Techmeme
August 17, 2023, 10:15 AM

Top News

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
OpenAI acquires New York-based AI design studio Global Illumination, marking the company's first public acquisition; the terms of the deal weren't disclosed  —  OpenAI, the AI company behind the viral AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT, has acquired Global Illumination, a New York-based startup leveraging AI …
Vlad Turiceanu / Windows Report:
Leaked images show Lenovo's new Legion Go, a Windows 11 gaming handheld that appears to combine features of the Steam Deck, Asus ROG Ally, and Nintendo Switch  —  Here's a first look at Lenovo's new gaming handheld, the Legion Go  —  Lenovo is working on a gaming handheld called Legion Go …
Gerrit De Vynck / Washington Post:
Researchers find ChatGPT has a “significant and systematic political bias” toward the Democrats in the US, Lula in Brazil, and the Labour Party in the UK  —  Chatbots are ingrained with political biases picked up from their training data — which in most cases is unfiltered text from the web
Olga Kharif / Bloomberg:
Solidus Labs: between mid-July and August, developers deployed 500+ scam tokens on Coinbase's Base blockchain; around 300 let the creators mint unlimited tokens  —  - More than 500 scam tokens were deployed on blockchain  — Solidus Labs says scammers pocketed about $2 million in profit
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Cofense discovers a phishing campaign that uses QR codes to target a notable US energy company, the first known use of QR codes for phishing at scale  —  A phishing campaign was observed predominantly targeting a notable energy company in the US, employing QR codes to slip malicious emails into inboxes and bypass security.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Snap confirms and fixes a My AI glitch that caused the chatbot to post its own Story and then stop responding to users' messages  —  Snapchat's My AI feature, an in-app AI chatbot launched earlier this year with its fair share of controversy, briefly appeared to have a mind of its own.
Vitalik Buterin / Vitalik Buterin's website:
A deep dive into X's Community Notes, including how the algorithm works, whether the feature actually fights polarization, and its use in high-stakes situations  —  Special thanks to Dennis Pourteaux and Jay Baxter for feedback and review.  —  The last two years of Twitter X have been tumultuous, to say the least.
Vlad Savov / Bloomberg:
Counterpoint: 2023 global smartphone shipments to drop 6% YoY to 1.15B units, the lowest level since 2013, due to China's worsening economy and poor US demand  —  - Global smartphone shipments are expected to drop 6% from 2022  — Apple is better positioned than others to weather the storm
Sam Kessler / CoinDesk:
Sei launches its trading-focused blockchain and SEI reaches $1.6B trading volume in the first 24 hours, per CoinMarketCap; many users criticized SEI's airdrop  —  The buzzy blockchain project's SEI token saw a flurry of trading as it debuted on several crypto exchanges …
Shaurya Malwa / CoinDesk:
Shiba Inu's Ethereum layer-2 network Shibarium, which hopes to lure users with low fees to an ecosystem focused on financial services and gaming, goes live  —  The much-awaited Shibarium network saw over 21 million wallets created during its testnet and is expected to position Shiba Inu as a serious DeFi contender.
Natalie Lung / Bloomberg:
Jefferies and TrueUp: tech companies have laid off 342,671 employees so far in 2023, well above the 243,075 job cuts across all of 2022  —  Tech companies aren't yet ramping up hiring after massive layoffs over the past year, despite a surge in interest in artificial intelligence, requiring workers with special skills.
Bloomberg:
Court filings: Tesla engineers admit that the company did nothing to address Autopilot's inability to recognize crossing traffic following a fatal crash in 2016  —  - Company faces damning testimony as trial looms over 2019 wreck  — CEO Elon Musk has claimed Teslas are safest cars ever made
Sarah Zheng / Bloomberg:
Sources: Chinese regulators met with Walmart, PayPal, and other foreign companies to help navigate China's new data security rules, hoping to ease some fears  —  - Walmart, PayPal among foreign firms that met CAC last week  — They discussed fast-tracking some data transfers abroad
More: Tech Monitor
Alex Cranz / The Verge:
YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips pauses production after accusations of theft, ethical lapses, and sexual harassment, and plans to hire an outside investigator  —  Linus Sebastian's Linus Media Group YouTube empire is currently in crisis, with accusations of theft, lapses in ethics, and most recently, allegations of sexual harassment.
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
NYC bans TikTok on city-owned devices and asks agencies to remove the app within 30 days; a NYC Cyber Command review found that TikTok “posed a security threat”  —  New York City is banning TikTok from city-owned devices and requiring agencies to remove the app within the next 30 days.
Foreign Affairs:
Effective global governance of AI doesn't stand a chance without collaboration with tech companies and policymakers agreeing on basic AI governance principles  —  It's 2035, and artificial intelligence is everywhere.  AI systems run hospitals, operate airlines, and battle each other in the courtroom.
Helene Braun / CoinDesk:
Crypto hardware wallet maker Ledger partners with PayPal to let US users buy BTC, ETH, BCH, and LTC in its Ledger Live app through their PayPal accounts  —  Users of Ledger Live, the company's feature that lets you buy crypto with fiat currency, will now be able to connect their PayPal account to the app.

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