Techmeme
May 17, 2023, 5:30 AM

Top News

Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google updates its inactivity policy: accounts inactive for at least two years will be deleted, except for those with YouTube videos, starting in December 2023  —  In 2020, Google said it would remove content stored in an inactive account (but not the account itself) to preserve storage space.
CNBC:
In an interview, Elon Musk discussed acquiring Twitter, defended his inflammatory tweets, called tech workers the “laptop class living in la-la-land”, and more  —  Tesla CEO Elon Musk sat down for a sprawling interview with CNBC anchor David Faber on Tuesday following .
Judith Bannermanquist / Cointelegraph:
Crypto wallet startup Ledger faces criticism after unveiling an optional seed phrase recovery subscription service that some security experts say is insecure  —  Many members of the crypto community believe Ledger's latest seed phrase recovery feature is a bad idea.  —  362 Total views
Jonathan Greig / The Record:
Symantec says an APT called Lancefly used custom malware to attack governments, telcos, and other organizations in Asia from the middle of 2022 through Q1 2023  —  A government-backed hacking group known as “Lancefly” has been seen using custom-made malware to attack governments, telecoms and other organizations across Asia.
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Cybersecurity researchers and IT admins raise concerns over Google's new .zip and .mov TLDs, warning that threat actors could use them for phishing and malware  —  Cybersecurity researchers and IT admins have raised concerns over Google's new ZIP and MOV Internet domains …
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
Apple unveils new cognitive, vision, and speech accessibility features for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, like an AI voice that sounds like the user's, coming in 2023  —  Apple previewed a suite of new features today to improve cognitive, vision and speech accessibility.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Kevin Purdy / Ars Technica:
Belkin says the company won't patch a buffer overflow vulnerability in the Wemo Mini Smart Plug V2 disclosed on March 14 as the device is at the end of its life  —  Tricking a plug with a too-long name could lead to buffer overflows, injections.  —  I once co-owned a coworking space.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple touts $2B+ in App Store fraud stopped in 2022, nearly 3.9M stolen credit cards blocked, 147M+ ratings/reviews removed, and 428K developer accounts closed  —  Apple is out with a new press release today touting the success of the App Store's ability to prevent fraud.
Rohan Goswami / CNBC:
The US DOJ alleges former Apple engineer Weibao Wang stole Apple's autonomous tech, including source code, for a Chinese company working on a self-driving car  —  - Weibao Wang was charged with six counts of theft or attempted theft by prosecutors, who allege he stole troves of source code …
Washington Post:
The US announces charges, sanctions, and a $10M reward for info leading to the arrest of Russian national Mikhail Matveev, a Babuk ransomware campaign suspect  —  The Justice, Treasury and State departments announced a crackdown on suspect Mikhail Matveev, with economic sanctions and a $10 million reward for his arrest
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
Researchers bought 228 phones from PropertyRoom.com, a top auction house for US police departments, and found many had not been wiped and had no PIN or passcode  —  Countless smartphones seized in arrests and searches by police forces across the United States are being auctioned online without …
Richard Waters / Financial Times:
Tech companies are racing to run generative AI natively on mobile devices to reduce computing costs, but face hurdles like limited memory and processing power  —  Tech companies seek processing power in handsets to reduce computing costs and improve speed of AI chatbots
Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
A recap of the testimony from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, IBM VP Christina Montgomery, and professor Gary Marcus at a US Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing  —  OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will testify to Congress on AI like ChatGPT as regulations and oversight are being considered.
Financial Times:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
IBM acquires cloud data protection startup Polar Security, a source says for ~$60M, and plans to integrate Polar into its Guardium unit, itself acquired in 2019  —  Update: IBM has now confirmed the news and said Polar will be integrated into its Guardium unit (itself based on an acquisition from way back in 2009).
CNBC:
Google Cloud launches two AI-powered tools that aim to help biotech and pharmaceutical companies accelerate drug discovery and advance precision medicine  —  - Google Cloud launched two new AI-powered solutions that aim to help biotech and pharmaceutical companies accelerate drug discovery and advance precision medicine.

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
Zoho Books introduces the Landlords edition in the UK  —  Managing rental properties in the UK has long involved a messy mix of spread-out receipts, manual spreadsheets, and end-of-year tax scrambles.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

The Upstarts Podcast:
Basis's Matt Harpe: Why AI Won't Replace Accountants — It'll Make Them Richer
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Lucas Shaw on Warner Bros' Limbo, Netflix's Anxiety, and Hollywood's Sort-of Comeback
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
How China Caught U.S. AI — With Grace Shao
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.
Training Data:
Building the Automated AGI Lab: Core Automation's Jerry Tworek and Rohan Anil
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Tony Xu from DoorDash
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:30 AM ET, May 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.

More News

Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
Bloomberg:
Emma Roth / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
CoinDesk:
Adam Satariano / New York Times: