Techmeme
April 4, 2024, 11:50 AM

Top News

Reuters:
Sources: Alphabet is considering an offer for HubSpot, an online marketing software company with a $35B market value, which would be its largest acquisition yet  —  Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL.O) has been talking to its advisers about the possibility of making an offer for HubSpot (HUBS.N) …
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
A profile of hacker Alejandro Caceres, aka P4x, who took down North Korea's internet in 2022 and says the US needs to wield its hacking powers more aggressively  —  As “P4x,” Alejandro Caceres single-handedly disrupted the internet of an entire country.  Then he tried to show the US military how it can—and should—adopt his methods.
Financial Times:
Amrita Khalid / The Verge:
X adds blue checks to some large accounts as part of its plan to give free Premium memberships to users with at least 2,500 “verified subscriber followers”  —  Just as Elon Musk said, X is doling out free Premium and Premium memberships to accounts with a high number of verified followers.
The Guardian:
Sources: Israel's bombing campaign in Gaza used Lavender, an AI system that identified 37,000 potential human targets based on their apparent links to Hamas  —  Israeli intelligence sources reveal use of ‘Lavender’ system in Gaza war and claim permission given to kill civilians in pursuit of low-ranking militants
More: Al Jazeera, +972 Magazine, Gizmodo, Business Today, The i Paper, Cryptopolitan, ScheerPost.com, FRANCE 24 English on YouTube, The Sun, The Times of Israel, Firstpost, Daily Kos, and The Guardian
LinkedIn: Ana Brandusescu and Sahar Aziz
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is exploring home robotic devices, including a mobile robot that can follow users and a table-top device that uses robotics to move a display  —  - The company has teams working on automated home devices  — The search is on for new growth sources after EV gets nixed
Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg:
Cohere releases Command R+, an AI model for business customers the startup says performs competitively against OpenAI and others on “business-critical” tasks  —  Cohere says its new technology is cheaper than OpenAI's offerings.  —  Artificial intelligence startup Cohere Inc …
Sam Kessler / CoinDesk:
Ripple plans to launch a stablecoin later in 2024 that is “100% backed by US dollar deposits, short-term US government Treasuries, and other cash equivalents”  —  The token will be “100% backed by U.S. dollar deposits, short-term U.S. government Treasuries and other cash equivalents.” according to the company.
Lauren Feiner / The Verge:
Google sues two alleged crypto scammers, accusing them of using its Play Store to offer fraudulent crypto trading and investment apps to steal users' money  —  Google is suing two alleged crypto scammers, accusing them of using its Play Store to offer fraudulent cryptocurrency trading apps …
Scott Stein / CNET:
An interview with Andrew Bosworth on the 10th anniversary of Reality Labs, the past and future of VR, AR, and AI, Meta's next AR glasses prototype, and more  —  Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth talks with CNET about the past and future of VR, AR and AI.  —  2014 doesn't seem that long ago to me.
Tim Stelloh / NBC News:
A Washington state judge bars using AI-enhanced video as evidence in a murder trial, a ruling experts say may be the first-of-its-kind in a US criminal court  —  Lawyers for a man charged with murder in a triple homicide had sought to introduce cellphone video enhanced by machine-learning software.
Bloomberg:
Elon Musk says “Tesla is increasing comp ... of our AI engineering team” because OpenAI has been “aggressively recruiting Tesla engineers” with “massive” offers  —  - CEO says carmaker is going extra mile to retain specialists  — Exodus may exacerbate concerns about conflicts, governance
Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
Developers say open-source software culture, where users demand constant updates from volunteer coders, is a security issue, as shown by the XZ Utils backdoor  —  A previously unknown contributor to the popular open-source Android app store F-Droid repeatedly pressured its developers to push …
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
An interview with Andres Freund, a Microsoft database engineer working on PostgreSQL, on discovering the XZ Utils backdoor, doubting his own findings, and more  —  The internet, as anyone who works deep in its trenches will tell you, is not a smooth, well-oiled machine.
More: The Intercept.  Threads: @jenvalentino_nyt.  Mastodon: @couts@mastodon.social.  X: @kevinroose.  LinkedIn: Affan Dar.  Forums: Hacker News, r/technology, and r/neoliberal
Andrea Grimes / Home With The Armadillo:
Substack's new emphasis on followers, not subscriptions, and its opaque steps to migrate paid subscriptions off the platform make leaving harder for writers  —  And it'll be worse this time around!  —  The writing life, which has never exactly been a picnic for independent journalists and freelancers …
Lindsay Ellis / Wall Street Journal:
How some MBA programs in the US are reorienting courses around AI by adding AI-related classwork, encouraging students to present on AI innovations, and more  —  American University, other top M.B.A. programs reorient courses around artificial intelligence; ‘It has eaten our world’
Chris Vallance / BBC:
Google expands Search Generative Experience to the UK, after launching it almost a year ago in the US, starting with some logged-in users  —  Google has begun trialling search answers written by artificial intelligence (AI) in the UK, after the feature was tested in the US last year.
Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
US rock band Kiss sells rights to its music, name, image, and likeness to Swedish entertainment company Pophouse to create a live show, a source says for ~$300M  —  Sale to Swedish entertainment group Pophouse set to 'fulfil the band's vision to become immortal'

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work  —  Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.
Zoho:
3 smarter updates for your staffing pipeline  —  Staffing recruiters manage multiple client requirements, large candidate databases, and tight submission deadlines.  Finding suitable candidates is only the first step.
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.
WebBrain:
WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser  —  Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox.  Use local models or your preferred AI provider.  Get started free.

Featured Podcasts

Lenny's Podcast:
How a 19-year-old intern built the growth engine behind this $2B AI company | Hector Serrano
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
Big Tech's Ugly Week, Getting Rich At Anthropic, AI Costs Plunge
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.
Machine Gods:
OpenAI's Latest Discoveries Spark a Backlash + Help! My Kid Hates AI
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
Subscribe to Machine Gods.
The Upstarts Podcast:
The Accidental YC Founder Solving AI's GPU Crisis | SF Compute's Evan Conrad
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.
Cheeky Pint:
Why Sam Altman is against a single superintelligence
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
Great Chat:
The case for AI optimism
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:50 AM ET, April 4, 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

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Business Insider:

Earlier Picks

TechCrunch:
Alex Koller / CNBC:
Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch:
Joyce Lee / Reuters:
Tom Warren / The Verge: