Techmeme
March 20, 2024, 11:40 AM

Top News

Financial Times:
The US awards Intel $8.5B in CHIPS Act funding and $11B in loans to expand in Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico, and Oregon; Intel plans to spend $100B over five years  —  Preliminary agreement under US Chips Act also includes $11bn loan as company expands capacity in Arizona and other states
Business Insider:
Sources: OpenAI plans to release GPT-5 in mid-2024, likely during the summer, and some enterprise customers have recently received demos of the latest model  —  - OpenAI's main product is the popular generative AI tool ChatGPT.  — Since its last major model upgrade to GPT-4, the tool has run into performance issues.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
SteamDB: after releasing its massive 1.6 update, Stardew Valley hit 146,159 concurrent players on Steam, a new record and above Palworld's stats this week  —  The cozy farming simulator hit 146,159 concurrent players on Steam according to SteamDB data, smashing the game's previous record …
Camilla Hodgson / Financial Times:
After its OpenAI bet, Microsoft hiring Mustafa Suleyman and most Inflection staff continues its strategy of developing ties with the most prominent names in AI  —  Satya Nadella's appointment of Mustafa Suleyman continues strategy of developing ties with fledging AI companies
Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg:
Ashley Belanger / Ars Technica:
Glassdoor users complain after the service added their real names to their profiles without their consent; Glassdoor cross-populates data between its services  —  Anonymous review site Glassdoor now consults public sources to identify users.  —  Glassdoor, where employees go to leave anonymous reviews …
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager warns Apple over its Core Technology Fee, saying the EU plans to investigate, and Meta over its planned subscription fees  —  EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager on Tuesday warned Apple (AAPL.O) and Meta Platforms (META.O) on their new fees for their services …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
In a brief demo, Meta shows how Threads could handle turning on fediverse sharing, including waiting five minutes before sending a Threads post to the fediverse  —  Threads is coming to the fediverse — and we just got our first official look at how that might work from Meta itself.
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Trend Micro researchers detail Earth Krahang, a China-linked APT campaign that has breached 70 organizations in 23 countries and is potentially linked to I-Soon  —  A sophisticated hacking campaign attributed to a Chinese Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group known as 'Earth Krahang …
Steven Levy / Wired:
An in-depth look at the 2017 “Attention Is All You Need” paper, a big breakthrough in AI, and profiles of the eight Google researchers who co-authored the paper  —  They met by chance, got hooked on an idea, and wrote the “Transformers” paper—the most consequential tech breakthrough in recent history.
Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg:
France fines Google €250M for failing to broker deals with media outlets over content links and using articles to train its AI tech, after a €500M fine in 2021  —  - Firm also accused of breaking other commitments in news case  — Watchdog levies €250 million penalty in latest escalation
Liz Alderman / New York Times:
France is seeking “a national solution” to protect IT giant Atos, which manages nuclear data and cybersecurity, after Airbus talks failed; ATO.PA fell 20%+  —  The French government said it would seek “a national solution” to protect Atos, a debt-burdened company that serves nuclear programs and the military.
Ash Parrish / The Verge:
How Sweet Baby, a small video game narrative development company, became the focus of Gamergate 2.0, a harassment campaign against “forced” diversity in gaming  —  A group of gamers has mobilized a harassment campaign against a story consultant company, marginalized developers …
Javier Espinoza / Financial Times:
Sources: EU Commission rules, set to be adopted as soon as next week, will fine X, TikTok, and other big platforms over lax moderation of AI election content  —  Social media platforms including X and TikTok will face fines for failing to tackle disinformation
More: Verdict
Financial Times:
Sources: Canada and the UAE have lobbied leading AI startups based in Europe, including Aleph Alpha, Synthesia, and Stability AI, to move their headquarters  —  Canada and UAE lobby companies amid global competition over developing cutting-edge technology  —  Leading European …
Kate Irwin / PCMag:
Fitbit is working with Google Research to create an LLM based on Gemini to provide Fitbit mobile app users with personalized data and health recommendations  —  Google is training Gemini on health data, and it's creating a new AI model for the Fitbit app that can give advice tailored to your needs.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26  —  Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Zoho:
Give your projects a “signature” upgrade with the Zoho Sign extension for Zoho Projects  —  Well-orchestrated project management keeps people, priorities, and processes all working in sync toward a shared goal.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Great Chat:
So what happens after AGI?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
AI Is Upending Law. Is That A Sign For The Rest Of Us? — With Melia Russell
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.
[trading places]:
Ben Black Akkadian Ventures🏆 | Secondaries Secrets 💎 | RAISE Conf 🎯 | Vercel $9B 🚀
a very bad podcast about broken unicorns & busted carry hosted by dave mcclure and aman verjee
Subscribe to [trading places].
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Lachlan Cartwright Started in Tabloids. Now He's a Must-Read Media Gossip.
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.
Invest Like the Best:
Gavin Baker - Nvidia v. Google, Scaling Laws, and the Economics of AI
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:40 AM ET, March 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

Earlier Picks

Mike Rogoway / Oregonian:
Kamila Wojciechowska / Android Authority:
New York Times: