Techmeme
February 20, 2024, 6:10 PM

Top News

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Authorities arrest two LockBit operators in Poland and Ukraine, issue arrest warrants and a decryption tool, seize 200+ crypto wallets; US indicts two Russians  —  Law enforcement arrested two operators of the LockBit ransomware gang in Poland and Ukraine, created a decryption tool …
Bloomberg:
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Messaging app Signal finally rolls out usernames in beta, letting users conceal their phone numbers; Signal still requires inputting a phone number to register  —  We tested the end-to-end encrypted messenger's new feature aimed at addressing critics' most persistent complaint.  Here's how it works.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Gary Geaves, Apple's longtime VP in charge of acoustics, is stepping down, replaced by Ruchir Davé, adding to the hardware engineering group's upheaval  —  - Apple acoustics chief Gary Geaves is stepping down from role  — Executive has been key to development of AirPods and HomePod
Jacob Pramuk / CNBC:
Walmart agrees to acquire TV maker Vizio for $2.3B, or $11.50/share, to boost its ad business via Vizio's SmartCast OS, which lets users stream content with ads  —  - Walmart is buying TV maker Vizio for $2.3 billion in cash.  — The move is a bid to boost the big-box retailer's high-margin ad business.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple debuts a monthly Apple Music Replay, offering insights like total listening time, top songs, artists, and albums, and releases 2024's Replay Mix playlist  —  Apple today updated the Apple Music Replay experience, available at replay.music.apple.com, with visualizations of your favorite music habits …
John Voorhees / MacStories:
A look at ways to play games on Apple Vision Pro: spatial and iPad App Store games, streaming via MirrorPlay for PS5, NDI, Macs, browsers like Nexus⁺, and more  —  The lack of any kind of port significantly limits the type of gaming you can do in the Apple Vision Pro - or does it?
More: 9to5Mac, iMore, The Verge, and Six Colors
Threads: @viticciMastodon: @viticci@mastodon … and @johnvoorhees@mastodon …Forums: r/apple
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Samsung details its Auracast, 360 Audio, and Auto Switch features, rolling out to Buds 2, Buds FE, the S24 series, Neo QLED and OLED TVs, Book laptops, and more  —  None are appearing on Samsung's devices for the first time, but we now know how broadly they'll be supported across the lineup.
HouseFresh:
How some big publishers are inundating the web with subpar product recommendations without testing the products, and how Google is helping them through inaction  —  And why you shouldn't trust product recommendations from big media publishers ranking at the top of Google
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Adobe launches AI Assistant in Acrobat in beta, to summarize PDFs, answer and recommend questions, and more, letting paying users “easily chat with documents”  —  Adobe is adding a new generative AI experience to its Acrobat PDF management software, which aims to …

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.
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
Run payroll in batches using Pay Groups, now with Zoho Payroll  —  Learn how Pay Groups in Zoho Payroll lets you process, approve, and run multiple pay runs independently for different employee groups within the same pay period.
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

Access:
This AI will push back if you're rude to it
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Big Technology Podcast:
AI Pioneer Jürgen Schmidhuber: AI Already Feels Pain, Loves, and Is Self-Aware
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Inside Podcasting's Fight Over Netflix, YouTube, and Creator Control
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.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Sam Blond from Monaco
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Training Data:
Anthropic's Katelyn Lesse & Angela Jiang: Building an Ecosystem, not a Walled Garden
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 6:10 PM ET, February 20, 2024.

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

Antonia Mufarech / Bloomberg:
Reuters:
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters: