Techmeme
February 20, 2024, 2:20 PM

Top News

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Law enforcement agencies arrest two LockBit operators in Poland and Ukraine, issue three arrest warrants, offer a decryption tool, and seize 200+ crypto wallets  —  Law enforcement arrested two operators of the LockBit ransomware gang in Poland and Ukraine, created a decryption tool …
Bloomberg:
Jacob Pramuk / CNBC:
Walmart agrees to acquire TV maker Vizio for $2.3B, or $11.50/share, to boost its ad business via Vizio's SmartCast OS, which lets users stream content with ads  —  - Walmart is buying TV maker Vizio for $2.3 billion in cash.  — The move is a bid to boost the big-box retailer's high-margin ad business.
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Messaging app Signal finally rolls out usernames in beta, allowing a user to conceal their phone number; Signal will still a require phone number to register  —  We tested the end-to-end encrypted messenger's new feature aimed at addressing critics' most persistent complaint.  Here's how it works.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
John Voorhees / MacStories:
A look at ways to play games on Apple Vision Pro: spatial and iPad App Store games, streaming via MirrorPlay for PS5, NDI, Macs, browsers like Nexus⁺, and more  —  The lack of any kind of port significantly limits the type of gaming you can do in the Apple Vision Pro - or does it?
More: 9to5Mac, iMore, The Verge, and Six Colors
Threads: @viticciMastodon: @viticci@mastodon … and @johnvoorhees@mastodon …Forums: r/apple
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple Music debuts a monthly version of Replay, with insights like total listening time, top songs, artists, and albums, and makes 2024's Replay Mix available  —  Apple today updated the Apple Music Replay experience, available at replay.music.apple.com, with visualizations of your favorite music habits …
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Adobe launches AI Assistant in Acrobat in beta, to summarize PDFs, answer and recommend questions, and more, letting paying users “easily chat with documents”  —  Adobe is adding a new generative AI experience to its Acrobat PDF management software, which aims to …
Antonia Mufarech / Bloomberg:
Tinder plans to roll out its new ID checks in the US, the UK, Brazil, and Mexico, after tests in Australia and New Zealand, to combat AI scams and dating crimes  —  - Verification will require driver's license and selfie video  — Criminals are using dating apps to lure victims in Colombia
HouseFresh:
How some big outlets are inundating the web with bad product recommendations without testing the products, and how Google is helping them through inaction  —  And why you shouldn't trust product recommendations from big media publishers ranking at the top of Google
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Over the past several days, attackers targeted smaller Mastodon servers by signing up spam accounts; Eugen Rochko said previously only big servers were targeted  —  A spam attack that impacted the open source X rival Mastodon, Misskey, and other apps highlights how the decentralized social web …

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
The hidden tax of making employees search, switch, and repeat  —  Employees lose more time to digital friction than organizations often realize.  Searching for information, switching between tools …
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:
Software's Epic Comeback, Meta's AI Layoffs Blunder, South Korea Stock Market Chaos
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:
Meta Shifts the Blame + Do Data Center Bans Work? + The Final HatGPT
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
The Weird, Big Business of Microdramas
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.
Training Data:
Parallel's Parag Agrawal: Building a New Web for AI Agents
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Invest Like the Best:
Neil Movva - Making AI 10x Cheaper
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:20 PM ET, February 20, 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

Jon Porter / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Reuters:
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters: