Techmeme
February 14, 2024, 8:55 PM

Top News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft and OpenAI say hackers, including Russian, North Korean, Iranian, and Chinese-backed groups, are already using LLMs to refine and improve cyberattacks  —  Microsoft and OpenAI are revealing today that hackers are already using large language models like ChatGPT to refine and improve their existing cyberattacks.
Alex Heath / The Verge:
In a video, Mark Zuckerberg shares his thoughts on the Vision Pro, saying Quest 3 “is the better product, period”, highlighting Apple's tradeoffs, and more  —  Now that it can be strapped to our faces and worn in strange places, opinions about Apple's Vision Pro are flying left and right.
More: CNBC, Newser, Bitcoin Insider, Deadline, Dexerto, Raleigh News & Observer, MobileSyrup, ExtremeTech, New York Post, KnowTechie, BroBible, TechRadar, Wait But Why, Marques Brownlee on YouTube, Business Insider, and UploadVR
M.G. Siegler / Spyglass:
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
X removes paid checkmarks from some accounts after a watchdog group found 28 verified accounts allegedly tied to Hezbollah and other US-sanctioned entities  —  X (aka Twitter) accused of violating sanctions by taking payment from terrorists.  —  A watchdog group's investigation found …
Bloomberg:
Sony Q3: revenue up 22% YoY to ~$25.11B, operating income up 10% YoY to ~$3.1B, both meeting estimates; 8.2M PS5 units sold, roughly 1M lower than estimated  —  - Demand for global electronics is sagging in a downturn  — Underwhelming PlayStation 5 sales led to outlook cut
Sean Michael Kerner / VentureBeat:
Stability AI details Stable Cascade, a new image generation model built on the Würstchen architecture, which improves performance and accuracy compared to SDXL  —  Stability AI, the company behind the popular Stable Diffusion text-to-image generative AI technology is now previewing …
Aamir Siddiqui / Android Authority:
Samsung announces an upcoming Galaxy S24 series update that adds a Vividness display slider, after users complained that the more natural color tuning is dull  —  - Samsung has announced that the upcoming February update for the Galaxy S24 series will improve its display and camera experiences.
Aaron Holmes / The Information:
Source: OpenAI has been developing a web search product partly powered by Bing  —  OpenAI has been developing a web search product that would bring the Microsoft-backed startup into more direct competition with Google, according to someone with knowledge of OpenAI's plans.
Wes Davis / The Verge:
DuckDuckGo adds a Sync & Backup tool to its browser that syncs passwords, bookmarks, and favorites without requiring an account, and says the data is E2EE  —  DuckDuckGo has added a new “Sync & Backup” feature to its privacy-first browser that will keep passwords, bookmarks …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Slack rolls out AI features that summarize threads, offer channel recaps, let users ask questions, and more to Enterprise users, after testing Slack AI in 2023  —  Slack is launching a suite of built-in AI features that serve up summaries of threads and channel recaps, while also allowing …
Elizabeth Lopatto / The Verge:
Leander Kahney / Cult of Mac:
Many Vision Pro users are returning their devices, saying it's too expensive, heavy, or isolating, as the 14-day return window nears its end for first buyers  —  Many early adopters seem set on returning their Apple Vision Pro headsets.  As the 14-day return window approaches for people …
Aggi Cantrill / Bloomberg:
Google's TAG details how pro-Palestinian hacking group Blackatom tried to dupe Israeli software engineers into downloading malware weeks ahead of October 7  —  Apple's Longest-Serving Designer to Depart Company, Adding to Exodus  —  Apple iMessage, Microsoft Bing Dodge EU's Big Tech Crackdown
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Meta appoints Hock E. Tan, the president and CEO of Broadcom, and philanthropist John Arnold, an Arnold Ventures co-founder, to its board, effective immediately  —  - Broadcom's Hock Tan, philanthropist John Arnold join board  — Sandberg to step down at annual shareholder's meeting in May
More: Meta, The Information, and CNBC
Threads: @karissabeBluesky: @scriban.bsky.socialX: @optimist_fund, @johnarnoldfndtn, @dylan522p, and @mikeisaacLinkedIn: Hock TanFacebook: Mark Zuckerberg
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Cisco reports Q2 revenue down 6% YoY to $12.79B, vs. $12.71B est., and plans to cut 5% of its global workforce, or about 4,250 jobs; CSCO drops 5%+ after hours  —  - Cisco said it would let go of 5% of employees, which works out to around 4,250 people.  — The company's quarterly and full-year forecasts were light.
Paayal Zaveri / Bloomberg:
Y Combinator releases a new list of 20 types of startups the accelerator wants to join its program, the biggest overhaul of its Request for Startups since 2018  —  The prominent Silicon Valley startup accelerator overhauled its list of promising startup sectors.
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Rasa, which provides a framework and a low-code UI to help enterprises build AI chatbots, raised a $30M Series C co-led by StepStone Group and PayPal Ventures  —  It's no fun as a customer to have an interaction with a bot when it's clearly a bot with which you're engaging.
Thomas Germain / Gizmodo:
A Mozilla study of 11 AI romance chatbots finds they can harvest shockingly personal information, and that 10 of them may sell or share the data they collect  —  The privacy mess is troubling because the chatbots actively encourage you to share details that are far more personal than in a typical app.
The Information:
AI researcher Andrej Karpathy, one of OpenAI's founding members, leaves the startup; Karpathy was developing a product that he had described as an AI assistant  —  Andrej Karpathy, one of the founding members of OpenAI, has left the company, a spokesperson confirmed.

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More News

Lauren Kaori Gurley / Washington Post:
Bloomberg:
Alfred Ng / Politico:
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Earlier Picks

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Alistair Barr / Business Insider:
Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:
David Pierce / The Verge: