Techmeme
March 5, 2024, 1:00 PM

Top News

Emma Roth / The Verge:
Meta confirms a technical issue caused an outage affecting Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Meta Quest logins, and more, for over two hours  —  Facebook, Instagram, and Threads are all experiencing issues.  The three Meta-owned platforms aren't working for many users, with the widespread outage seeming to start around 10AM ET.
Financial Times:
As Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft comply with the EU's DMA before March 7, experts are skeptical its rules will have the desired effect  —  This week is the deadline for large online platforms to comply with new EU regulations on competition.  Too little too late, say some
Zac Bowden / Windows Central:
Sources: Microsoft plans to unveil an OLED Surface Pro 10 and a Surface Laptop 6, both available with Intel Core Ultra or Snapdragon X Elite chips, on March 21  —  Microsoft's first AI PCs will be unveiled on March 21, ahead of next-gen Windows 11 AI features coming this fall.  —  What you need to know
Reuters:
A BlackCat ransomware gang website shows a takedown notice; the UK NCA denies involvement and experts suggest an exit scam after an alleged UnitedHealth payment  —  A website used by hackers responsible for a breach at UnitedHealth Group (UNH.N) has been replaced by a notice saying it has been seized by international law enforcement.
Counterpoint Research:
CoinDesk:
Bitcoin surpassed $69K, eclipsing its previous all-time high set on November 10, 2021, with US spot bitcoin ETFs a likely catalyst of the latest bull run  —  The success of the spot ETFs which opened for business on January 11 was the catalyst for this latest bull run for the world's largest crypto.
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch:
The US Treasury sanctions spyware group Intellexa Consortium's founder and one of his business partners, the first US sanctions on people over spyware misuse  —  The U.S. government announced Tuesday sanctions against the founder of the notorious spyware company Intellexa and one of his business partners.
Emilia David / The Verge:
OpenAI updates ChatGPT with a Read Aloud feature that auto-detects 37 languages and reads GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 responses out loud on the web, Android, and iOS  —  OpenAI's new Read Aloud feature for ChatGPT could come in handy when users are on the go by reading its responses in one of five voice options out loud to users.
TechCrunch:
X's audio and video calls, which are on by default, are peer-to-peer, revealing users' IP addresses to each other unless they toggle an enhanced privacy setting  —  The new X calling feature can hurt your privacy  —  In his quest to turn a simple and functioning Twitter app into X …
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Nothing debuts the 6.7" Phone (2a), its first budget phone, with a 5,000mAh battery and a MediaTek chip, starting at £319 for 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage  —  Budget phones tend to be pretty forgettable, but the Nothing Phone 2A isn't your average budget phone — that much is obvious just looking at it.
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
At an event, Sergey Brin said Google “definitely messed up” Gemini's image generation debut and it's “not our intention” for Gemini to lean left “in many cases”  —  - Google's Sergey Brin spoke to a roomful of entrepreneurs over the weekend at the “AGI House” in Hillsborough, California.
Financial Times:
Financial Times:
UK digital bank Monzo raised $430M led by Alphabet's CapitalG at a $5B valuation, up from $4.5B in December 2021, and plans to use funds to expand in the US  —  London-based digital bank raised $430mn from investors including CapitalG and HongShan  —  Monzo has secured a fresh round …

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Deep analysis for deep questions  —  Introducing Superagent.  A new research product from Airtable: Subagents deeply interrogate your topic and turn it into boardroom-ready reports, slides, docs, or websites.
Clay:
Turn any GTM idea into reality  —  Clay helps GTM teams combine AI agents, enrichment, and intent data to move faster and turn insights into action.
Zoho:
Why navigation breaks down in unified software—and how QuickNav fixes it  —  In unified software environments, navigation stops being a convenience issue and becomes a structural one.When work spans CRM records …
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

Channels with Peter Kafka:
Netflix Walks, Paramount Wins, and the Ellisons Take Hollywood
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.
Hard Fork:
Is A.I. Eating the Labor Market? + The Latest on the Pentagon, OpenClaw and Alpha School
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Valar Atomics' Isaiah Taylor: Solving AI's Energy Crisis With Nuclear 'Gigasites'
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.
Access:
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on surviving the AI slop-pocalypse
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Lenny's Podcast:
AI is critical for humanity's survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
His Excellency Khaldoon Al Mubarak: Investing in an AI-Driven World
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 1:00 PM ET, March 5, 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

Bloomberg:
Lawrence Bonk / Engadget:
Alexa Corse / Wall Street Journal:
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac: