Techmeme
June 15, 2023, 11:10 AM

Top News

Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Valve releases a Steam update, announced in April, offering a big UI makeover, unifying the codebase for Desktop, Big Picture Mode, and Steam Deck, and more  —  While much of that has been available in beta, today's the day it goes wide with a full stable release.  So if your Steam is looking rather different, that's why!
Matt Walsh / @mattwalshinbos:
[Thread] After the SEC approved Prometheum's SPBD for digital assets, a look at CEO Aaron Kaplan's bizarre Congressional testimony and issues with the SPBD  —  This Prometheum storyline has got to be the strangest thing I have seen in awhile in this industry. Has anyone actually looked into this? Beyond bizarre...
Mandiant:
A look at Barracuda's Email Security Gateway zero-day, exploited by a China-linked actor since October 2022 to spy on governments, mostly in the Americas  —  On May 23, 2023, Barracuda announced that a zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2023-2868) in the Barracuda Email Security Gateway (ESG) …
Financial Times:
Sources: at a May meeting, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority questioned HSBC, Standard Chartered, and Bank of China on why they were not accepting crypto clients  —  Regulators are pushing for banks to accept more exchanges as clients in quest to develop digital assets industry
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft begins selling replacement Surface components via the Microsoft Store, including displays, batteries, and SSDs, for “out-of-warranty, self repair”  —  Microsoft is starting to sell replacement components for its Surface devices.  The software giant now supplies replacement parts …
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Microsoft researchers detail Cadet Blizzard, a GRU group they say was behind the WhisperGate data-wiping attacks in Ukraine just before Russia's 2022 invasion  —  Microsoft has linked a threat group it tracks as Cadet Blizzard since April 2023 to Russia's Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces (also known as GRU).
Gavin Bonshor / AnandTech:
Intel announces a chip naming refresh: dropping the “i”, opting for a straightforward Core 3, 5, and 7 structure, and placing premium chips under an Ultra brand  —  As first hinted at by Intel back in late April, Intel is embarking on a journey to redefine its client processor branding …
Chris Vallance / BBC:
Meta AI's Yann LeCun says experts' fears of AI threatening humanity are “preposterously ridiculous” and keeping research “under lock and key” would be a mistake  —  One of the three “godfathers of AI” has said it won't take over the world or permanently destroy jobs.
Patrick Coffee / Wall Street Journal:
Uber plans to add video ads to its main app, Uber Eats, and alcohol app Drizly, starting in the US; 345K merchants bought Uber ads in Q1, up from 315K in Q4  —  The company, which sees ad sales as a key growth area, will debut long-form videos on Uber Eats, Drizly and its ride-hailing app
More: Beet.TV, iMore, and Supercharged
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
In a case study, researchers estimate that between 33% and 46% of Mechanical Turk workers used LLMs when completing a text summarization task  —  File this one under inevitable, but hilarious.  Mechanical Turk is a service that from its earliest days seemed to invite shenanigans …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Google Shopping gets a virtual try-on clothing feature that uses a diffusion-based generative AI model, letting US users see how items look on many human models  —  Google, ever eager to lean into generative AI, is launching a new shopping feature that shows clothes on a lineup of real-life fashion models.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Nick Perry / Associated Press:
New Zealand sentences two men who ran the wildly popular pirating website Megaupload to more than two years in prison, ending an 11-year extradition battle  —  Two men who helped run the once wildly popular pirating website Megaupload were each sentenced by a New Zealand court on Thursday to more than two years in prison.
Christina Warren / Inverse:
A look at Apple's Game Porting Toolkit, based on a 20K line of code patch to Wine, easing ports to Apple silicon, and possible paths Apple may take with gaming  —  At WWDC last week, most of the focus was rightfully on the new Apple Vision Pro headset and the new visionOS.
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Some hackers are impersonating cybersecurity researchers on Twitter and GitHub to post fake zero-day proof-of-concept exploits that push Windows/Linux malware  —  Hackers are impersonating cybersecurity researchers on Twitter and GitHub to publish fake proof-of-concept exploits for zero …
Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
Amazon launches its “Hey Disney!” voice command for Alexa in the US, featuring over 20 characters, the first example of an Alexa Custom Assistant  —  Amazon and Disney announced Thursday that “Hey Disney!,” the new voice assistant built on Alexa technology, is officially available …
More: The Verge and ZDNet

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Earlier Picks

Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Gavin Bonshor / AnandTech: