and that the first Neuralink product is called Telepathy — - Elon Musk's neurotech startup Neuralink implanted its device in a human for the first time on Sunday, and the patient is “recovering well,” according to a post on X.

Dan Mangan / CNBC:

US DOJ and SEC file charges in an alleged $1.9B crypto fraud known as HyperFund, which collapsed in 2022, saying “the level of alleged fraud here is staggering” — - The Department of Justice announced criminal charges against two people and the guilty plea of a third person …

Simon Sharwood / The Register:

ICANN proposes .INTERNAL, a new TLD available for internal use but never plumbed into the global DNS, taking on the same role as 192.168.x.x IPv4 bloc — The plan is to keep the world at bay by never recording it in the DNS root - like may already do with a subdomain for an intranet

More: Internet Corporation …, Domain Incite, CircleID, TechSpot, TechRadar, PCWorld, and Domain Name Wire Podcast

Bluesky: @fack.bsky.social. X: @quinnypig

Zoe Kleinman / BBC:

Apple says proposed UK legislation could let the country try “to secretly veto new user protections globally”, preventing Apple from shipping them to customers — Apple has attacked proposals for the UK government to pre-approve new security features introduced by tech firms.

More: Ars Technica, 9to5Mac, MacRumors, Patently Apple, Digital Information World, MediaNama, iMore, and AppleInsider

Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to and @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social

X: @matthew_d_green, @counternotions, @zsk, and @profwoodward

Forums: Hacker News, r/privacy, r/neoliberal, r/unitedkingdom, and Ars OpenForum

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Xbox President Sarah Bond says that “Apple's new policy is a step in the wrong direction”, in response to an X post by Spotify's CEO about Apple's DMA changes — Apple's new plan to comply with the European Union's tech regulations has already drawn criticism from Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney and Spotify.

Yogita Khatri / The Block:

Portal, a startup building a BTC-based cross-chain decentralized exchange and wallet, raised a $34M seed from Coinbase and others, taking its funding to $42.5M — - Portal has raised $34 million in a seed funding round from Coinbase Ventures, OKX Ventures and others.

More: Business Wire, Metaverse Post, FinSMEs, CoinDesk, Crypto Daily, Fortune, Cointelegraph, and Crowdfund Insider

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

After a months-long probe, Italy's data protection authority says OpenAI is suspected of violating EU privacy regulations, giving the company 30 days to respond — OpenAI has been told it's suspected of violating European Union privacy, following a multi-month investigation of its AI chatbot …

Bloomberg:

Blizzard names Johanna Faries, former general manager for Call of Duty at Activision, as its president, succeeding Mike Ybarra, who left last week after layoffs — Replaces Mike Ybarra who left the video-game company last week as part of mass layoffs under new owner Microsoft

Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:

Meta releases Code Llama 70B, a new version of its code generation model, featuring improved code correctness, a variant optimized for Python, and more — Meta AI, the company that brought you Llama 2, the gargantuan language model that can generate anything from tweets to essays …

More: Meta, TechCircle, Analytics Insight, Cryptopolitan, Digital Information World, Neowin, Forbes, MediaNama, SiliconANGLE, The Information, The Verge, MSPoweruser, The Decoder, and Analytics India Magazine

X: @aiatmeta, @ollama, @scobleizer, @jpineau1, @osanseviero, @omarsar0, @soumithchintala, @awnihannun, @reach_vb, @wolfejosh, @scobleizer, @syhw, @ollama, @b_roziere, @sentdex, @_philschmid, @_akhaliq, and @ylecun. LinkedIn: Ahmad Al-Dahle. Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg

Forums: Hacker News and r/singularity

Theo Francis / Wall Street Journal:

Reed Hastings donates $1.1B worth of his Netflix shares, or ~40% of his stake, to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a popular charity among tech founders — Reed Hastings donates to foundation with $10 billion in assets after gifts from Mark Zuckerberg and other tech founders

More: Bloomberg, The Verge, Deadline, The Information, Variety, Variety, and CNBC

The Information:

Source: Alphabet executives told staff at its moonshot X lab that Alphabet will not convert promising investment projects into Other Bets subsidiaries in 2024 — Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is cutting back its commitment to ambitious moonshot projects.

