Techmeme
December 7, 2023, 4:30 PM

Top News

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Users say Google's Gemini Pro is loath to comment on potentially controversial news topics, fails to get basic facts right, and struggles with some coding tasks  —  This week, Google took the wraps off of Gemini, its new flagship generative AI model meant to power a range of products …
Alexander Martin / The Record:
The UK accuses a unit of Russia's FSB of using cyberattacks in a “sustained but unsuccessful” campaign to undermine British democratic institutions since 2015  —  The British government accused a unit of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) on Thursday of using cyberattacks in a …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Meta rolls out end-to-end encryption to Messenger by default for one-on-one chats and calls, fulfilling a yearslong promise; E2EE for group chats remains opt-in  —  Meta is now rolling out end-to-end encryption for one-on-one chats and calls on Messenger and Facebook, finally fulfilling …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Montenegro Justice Minister Andrej Milovic has privately said he plans to extradite Do Kwon to the US rather than South Korea to face criminal charges  —  Alexander Osipovich and Marko Vešović  —  Montenegro's top justice official has privately said he plans …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Sony removing Discovery content due to licensing “arrangements” and unexpectedly banning PSN accounts are timely reminders that users don't own digital content  —  In less than a week, Sony has given us two timely reminders of the tenuousness of digital “ownership” — and both reminders involve things on PlayStation.
Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE:
Microsoft announces a major security leadership reshuffle as part of its Secure Future Initiative, replacing Bret Arsenault with Igor Tsyganskiy as Global CISO  —  Microsoft Corp. has announced a significant shakeup of its security team, with its long-time leader being put into a new role …
Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Apple's guidelines now say that US law enforcement can obtain a push notification token's associated Apple ID “with a subpoena”; Google requires a court order  —  Apple and Google had been told to keep the practice secret until Sen. Ron Wyden revealed it in a letter Wednesday
Reuters:
Reuters temporarily removes its article titled “How an Indian startup hacked the world” to comply with an Indian court order, and plans to appeal the decision  —  Reuters has temporarily removed the article “How an Indian startup hacked the world” to comply with a preliminary court order issued …
Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg:
Robinhood launches a commission-free crypto trading app, supporting 25+ cryptocurrencies, in the EU, a week after the company launched stock trading in the UK  —  - More than 25 tokens available to trade for free at launch  — Launch comes as Bitcoin's price recovers to 19-month high
Erin Griffith / New York Times:
PitchBook estimates that at least ~3,200 private venture-backed US startups, which had raised a combined $27.2B in VC funding, have gone out of business in 2023  —  After staving off collapse by cutting costs, many young tech companies are out of options, fueling a cash bonfire.
Maxwell Zeff / Gizmodo:
X rolls out xAI's snarky, anti-woke chatbot Grok to X Premium+ users; X CEO Linda Yaccarino describes Grok as “the ultimate ride or die”  —  Select users with X Premium Plus received access to the AI starting Thursday.  —  Elon Musk's snarky, anti-woke chatbot, Grok …
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
Researchers detail AutoSpill, a flaw in Android that can expose users' saved credentials from 1Password, LastPass, Keeper, and other popular password managers  —  A number of popular mobile password managers are inadvertently spilling user credentials due to a vulnerability in the autofill functionality of Android apps.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Meta rolls out tags on Threads, offering support for multiple words and spaces, and no # symbol; posts can only have one tag and the tag view is the search view  —  Tags — basically hashtags with a twist — are now rolling out globally on Threads, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced on Thursday.
Rebekah Valentine / IGN:
Sources: Bungie's October 2023 layoffs came alongside a scramble to avoid a total Sony takeover, which may happen if Bungie doesn't meet certain financial goals  —  The Destiny 2 and Marathon developer may not be able to cling to the last of its independence forever.
Wall Street Journal:
Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE:
Meta announces Purple Llama, an initiative to promote responsible AI development by offering tools and evaluations for safely building open generative AI models  —  Meta Platforms Inc. is looking to promote the responsible development of artificial intelligence systems with a new initiative called Purple Llama.
Jim Norman / Nintendo Life:
Nintendo cancels Nintendo Live 2024 Tokyo and delays Splatoon and Mario Kart esports events after “persistently receiving threats” against staff and spectators  —  Splatoon and Mario Kart events postponed too  —  Nintendo has today announced that the first Nintendo Live event of 2024 …
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
Bitzlato co-founder Anatoly Legkodymov pleads guilty in the US to operating a money transmitter for illicit funds and agrees to dissolve the crypto exchange  —  Anatoly Legkodymov says he'll dissolve the sanctioned exchange as part of his plea.  —  Register Now

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.
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
Zoho Notebook: The free iPad note-taking app every student needs  —  If you're a student with an iPad, you already have one of the best note-taking devices in your hands.  The question is, does your app actually do it justice?
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:
Abridge's Shiv Rao: The Doctor Founder Taking On Microsoft In Healthcare AI
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's Bots Break Containment and Hack Hugging Face Autonomously — With Alex Stamos
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.
Great Chat:
Too big to laugh: how tech lost its sense of humor
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Substack Wants To Become A Social Network; Beehiiv Wants To Stay Invisible
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.
Training Data:
Factory's Matan Grinberg: The Coming 'Dark Factory' Where Software Builds Itself
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.
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 4:30 PM ET, December 7, 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

Earlier Picks

Vittoria Elliott / Wired:
Washington Post:
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Manish Singh / TechCrunch: