Techmeme
January 19, 2023, 12:20 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
In his first interview, FTX CEO John Ray says he has set up a task force to explore restarting the exchange, saying customers praised its technology, and more  —  In his first public interview since taking over the failed cryptocurrency exchange, John J. Ray III said that he's open to the idea of rebooting operations
New York Times:
Alexandra Wexler / Wall Street Journal:
Wall Street Journal:
The Block:
Financial Times:
Sources: Peter Thiel's Founders Fund sold most of its crypto portfolio by the end of March 2022, before the crypto market crash, generating ~$1.8B in returns  —  Billionaire was early mainstream investor in the digital currency but VC fund no longer has significant exposure
Addy Bink / The Hill:
Amazon plans to close AmazonSmile, launched in 2013 to let customers donate 0.5% of eligible items' purchase prices to a charity, on February 20, 2023  —  Amazon will be closing its charity program, AmazonSmile, in the coming weeks in order to “focus its philanthropic giving to programs with greater impact.”
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Wikimedia launches an updated Wikipedia design, including improved search and accessibility, a refreshed table of contents, and easier language switching  —  Wikipedia, one of the world's top 10 most visited websites, and a resource used by billions every month, is getting its first makeover on the desktop in over a decade.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is working on an iPad-based smart display, with smart home controls, video, and FaceTime, and a new Apple TV with a faster processor for H1 2024  —  Apple Inc. is working on a slate of devices aimed at challenging Amazon.com Inc. and Google in the smart-home market …
James Eyers / Australian Financial Review:
National Australia Bank creates the AUDN stablecoin, the second major Australian bank after ANZ's A$DC, letting customers settle transactions on the blockchain  —  National Australia Bank has become the second of the major banks to create a stablecoin, called the AUDN, to allow its business customers …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Instagram rolls out Quiet Mode, which silences notifications, auto-replies to DMs, and informs friends, and plans to prompt teens to enable the feature at night  —  Instagram announced today it's expanding its selection of time management tools with the launch of a new feature called “Quiet Mode.”
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Twitter launches Blue on Android for $11 per month, the same as iOS and $3 more than the web, after launching an annual subscription  —  A day after launching an annual Twitter Blue subscription, the social media company made the paid plan available for purchase for Android users today.
Chris Stokel-Walker / Nature:
Journal editors, researchers, and publishers are debating the role of AI tools like ChatGPT in published literature and whether they should be cited as authors  —  Chris Stokel-Walker is a freelance journalist in Newcastle, UK.  —  You can also search for this author in  —  PubMed Google Scholar
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Steam Deck review, after one year, 435 hours playing games, and 100+ updates: Valve has fixed many issues, making play smooth and the device a compelling buy  —  I'm making a note here: huge success. … The Steam Deck is my favorite gadget of 2022.  I have no hesitation in recommending it anymore.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Mailchimp says a hacker accessed data on 133 accounts via a staff social engineering attack, first detected on January 11, its second breach in six months  —  Email marketing and newsletter giant Mailchimp says it was hacked and that dozens of customers' data was exposed.
Katie Notopoulos / BuzzFeed News:
Andrew Bosworth talks about Meta's decision to discontinue Portal and how the company nearly made a deal to license Portal's tech and platform to Amazon in 2020  —  Meta's CTO Andrew Bosworth told BuzzFeed News how a deal to keep the Portal software going almost happened.
The Verge:
Nvidia GeForce Now Ultimate with RTX 4080 hands-on: impressive input latency, but some visuals are still hazy and only six games support 240fps right now  —  For $20 a month, Nvidia will rent you an RTX 4080 gaming PC in the cloud.  It feels phenomenal in some games, but there's still work to be done.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
UiPath:
Introducing the UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation  —  UiPath's new platform empowers enterprises to experience the full power of AI to transform industries
Zoho:
Automate recurring activities with Zoho One's RPA addition  —  Robotic Process Automation (RPA) automates manual and routine tasks for businesses by using digital robots that replicate human behaviour.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
Why Clone A Messaging App?
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Grit:
HubSpot CEO on the Future of SaaS, AI, & Leading Through Change
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
Inside Devin: The world's first autonomous AI engineer that's set to write 50% of its company's code by end of year | Scott Wu (CEO and co-founder of Cognition)
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.
Hard Fork:
The Dangers of A.I. Flattery + Kevin Meets the Orb + Group Chat Chat
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 Logan Bartlett Show:
Ben Lamm (Founder & CEO, Colossal Biosciences) On The Breakthroughs Making De-Extinction Actually Possible
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
Great Chat:
What's the deal with Deel?
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 12:20 PM ET, January 19, 2023.

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

Chainalysis:
Reuters:
Eric Newcomer / Newcomer:

Earlier Picks

Digiday:
Reuters:
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Jon Porter / The Verge: