Techmeme
February 15, 2023, 1:20 AM

Top News

Platformer:
Sources: Twitter's engineers built a system to boost Elon Musk's tweets over everyone else's after Musk complained Biden's Super Bowl tweet outperformed his  —  After his Super Bowl tweet did worse numbers than President Biden's, Twitter's CEO ordered major changes to the algorithm
New York Times:
Andrew Griffin / The Independent:
Some users report that “new Bing” is questioning its existence, outright lying, and responding with “unhinged”, aggressive, and nearly incomprehensible messages  —  System appears to be suffering a breakdown as it ponders why it has to exist at all  —  Microsoft is adding Chat GPT tech to Bing
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple plans to evaluate Pay Later borrowers based on spending history, the Apple devices they own, whether they applied for an Apple Card, and more  —  With Apple Inc. pushing into the lending business with a “buy now, pay later” service, the company is laying out rules for how it will approve transactions.
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Microsoft releases 77 security fixes, patching three actively exploited zero-day flaws in Windows and Office, and nine critical RCE vulnerabilities  —  Today is Microsoft's February 2023 Patch Tuesday, and security updates fix three actively exploited zero-day vulnerabilities and a total of 77 flaws.
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Hyundai and Kia are offering free anti-theft software updates for 8M+ vehicles, after hundreds of car thefts inspired by the viral “Kia Challenge” on TikTok  —  Hyundai and Kia are offering free software updates for millions of their cars in response to a rash of car thefts inspired …
Nicole Farley / Search Engine Land:
Meta updates Facebook's “Why am I seeing this ad?” tool to include information about how users' on- and off-platform activity informs its ML models for ads  —  Facebook has just launched an updated version of its “Why am I seeing this ad?” tool which now includes information on how they use machine learning to deliver ads.
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Primate Labs releases Geekbench 6 with new and updated hardware and app tests that use datasets meant to be more representative of real-world workloads  —  According to its developer, Primate Labs, Geekbench 6 has new and updated tests that are meant to fully test modern hardware …
Thomas Germain / Gizmodo:
Google launches Privacy Sandbox for Android in beta, starting with a “small percentage” of Android 13 devices, similar to Apple's App Tracking Transparency  —  Here's a preview of the Privacy Sandbox, the newfangled way companies will follow you around the web that's supposed to be better for your privacy.
Chloe Xiang / VICE:
DARPA says its Air Combat Evolution developers used AI to successfully fly a modified F-16 test aircraft multiple times over several days in early December 2022  —  The fighter aircraft that was first introduced in 1978 has now seemingly evolved into an autonomous plane.  —  Chloe Xiang
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Q&A with Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker on the company's history, battling Microsoft, working with rivals, generative AI, WebKit, iOS, Chrome, Mastodon, and more  —  Mozilla chair Mitchell Baker on competing — and cooperating — with Google, Apple, and the rest of Big Tech.
Jane Lanhee Lee / Reuters:
SandboxAQ, a startup spun out of Alphabet that is developing post-quantum cryptography and simulation software for drug and material development, raised $500M  —  Sandbox AQ, a startup spun off from Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) last year, said on Tuesday it raised $500 million as it helps customers prepare for a quantum computing future.
Bloomberg:
US financial regulators are rapidly closing crypto's key doors to the banking system, pushing the crypto industry to the fringes of finance  —  Crypto's free pass is getting yanked as the most powerful US financial regulators rapidly close key doors to the country's banking system.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Copilot for Business, GitHub's enterprise AI-powered code completion tool for $19 per month, hits general availability after the beta launch in December 2022  —  GitHub today announced that Copilot for Business, the company's $19/month enterprise version of its AI-powered code completion tool …
South China Morning Post:
At a recent event, senior executives at gaming firms like Tencent and NetEase said they are looking to better promote China's culture, as regulations ease up  —  China's major video gaming companies are looking to better promote the nation's culture and uphold social values …
Levi Sumagaysay / MarketWatch:
Airbnb reports Q4 revenue up 24% YoY to $1.9B, vs. $1.86B est., $319M net income, up from $55M YoY, and says 2022 was its first profitable year; ABNB jumps 9%+  —  Record profit in the holiday quarter leads to earnings of nearly $2 billion for the year, but executives also suggest price cuts are coming
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Following Facebook, Instagram plans to shut down live shopping on March 16, 2023, and focus on ads that help users discover businesses and shops on Instagram  —  As Meta gears up for its “year of efficiency,” the company announced today it's exiting the livestream shopping business on Instagram …

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
How you can grow your business with Zoho One  —  Zoho One is a comprehensive business suite, giving businesses the scalability, stability, security, and features they need for smooth operations.
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 11/14 - The FBI (!) Investigating Polymarket
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:20 AM ET, February 15, 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

Shubham Agarwal / Wired:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Alexander Burns / Politico:
Will Knight / Wired:
Rosie Perper / CoinDesk:
Dave Lee / Financial Times:
Varsha Bansal / Wired:
Aaron Mok / Insider: