Techmeme
April 17, 2024, 9:15 AM

Top News

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Current and former T-Mobile and Verizon employees say they are receiving texts offering up to $300 to perform a SIM swap; T-Mobile says it is investigating  —  Criminals are now texting T-Mobile and Verizon employees on their personal and work phones, trying to tempt them with cash to perform SIM swaps.
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Mandiant links hacktivist group Cyber Army of Russia, which claimed to target utilities in France, the US, and Poland, to Russia-linked hacking group Sandworm  —  Cyber Army of Russia Reborn, a group with ties to the Kremlin's Sandworm unit, is crossing lines even that notorious cyberwarfare unit wouldn't dare to.
Rob Golum / Bloomberg:
Filing: Take-Two plans to lay off 5% of its workforce, expecting to incur up to $200M in charges as part of the downsizing, including $140M from canceled titles  —  The company sees expenses of up to $200 million as part of the effort, including as much as $140 million from canceled projects …
Josh Dzieza / The Verge:
How a network of repair ships helps maintain the estimated 800,000 miles of undersea internet cables; of the 77 cable ships, only 22 are designed for repairs  —  Field's crew caught the cable on the first try and nearly had it aboard when the rope snapped and slipped back into the sea.
Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg:
Activision cuts entry fees for teams in its professional Call of Duty League, and will return collected fees, as the esports industry faces financial challenges  —  The teams, including ones owned by sports-business billionaires Robert Kraft and Stan Kroenke, will no longer be required to pay …
Connor Jones / The Register:
UnitedHealth says the February ransomware attack on Change Healthcare cost the company $872M in Q1; another ransomware group appears to be extorting the company  —  First glimpse at attack financials reveals huge pain  —  UnitedHealth, parent company of ransomware-besieged Change Healthcare …
Priya Anand / Bloomberg:
Sensor Tower: Naval Ravikant and Brian Norgard's audio-focused invitation-only social app Airchat has been downloaded 30K+ times since its relaunch this month  —  - The app feels like a combination of voice notes and Twitter  — Invite-only Airchat has won over VCs and early adopters
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
The Linux Foundation announces the Open Platform for Enterprise AI, to foster the development of open, multi-provider, and composable generative AI systems  —  Can generative AI designed for the enterprise (for example, AI that autocompletes reports, spreadsheet formulas and so on) ever be interoperable?
Bloomberg:
How GitHub Copilot became responsible for a significant percentage of coding, despite its limitations; Stack Overflow: 54.8% of developers used Copilot in 2023  —  The assistant is saving engineers hundreds of hours a month and is helping GitHub retain its edge over rivals including Amazon and Google.
David Ljunggren / Reuters:
Canada plans to introduce a digital services tax on large tech companies, which could raise CA$5.9B over five years starting in FY 2024-2025  —  Canada will press ahead with introduction of a digital services tax on large technology companies, which would raise C$5.9 billion ($4.3 billion) …
Gerrit De Vynck / Washington Post:
Bellwether, a new group inside Alphabet's X innovation lab, plans to offer AI tools to the US National Guard to analyze images of disaster areas in summer 2024  —  The National Guard will soon use the tech giant's image-recognition AI to scan images of disaster zones and help prioritize its response
Spencer Soper / Bloomberg:
CIRP: Amazon Prime hit a new high of 180M US shoppers in March 2024, up 8% YoY, despite greater online competition; 75% of US shoppers have a Prime membership  —  Amazon.com Inc.'s Prime subscription service hit a new high of 180 million US shoppers in March, an increase of 8% from a year earlier …

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Dell Cameron / Wired:

Earlier Picks

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
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Abner Li / 9to5Google:
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Financial Times: