Techmeme: Scammers are using voice-cloning AI to impersonate distressed loved ones, sometimes spoofing specific phone numbers to further the ruse, and victims fall for it (Pranshu Verma/Washington Post)

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March 6, 2023, 7:45 AM

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Pranshu Verma / Washington Post:

Scammers are using voice-cloning AI to impersonate distressed loved ones, sometimes spoofing specific phone numbers to further the ruse, and victims fall for it — Scammers are using artificial intelligence to sound more like family members in distress. People are falling for it and losing thousands of dollars.

More: The Verge, Digital Trends, Transistori, Fortune, and Into the Void

Mastodon: @Riedl@sigmoid.social and @glynmoody@mastodon.social

Tweets: @jjvincent, @pranshuverma_, @iblametom, @ericjschuster, @tiagodf, @kimcrayton1, @brianroemmele, @romudeth, @aedison, @rachelmetz, @levelsio, @martinsfp, @l_a_perry, @danteatkins, @sheilas, @erikbryn, @pkedrosky, @mmitchell_ai, and @triketora

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:

Sources: Apple's new 24" iMac is in engineering validation testing, set to launch in H2 2023 at the earliest, likely with the M3, and in the old iMac's colors — Apple is gearing up to launch its next slate of laptops and desktops, including a new iMac. Also: Its cloud chief is set to leave …

Wall Street Journal:

Sources and documents: Binance and Binance.US are more intertwined than they have disclosed, sharing staff, finances, and an affiliated entity to trade crypto — The exchange was intertwined with an American firm portrayed as independent. Now, regulators are circling.

More: Reuters, Blockworks, CryptoSlate, Attack of the 50 Foot …, DL News, Cointelegraph, ExchangeWire.com, Bitcoinist.com, Cryptonews, Crypto Daily, Coinspeaker, Inside Bitcoins, CoinGape, Cryptopolitan, Tech in Asia, PYMNTS.com, Watcher Guru, Decrypt, Forkast, The Block, and Slashdot

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Laurie Chen / Reuters:

At the National People's Congress in Beijing, Tencent CEO Pony Ma and other executives were absent, as China boosts representation for its tech hardware sector — Tencent Holdings (0700.HK) founder Pony Ma and others from China's crackdown-hit internet sector will be absent …

More: Financial Times, ABC, and Bloomberg

Tweets: @jkynge, @sariarhohavren, @gonglei89, and @elimeixler

Keith Zhai / Wall Street Journal:

Sources: China plans to create an agency to manage the country's data stores, shifting from multiple ministries, seeking to streamline its regulatory structure — Beijing's plan to streamline regulatory structure would bring all data-related issues under a single agency

More: Bloomberg and Reuters

Tweets: @newley and @newley

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

A look at the AI Objectives Institute, founded by deceased privacy luminary Peter Eckersley, aiming to influence AI's evolution and safeguard humanity's future — Peter Eckersley did groundbreaking work to encrypt the web. After his sudden death, a new organization he founded is carrying …

Jason Mikula / Fintech Business Weekly:

Internal docs appear to show executives at Eco, a personal finance app offering 2.5% to 5% in “APY rewards”, misrepresented Eco's lending practices to users — a16z- and Thiel-Backed Startup's Future Uncertain As It Loses Bank Partner, Pays User Interest With Own Funds — Hey all, Jason here.

Tweets: @mikulaja, @coryklippsten, @liron, @peterrenton, and @alice_comfy

Dave Lee / Financial Times:

Siri co-creator Adam Cheyer says generative AI will spur an assistant voice renaissance; Satya Nadella says Cortana, Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant “don't work” — Teams working on the ecommerce giant's voice assistant have been hit hard by the largest cuts in company's history

More: Android Police. Mastodon: @1br0wn@eupolicy.social. Tweets: @jmglachant, @antoniocasilli, @epro, @timothynoah1, @parijatjha47, @daveleeft, @modestproposal1, and @modestproposal1

Charlie Warzel / The Atlantic:

An interview with Ask Jeeves co-creator Garrett Gruener, who says his original conception was similar to the chatbots Microsoft and Google are trying to build — Garrett Gruener, the co-creator of Ask Jeeves, couldn't beat Google, but he's feeling just fine about the dawn of the chatbot era.

More: MSPoweruser and Windows Report

Tweets: @cwarzel, @carnage4life, @harrymccracken, @jamesfallows, @lkherman, @dlberes, @marystachyra, @cwarzel, @cwarzel, and @dlberes

Reuters:

The EU says WhatsApp agreed to increase transparency over its privacy policy changes from 2021, letting users reject the rules, limiting data sharing, and more — Meta Platforms' (META.O) WhatsApp has agreed to be more transparent about changes to its privacy policy introduced in 2021 …

More: Reuters, RTÉ, and European Commission. Tweets: @mattnavarra

Justin Hendrix / Tech Policy Press:

A study of 13M+ Facebook posts in the run-up to the 2020 US elections found that 23% of the sampled posts with political images contained misinformation — A new study based on a massive dataset of posts collected from Facebook pages and groups in the runup to the 2020 U.S. Presidential election finds …

Reuters:

Sources: SoftBank's Arm hopes to raise $8B+ at a $50B+ valuation in its US IPO, which is expected later in 2023 after a confidential filing in late April — Arm Ltd, the British chip designer owned by Japan's SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T), is likely to aim to raise at least $8 billion …

More: Bloomberg and MarketWatch

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