Techmeme
February 23, 2023, 4:20 PM

Top News

Shaurya Malwa / CoinDesk:
Coinbase launches Base, a Layer 2 network built on Optimism's OP Stack, offering access to Ethereum, Solana, and others, and has no plans for new network tokens  —  Base is built on Optimism and Coinbase has no plans to issue a new network token.  —  Join the most important conversation …
CoinDesk:
A US court unseals a superseding indictment that charges Sam Bankman-Fried with 12 counts, up from the initial eight, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud  —  FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried faces additional charges, including bank fraud allegations, under a new indictment unveiled Thursday morning.
New York Times:
In its superseding indictment, the US charges that SBF and two unnamed FTX executives made 300+ “unlawful” political donations, including using customers' funds  —  Prosecutors accused FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and two unnamed people of making unlawful campaign donations using customers' money.
Luca Bertuzzi / Euractiv:
The European Commission bans TikTok on corporate devices and personal devices using the Commission's corporate apps, asks staff to uninstall TikTok by March 15  —  The EU executive's IT service has asked all Commission employees to uninstall TikTok from their corporate devices …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft says Sydney is an old codename for a chatbot some Bing users in India began testing in late 2020; sources: Sydney had less personality until late 2022  —  Microsoft's Bing AI chatbot history dates back at least six years, with Sydney first appearing in 2021.
Ben Lovejoy / 9to5Mac:
Jamf finds Mac cryptomining malware in pirated copies of Final Cut Pro and warns the power of Apple Silicon Macs is making them popular cryptojacking targets  —  Update: Apple has now commented on the findings - see the end of the piece.  —  Cybersecurity company Jamf Threat Labs …
Nicole Carpenter / Polygon:
Valve recently patched a Dota 2 exploit used by a third-party cheating client, created a honeypot to catch cheaters, and permanently banned over 40,000 accounts  —  The update added a ‘honeypot’ to catch cheaters  —  Valve issued an update to Dota 2 recently that patched an exploit used …
Rosie Perper / CoinDesk:
Spotify tests “token-enabled playlists” that let some NFT holders connect their wallets and listen to curated music, starting on Android in five countries  —  Music streaming Spotify is testing a new service called “token-enabled playlists,” which allows holders of non-fungible tokens …
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Google expands Magic Eraser, which lets users remove parts of a picture, from Pixel devices to Google One subscribers using Google Photos on Android or iOS  —  Google has announced that the Magic Eraser feature, which tried to automatically remove unwanted parts of a picture and debuted with the Pixel 6 …
Osato Avan-Nomayo / The Block:
Binance closed some derivative trading accounts in Australia after an investigation found the customers didn't meet the criteria for wholesale investors  —  Binance closed the derivative trading accounts of some wholesale investors in Australia after an investigation found that they didn't meet the criteria for such investors.
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
Internal FAQ: Google asks Cloud employees and partners in its five largest US locations to share desks and work from an office on alternate days starting in Q2  —  - The company's cloud unit has told employees that it will transition to a desk-sharing workspace in its five largest locations.
Steve Dent / Engadget:
Samsung announces a standardized 5G Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) modem that enables two-way communication between smartphones and satellites  —  There was speculation that Samsung could use smartphone-to-satellite technology in its Galaxy S23 much like Apple has for the iPhone 14, but that didn't happen in the end.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
YouTube rolls out multi-language audio tracks to more creators worldwide; creators saw 15%+ of their watch time from the video's non-primary language in January  —  After initial testing over the last few months, YouTube is rolling out access to multi-language audio tracks to more creators worldwide …
Ankush Khardori / New York Magazine:
An interview with SEC chair Gary Gensler on meeting Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX executives in March 2022 and October 2021, how tokens are securities, and more  —  As recently as a year ago, Sam Bankman-Fried seemed to be an unstoppable force in official Washington.
Jack Schickler / CoinDesk:
Sarah Krouse / Wall Street Journal:
Netflix cut its prices on certain subscription tiers across 36+ countries in recent weeks, in some cases halving the cost; Netflix operates in 190+ countries  —  Move comes as streaming company says members ‘have never had more choices when it comes to entertainment’
Adam Rawnsley / Rolling Stone:
Twitter under Elon Musk has yet to publish transparency reports detailing government content removal demands; the company published its last report in July 2022  —  “That shit went out the window right after Elon came in,” one former staffer says of Twitter's previously routine transparency reports
Mozilla Foundation:
An analysis of the top 40 Android apps on Google Play finds that nearly 80% had discrepancies between their privacy policies and Google's Data Safety labels  —  The apps' privacy policies, however, both explicitly state that they share user information with advertisers, Internet service providers …
Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:
Ben Rubin, who founded Meerkat and Houseparty, announces Towns, a protocol and a web-based chat app, and raised a $25.5M Series A led by a16z Crypto  —  After launching a pair of well-loved but ultimately star-crossed social apps, Ben Rubin is going all-in on decentralization.
New York Times:
After the US passed the industry-supported $52B CHIPS Act, chipmakers turn cutthroat to snag a bigger share of the federal cash, setting off a lobbying frenzy  —  Semiconductor companies, which united to get the CHIPS Act approved, have set off a lobbying frenzy as they argue for more cash than their competitors.

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Meet Airtable ProductCentral  —  The unified solution for managing your entire product development process in the AI era.
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:
Zoho SalesIQ turns 10: Transforming customer experiences since 2014  —  October marked a remarkable milestone for Zoho SalesIQ—our 10th anniversary.  What began in 2014 as a simple live chat tool has evolved …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 11/01 - ChatGPT Search
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 4:20 PM ET, February 23, 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

Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:

Earlier Picks

Shirin Ghaffary / Vox:
Mickey Djuric / The Canadian Press News:
Max Weinbach / 9to5Mac: