Techmeme
March 29, 2024, 11:05 PM

Top News

The Information:
Sources: Microsoft and OpenAI are planning a $100B data center project with a US-based supercomputer dubbed “Stargate” to power OpenAI's products  —  Executives at Microsoft and OpenAI have been drawing up plans for a data center project that would contain a supercomputer …
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Researchers find malicious code in versions of the compression tool XZ Utils that were incorporated into Linux distributions from Red Hat, Debian, and others  —  Malicious code planted in xz Utils has been circulating for more than a month.  —  Researchers have found a malicious backdoor …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
OpenAI debuts Voice Engine, which lets users generate synthetic copy of a voice from a 15-second sample, available to around 100 partners, including HeyGen  —  As deepfakes proliferate, OpenAI is refining the tech used to clone voices — but the company insists it's doing so responsibly.
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
LinkedIn confirms testing a new TikTok-like short-form video feed; a demo shows a Video tab in LinkedIn app's navigation bar  —  LinkedIn is testing a new TikTok-like short-form video feed, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Wednesday.  With this new test, LinkedIn joins numerous …
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Sources: Amazon's AGI team is aiming to outperform Anthropic's latest Claude models by the middle of 2024 using the company's forthcoming LLM, codenamed Olympus  —  This week, Amazon completed the second phase of a deal announced last September, when it committed to investing up to $4 billion in OpenAI rival Anthropic.
Axios:
Source: the US House set a strict ban on congressional staffers' use of Microsoft Copilot; Microsoft hopes its upcoming tools will address the House's concerns  —  - The House last June restricted staffers' use of ChatGPT, allowing limited use of the paid subscription version while banning the free version.
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Google informs users in the US that Google Podcasts is shutting down April 2 and recommends exporting podcast subscriptions to YouTube Music  —  U.S. users have just a few more days to make the transition from Google Podcasts as the company moves forward with the process of discontinuing the service globally.
Keumars Afifi-Sabet / LiveScience:
Researchers say they achieved fiber-optic data transfer speeds of 301 Tbps by using the E-band, a spectral band that has never been used in commercial systems  —  The researchers hit a rate of 301 terabits per second — equivalent to transferring 1,800 4K movies over the internet in one second — using existing fiber-optic cables.
More: PCMag, Gizmodo, and Cybernews.com
Threads: @gwestrX: @nixcraft and @_electroniccash
Alex Kantrowitz / Big Technology:
A profile of DeepMind's Demis Hassabis, who was just knighted, as some wonder if he can navigate Google's bureaucracy and turn AI research into great products  —  Demis Hassabis stares intently through the screen when I ask him whether he can save Google.  It's early evening in his native U.K …
Colin Lecher / The City:
NYC's Microsoft-powered MyCity chatbot, launched as a pilot program last October, often gives inaccurate info, including telling businesses to break the law  —  The Microsoft-powered bot says bosses can take worker's tips and that landlords can discriminate based on source of income.  That's not right.
Darius Rafieyan / Business Insider:
Filings from 2023 list Jacob Vespers as OpenAI Startup Fund's manager; OpenAI says “Vespers does not exist” and the docs are “fabricated”, without elaborating  —  - Documents filed in California last year named Jacob Thomas Vespers as manager of the OpenAI Startup Fund.

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:
Fast, affordable law for startups  —  Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better.  We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts.  Join the waitlist for early access!
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
Deep dive into SalesIQ's Summer '26 release: 40+ features for the agentic era  —  We've already introduced you to Zoho SalesIQ's Summer '26 release, our annual release, and the one where SalesIQ enters a new territory: the era of agentic intelligence.
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:
Blitzy's Brian Elliott: Cursor And Claude Code Are Looking At Your Enterprise Code 'Through A Straw'
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.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
Re-Release: The Death of Hollywood? W/ Allan Loeb
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Great Chat:
Maybe Twitter isn't real life
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's Plan To Merge Chat And Agents — With Greg Brockman
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:
Encore: Inside Joe Weisenthal's brain
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.
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 11:05 PM ET, March 29, 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

Steve Banker / Forbes:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Meredith Whittaker / LPE Project:

Earlier Picks

David Kirton / Reuters:
New York Times:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Emilia David / The Verge: