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February 17, 2023, 4:10 PM
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Top News

New York Times:
Microsoft is considering limiting Bing chatbot's conversation lengths and adding tools to let users restart conversations or give them more control over tone  —  The company knew the new technology had issues like occasional accuracy problems.  But users have prodded surprising and unnerving interactions.
Sheila Dang / Reuters:
Source: Microsoft is demoing the Bing chatbot to ad agencies and is testing inserting paid search ads and industry-specific ad formats into the responses
Yueqi Yang / Bloomberg:
Source: Binance is considering de-listing USDC and other tokens from US projects, ending US partnerships, and closing VC investments, amid regulatory scrutiny  —  Crypto giant Binance Holdings Ltd. is considering ending relationships with US business partners as regulators turn up the heat.
Kurt Schlosser / GeekWire:
Amazon tells corporate staff to return to the office “at least three days per week”, starting on May 1, after previously leaving the decision to team leaders  —  Amazon wants its corporate and tech employees back in the office at least three days per week, CEO Andy Jassy said in a memo to workers on Friday.
Clothilde Goujard / Politico:
Under the Digital Services Act, online platforms disclose their MAUs in the EU: YouTube has 401M+, Facebook ~255M, Instagram ~250M, TikTok 150M, Twitter 100.9M  —  TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have now confirmed they will face the strictest rules under the EU's content-moderation law, the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Meta gave ~10% of employees subpar ratings in recent performance reviews, a potential sign of more layoffs, and cut a bonus metric to 85% of its target  —  The performance-review process is expected to set the stage for more workforce reductions this year  —  Why Tech Layoffs Don't Reflect the Job Market
Suvashree Ghosh / Bloomberg:
The SEC says Do Kwon and Terraform Labs have withdrawn $100M+ out of a cold wallet holding 10K+ Bitcoin via an intermediary Swiss bank account since June 2022  —  Crypto fugitive Do Kwon and the firm he founded transferred over 10,000 Bitcoin out of their doomed project and turned …
Josh Ye / Reuters:
Sources: Tencent cuts its 300-strong metaverse unit and drops VR hardware plans due to trouble achieving quick profitability and the need for a big investment  —  Tencent Holdings (0700.HK) is abandoning plans to venture into virtual reality hardware, as a sobering economic outlook prompts …
Kris Holt / Engadget:
Samsung says the Galaxy S23 series' Message Guard feature will prevent zero-click exploits via messaging apps by detecting malware hidden in image attachments  —  Zero-click attacks, which can install malware onto a device without the user clicking or tapping on anything, have been on the rise in recent years.
Cristiano Lima / Washington Post:
The FTC launches an Office of Technology, increasing the number of technologists on staff from 10 to ~22 ahead of legal battles with Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta  —  Happy Friday!  A quick programming note: The newsletter will be off Monday for the holiday, but back in your inboxes Tuesday.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Fitbit plans to remove adventures, challenges, and open groups on March 27 and replace Studio with an SDK; Google says the app's features were of “limited use”  —  Fitbit users: better one-up your friends in challenges while you still can.  Starting March 27th …
OpenAI:
OpenAI aims to improve ChatGPT's behavior by reducing biases, allowing more user customization, and getting more public input into the company's decision-making  —  We're clarifying how ChatGPT's behavior is shaped and our plans for improving that behavior, allowing more user customization …
Bloomberg:
The SEC sues Terraform Labs and Do Kwon, accusing them of selling unregistered securities and perpetrating a fraudulent scheme that lost $40B+ in market value

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:10 PM ET, February 17, 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.

From Mediagazer

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Ben Sherwood and Joanna Coles take minority stakes in The Daily Beast; Sherwood will be CEO and publisher, and Coles will be chief creative and content officer

Jake Kanter / Deadline:
Sources: the BBC plans to stop automatic annual pay increases for its highest-paid employees and instead hand them raises based on their performance

David Folkenflik / NPR:
NPR suspended Uri Berliner for five days without pay, starting on April 12, after he wrote an essay accusing NPR of losing the public's trust

More News

Kate Clark / The Information:
Stripe's investor pitch deck says the startup needs $4B by the end of 2024 to cover a tax withholding bill when modifying employee stock grants before its IPO
Bloomberg:
Filing: the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund's Savvy Games Group now owns 8.3% of Nintendo, the largest outside stake, up from ~6% at the start of 2023

Earlier Picks

Janko Roettgers / Lowpass:
A patent and a job listing suggest Meta is working on an advanced smart glasses assistant; docs show staff have tested a proactive assistant on Ray-Ban Stories
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Apple's iOS 16.4 and iPadOS 16.4 betas add support for Safari web apps on the homescreen to send push notifications and show notification badges
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft authorizes Parallels Desktop 18 to support Windows 11 on Apple's M1 and M2 Macs, after previously only licensing ARM versions of Windows to OEMs
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Meta launches Instagram Channels, a broadcast chat feature that lets select US creators share public, one-to-many text, images, and more with their followers
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Tile debuts an anti-theft mode that requires biometric data, a government ID, and a ToS letting Tile share info with police, to limit the misuse of its trackers
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