Techmeme
March 16, 2023, 11:55 AM

Top News

John D. McKinnon / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: the Biden administration and CFIUS are demanding that TikTok's Chinese owners sell their stakes in the company or face a possible US ban of the app  —  TikTok says forced sale won't resolve national security issues; its CEO set to appear before Congress next week
Dan Sabbagh / The Guardian:
In a U-turn, the UK bans TikTok from ministers' and civil servants' work phones after a National Cyber Security Centre review, following the EU and the US  —  Move brings Britain in line with US and Europe and reflects worsening relations with China  —  Britain is to ban the Chinese owned …
Stu Woo / Wall Street Journal:
Bloomberg:
Microsoft plans to bring OpenAI's GPT-4 to Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Word, and its other apps in the coming months, calling the feature Microsoft 365 Copilot  —  Microsoft Corp.'s effort to overhaul its entire lineup with OpenAI technology has spread to one of the company's oldest and best-known products: its Office apps.
James Vincent / The Verge:
Experts criticize OpenAI for not disclosing GPT-4's training data or methods used; OpenAI co-founder says its past approach to openly sharing research was wrong  —  The system's capabilities are still being assessed, but as researchers and experts pore over its accompanying materials …
Ryan Broderick / Garbage Day:
OpenAI's GPT-4 is an outrageous, if imperfect, step forward, offering a glimpse of a future internet where generative AI creates one big personalized web portal  —  Read to the end for a good Twitter reply  —  Building A Portal To Everything  —  Very often I will come up with a big existential question …
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
New York Times:
Sources: five days after seizing SVB, the FDIC has conducted a stop-and-start auction process, failing so far to find a willing buyer for all of SVB's assets  —  Big rivals are thus far shying away from scooping up the bank's assets.  —  Five days after seizing control of Silicon Valley Bank …
FTX:
An FTX bankruptcy filing describes $3.2B+ in payments and loans to founders and executives, chiefly from Alameda Research, including ~$2.2B to Sam Bankman-Fried  —  Identify Over $3.2 Billion in Transfers to Founders and Key Employees  —  Forensic Work Continues on Intercompany and Other Transactions
Yimou Lee / Reuters:
Sources: Foxconn will make AirPods for the first time and plans to invest $200M+ in a plant in Telangana, India; a source says Apple wanted production in India  —  Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn (2317.TW) has won an order to make AirPods for Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and plans to build …
Jesse Hamilton / CoinDesk:
The US Federal Reserve plans to activate its real-time FedNow Service payments system in July, seeking to improve clearing transactions between institutions  —  The new government-operated payments system - often used as an argument against the need for crypto's payments innovations …
TechCrunch:
NYC-based Via plans to acquire London-based Citymapper, which has ~50M users and raised ~$60M; sources say investors are mostly not making their money back  —  Last month, when transportation startup Via raised $110 million at a $3.5 billion valuation, CEO Daniel Ramot said it planned …
Sam Kessler / CoinDesk:
The Arbitrum Foundation, which develops the Ethereum Layer 2 platform Arbitrum, plans to airdrop its long-awaited ARB token on March 23 and transition to a DAO  —  The long-awaited ARB token will grant holders the ability to vote on changes to the leading Ethereum layer 2 network.
Bloomberg:
Baidu announces its Ernie Bot in a pre-recorded video, with founder Robin Li talking over a scripted video of interactions with the AI; BIDU drops 5%+  —  Baidu Inc. debuted China's answer to ChatGPT via a recorded video, disappointing investors hoping for a real-time demo …
Christine Hall / TechCrunch:
Parker, which offers a corporate credit card for e-commerce brands doing $3M to $100M in annual sales, emerges from stealth with $37M in equity and $120M debt  —  Parker, a startup offering a corporate credit card for e-commerce businesses, emerged from stealth Thursday with $157 million …
Margaux Nijkerk / CoinDesk:
Ethereum developers set a target date of around April 12 for the long-awaited Shanghai hard fork, delayed from its initial March target  —  Developers agreed to April 12 for the long-awaited upgrade that will enable staked ETH withdrawals.  —  Join the most important conversation in crypto …
Dan Primack / Axios:
Stripe raised a $6.5B+ Series I at a $50B valuation to help its employees cover tax obligations for the expiration of RSUs and to fund a new stock tender offer  —  Digital payments firm Stripe on Wednesday announced that it has raised more than $6.5 billion at a $50 billion valuation.

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Jen Wieczner / New York Magazine:

Earlier Picks

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