X: @carnage4life and @amir

Yiwen Lu / New York Times:

The AI boom has spurred law firms, hospitals, insurance companies, government agencies, and others to create chief AI officer roles to navigate the use of AI — Many feared that artificial intelligence would kill jobs. But hospitals, insurance companies and others are creating roles to navigate and harness the disruptive technology.

More: Help Net Security and The Hacker News

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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.

From Mediagazer

Dan Mangan / CNBC:

Trump files a $10B defamation lawsuit against the BBC in a Florida court, alleging it deceptively doctored his January 6 speech in a Panorama documentary

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:

Howard Stern signs a new three-year deal with SiriusXM, after a report earlier this year suggested that his show was about to be canceled

Jacob Savage / Compact:

A writer argues that since 2014, DEI practices led to discrimination against white male millennials for entry-level and mid-level roles in Hollywood and media

Upcoming Tech Events

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More News

Georgia Wells / Wall Street Journal:

Sources and documents: TikTok managers sometimes tell Project Texas staff to send data, including email and IP, to ByteDance without going via official channels

X: @jchengwsj

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

Kore.ai, which offers enterprise-focused conversational AI and GenAI tools, raised $150M led by FTV Capital, Nvidia, and others, taking its funding to ~$223M

More: FinSMEs, Bloomberg, and Forbes

Yasemin Craggs Mersinoglu / Financial Times:

Berlin-based Delivery Hero plans to sell 68.2M shares of Deliveroo, or a ~4.5% stake worth ~£83M, and does not expect to hold any Deliveroo stock afterwards

More: UKTN, Tech.eu, Silicon Canals, and Bloomberg

Swetha Gopinath / Bloomberg:

Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton says the company is in the early stages of planning a London IPO, appointing two banks, after considering a listing in early 2022

More: Tech.eu, Livemint, and Proactive. Forums: Hacker News

Daniel Bader / Android Police:

An interview with Google Play VP and General Manager Sam Bright on Play Store curation, AI, the quality gap between Android and iOS apps, openness, and more

Forums: r/Android

Financial Times:

PitchBook: US VCs have $311B in unspent cash, as investors shy away from risky bets and focus on dividends, after raising a record $435B between 2020 and 2022

More: PYMNTS.com

Bloomberg:

A look at chip equipment maker J.E.T, which is up 166% since its September 2023 Tokyo IPO, as the company eyes subsidy-fueled demand to lower its China reliance

Reuters:

Sources: the US DOJ and FBI received legal authorization to disable aspects of Volt Typhoon, a Chinese hacking operation that compromised thousands of devices

More: CNN. X: @ericgeller

Earlier Picks

Kate Park / TechCrunch:

South Korea-based Rebellions, which develops AI chips, raised a ~$124M Series B led by KT at a ~$658M post-money valuation, taking its total raised to ~$210M

More: eeNews Europe, Metaverse Post, TweakTown, DealStreetAsia, and Bloomberg

Ina Fried / Axios:

OpenAI partners with Common Sense Media on new AI guidelines, curating a family-friendly section of OpenAI's GPT Store, educational materials, and more

More: Ars Technica, Decrypt, Common Sense Media, The Decoder, Digital Information World, Engadget, Analytics India Magazine, CNBC, and TechCrunch

X: @commonsense, @gdb, and @openai

Alex Barinka / Bloomberg:

TikTok is testing a feature that could make all posts shoppable, by identifying objects in videos and prompting users to “find similar items on TikTok Shop”

More: The Verge, Social Media Today, PYMNTS.com, The Information, and Gizmodo

Mastodon: @tob@hachyderm.io. X: @carnage4life. LinkedIn: Alex Barinka