Techmeme
March 16, 2024, 4:00 PM

Top News

Reuters:
Sources: SpaceX's Starshield is building a network of spy satellites under a classified, $1.8B contract with the US spy agency National Reconnaissance Office  —  SpaceX is building a network of hundreds of spy satellites under a classified contract with a U.S. intelligence agency …
Axios:
A look at a potential TikTok US sale, with an estimated valuation of $100B, or $40B without the algorithm, as Steven Mnuchin and others form investor groups  —  - TikTok's U.S. revenue reportedly was between $16 billion and $20 billion in 2023, but CEO Shou Zi Chew has said the company is in the red.
New York Times:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
LinkedIn confirms it is working on adding puzzle-based games; a researcher says it is testing ranking companies in the games based on the scores of employees  —  LinkedIn, the Microsoft-owned social platform, has made a name for itself primarily as a platform for people looking to network …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: US prosecutors in Virginia, with FDA's help, are investigating whether Meta's platforms are facilitating and profiting from the illegal sale of drugs  —  Federal prosecutors are looking into whether platforms including Facebook facilitate and profit from illicit sale of drugs
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Researchers detail ArtPrompt, a jailbreak that uses ASCII art to elicit harmful responses from aligned LLMs such as GPT-3.5, GPT-4, Gemini, Claude, and Llama2  —  LLMs are trained to block harmful responses.  Old-school images can override those rules.  —  Researchers have discovered …
Elle Hardy / New Republic:
How evangelicals proselytize using Bless Every Home, an app that lets users create neighborhood maps and data tables based on people's religion and ethnicity  —  The future of proselytizing—and surveillance—has arrived.  An app called Bless Every Home, which has been backed …
Tim Higgins / Wall Street Journal:
How Elon Musk courted Don Lemon to show that X isn't a right-wing tool, as the breakup highlights Linda Yaccarino's thankless task of trying to assure brands  —  Unexpected split leaves X CEO Linda Yaccarino with another loss  —  Don Lemon got to see both sides of Elon Musk.
Matt Novak / Gizmodo:
Filing: SBF wrote a Google doc in which he floated “bad ideas” to improve his image, including going on Tucker Carlson and coming out “against the woke agenda”  —  SBF's brainstorming notes included lines like “Come out against the woke agenda.”  —  Are you a billionaire in trouble?
Bloomberg.com:
Two of the UK's biggest supermarket chains, Tesco and Sainsbury's, were hit with technical issues on Saturday; Sainsbury's blames a software update  —  Two of the UK's biggest supermarket chains - Tesco and Sainsbury's - were hit with technical issues on Saturday.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Game developer Scopely says Monopoly Go! crossed $2B in revenue in February 2024, just 10 months after launching and three months after hitting $1B in revenue  —  Scopely announced that Monopoly Go has generated $2 billion in revenue just 10 months after launch and three months after hitting $1 billion.

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Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Zuckerberg's Disappointment, OpenAI's Equity Gamble, Alex Karp's Rally Cry
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
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Hard Fork:
Fable Ban Reversed + Dr. Dana Suskind on Parenting With A.I. + Prediction Market Drama
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.
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The Upstarts Podcast:
Blitzy's Brian Elliott: Cursor And Claude Code Are Looking At Your Enterprise Code 'Through A Straw'
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.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
Re-Release: The Death of Hollywood? W/ Allan Loeb
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
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Great Chat:
Maybe Twitter isn't real life
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
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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.
 

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More News

James O'Donnell / MIT Technology Review:
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
Andrew Hayward / Decrypt:

Earlier Picks

Tom Henderson / Insider Gaming:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Dan Primack / Axios:
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: