Techmeme
February 6, 2024, 10:35 PM

Top News

Will Oremus / Washington Post:
Bluesky CEO Jay Graber says the social network, launched on iOS in February 2023, is now open to the public, has 3M+ users, and plans to add developer tools  —  The upstart social network has been by invitation only since its launch last year  —  When Jack Dorsey, then Twitter's CEO …
AJ Vicens / CyberScoop:
Google's TAG publishes a report on commercial spyware, detailing ~40 vendors, and says global governments should take more aggressive steps to combat spyware  —  The commercial spyware industry continues to supply highly advanced surveillance capabilities despite efforts to better regulate it.
Sam Sabin / Axios:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Mozilla announces Monitor Plus, a $14/month US service that scans 190+ data broker sites and automatically submits requests for removal of the user's data  —  Mozilla today is introducing a new subscription service that will help people locate and remove their personal and sensitive information from data broker websites around the web.
CNN:
New Hampshire's AG says fake robocalls using deepfaked audio of Biden to discourage voters numbered 5K to 25K and are linked to Lingo Telecom and a Texas firm  —  A robocall that used an AI voice resembling President Joe Biden's to advise New Hampshire voters against voting …
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Meta proposes standards to identify AI content that its industry peers could use, and plans to label AI images posted on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads  —  The social network wants to promote standardized labels to help detect artificially created photo, video and audio material across its platforms.
Reuters:
The Netherlands says Chinese state-sponsored hackers broke into the Dutch Ministry of Defence's internal network in 2023, using a Fortinet vulnerability  —  Chinese state-backed cyber spies gained access to a Dutch military network last year, Dutch intelligence agencies said on Tuesday …
Emilia David / The Verge:
OpenAI says DALL-E 3 will embed watermarks to images with C2PA metadata and acknowledges the metadata can easily be removed either accidentally or intentionally  —  OpenAI's image generator DALL-E 3 will add watermarks to image metadata as more companies roll out support for standards …
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Apple releases a beta version of visionOS 1.1, which brings enterprise device management to the Vision Pro  —  It's been hard to avoid news about the Apple Vision Pro, the company's entry into the virtual reality market, in recent days.  It was officially released on Friday to much fanfare, but how will it fare in the enterprise?
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Apple Vision Pro review: disappointing for productivity, a very narrow field of view, and the Guest User feature is bad, all making the device hard to recommend  —  No wireless.  Less space than a nomad.  Lame.  — CmdrTaco, Slashdot  —  My one small comfort in the cold Wisconsin winters …
Nelson Wang / Unchained:
MicroStrategy bought 31,775 BTC in Q4 2023 for an average cost of $39,411 per BTC, taking its total holdings to 190K BTC acquired for a total cost of $5.93B  —  Software firm MicroStrategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, acquired 31,775 bitcoins in the fourth quarter of 2023 …
Todd Spangler / Variety:
YouTube says YouTube TV now has 8M+ subscribers, up from 5M+ in mid-2022, and that the YouTube Partner Program has 3M+ channels receiving ad revenue share  —  CEO Neal Mohan also says more than 3 million channels now receive ad-revenue share, touts 1 billion hours viewed on TV daily
Wall Street Journal:
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:
Snap reports Q4 revenue up 5% YoY to $1.36B, vs. $1.38B est., DAUs up 10% YoY to 414M, a net loss of $248M, vs. $288M YoY; SNAP drops 30%+ after hours  —  - Snap said fourth-quarter revenue rose about 5%, while the company's net loss narrowed 14% from a year earlier.
Molly Schuetz / Bloomberg:
DocuSign plans to lay off 6% of its workforce, or ~440 jobs, and will incur a $28M-$32M charge, after acquisition talks seemingly fell through; DOCU drops 6%+  —  - Deal talks with Bain, Hellman & Friedman stalled over price  — Restructuring to help DocuSign grow as independent company
Qianer Liu / Financial Times:
Sources: SMIC plans to use its stock of US and Dutch-made equipment to build 5nm Kirin chips designed by Huawei's HiSilicon for smartphones, despite US curbs  —  SMIC and Huawei plan to make new 5nm processor, supporting Beijing's goal for advanced semiconductors

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