Techmeme
February 8, 2023, 4:20 PM

Top News

Martin Coulter / Reuters:
Google's Bard announcement tweet included a GIF of the AI chatbot giving an inaccurate answer to a question about the James Webb Space Telescope; GOOG drops 7%+  —  Google published an online advertisement in which its much anticipated AI chatbot BARD delivered inaccurate answers.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Google shares AI updates across its services: expanding multisearch globally on mobile, Maps features for EV drivers, Lens AR translation, and Translate context  —  Google announced a bunch of AI-enabled search, Maps, and Translate updates as part of its Google presents: Live from Paris event on Wednesday.
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Google launches Immersive View for Maps in London, LA, NYC, San Francisco, and Tokyo and plans to roll out “glanceable directions” globally in the coming months  —  Google is launching new updates for Maps that are part of its plan to make the navigation app more immersive …
Katharine Gemmell / Bloomberg:
The UK CMA finds Microsoft's $69B Activision Blizzard acquisition would harm competition in the UK's gaming market, suggests and asks Microsoft for remedies  —  Microsoft Corp.'s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. will harm competition in the UK gaming market …
Financial Times:
James Vincent / The Verge:
Google's AI demo in Paris paled in comparison to Microsoft's “new Bing” event, highlighting why Google needs to widely release its ChatGPT rival service Bard  —  Google demoed its latest advances in AI search at a live event in Paris on Wednesday — but the features pale in comparison …
Parmy Olson / Bloomberg:
Washington Post:
A live blog of the House Oversight Committee hearing with ex-Twitter executives Vijaya Gadde, James Baker, and Yoel Roth on Hunter Biden laptop “censorship”  —  A congressional hearing Wednesday represents a moment of political reckoning more than two years in the making …
@twitterblue:
Twitter introduces tweets with up to 4,000 characters for US Blue subscribers; in feeds, tweets will be capped at 280 characters with an option to “Show more”  —  need more than 280 characters to express yourself? we know that lots of you do... and while we love a good thread, sometimes you just want to Tweet everything all at once. we get that. so we're introducing longer Tweets! you're gonna want to check this out. tap this 👉... https://twitter.com/...
David Friend / Canadian Press:
Netflix rolls out its long-anticipated password sharing rules in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain; other countries will be added in the next few months  —  Under new rules, premium and standard account holders will be given option to add extra members for $7.99 per month
Brian Fung / CNN:
NetBlocks: Turkish ISPs limit Twitter access two days after a major earthquake; Turkish police detain 18 people for sharing “provocative posts” on social media  —  Access to Twitter has been restricted in Turkey, according to reports by an internet monitoring company …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Clay Bavor, a Google veteran of 18 years who recently led the company's AR/VR efforts, leaves to start an AI company with former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor  —  For the past few years, Google's AR and VR efforts have been led by Clay Bavor.  The longtime executive is now set to leave the company next month.
Paul Thurrott / Thurrott:
Microsoft plans to embed Adobe's Acrobat PDF tech in Edge for Windows 10 and Windows 11 starting in March 2023 and remove Edge's legacy PDF engine in March 2024  —  Microsoft announced today that it is partnering with Adobe to bring Acrobat PDF capabilities to the Microsoft Edge web browser on Windows.
Thomas Claburn / The Register:
Mozilla says the company is doing “exploratory work” for a Gecko-based browser on iOS in case Apple drops its WebKit requirement, after a similar move by Google  —  Work on a Gecko-based version of Firefox for iOS is underway, again  —  UPDATED Mozilla is planning for the day when Apple …
Kellen Browning / New York Times:
Uber reports Q4 revenue up 49% YoY to $8.6B, gross bookings up 19% YoY to $30.7B, MAUs up 11% YoY to 131M, and customer trips up 19% YoY to a record 2.1B  —  The company, which was hit hard in the early stages of the pandemic, saw revenue jump 49 percent from the same period a year ago.
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
At the State of the Union, Biden called for Congress to strengthen data privacy protections and antitrust enforcement to stop Big Tech from self-preferencing  —  President Joe Biden threw his support behind tougher rules regulating Silicon Valley during his Second State of the Union speech Tuesday night.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Transform ML Experimentation with Tangle  —  Save months of compute time with Tangle, built by Shopify.  Try this open-source platform to simplify ML workflows, ensure reproducibility, and seamlessly share with collaborators.
Zoho:
Contract Signed.  Project Ready.  Tasks Created.  —  Every project begins with a promise; a contract that outlines the deliverables, the timelines, and the terms.  But for most businesses …
Bitrix24:
Bitrix24 powers the next generation of high-performing businesses  —  Chat, projects, CRM, and automation — all in one place.  Replace dozens of tools so your team moves faster, collaborates smarter, and grows effortlessly.
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

Hard Fork:
OpenAI Calls a 'Code Red' + Which Model Should I Use? + The Hard Fork Review of Slop
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.
Access:
Is Roblox making the internet better or worse? We asked the CEO
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Lenny's Podcast:
Why LinkedIn is turning PMs into AI-powered "full stack builders" | Tomer Cohen (LinkedIn CPO)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Great Chat:
Code red: our favorite tech rivalries
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
How An AI Model Learned To Be Bad — With Evan Hubinger And Monte MacDiarmid
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:20 PM ET, February 8, 2023.

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

Pallabi Munsi / CNN:
Politico:

Earlier Picks

Jack Schickler / CoinDesk: