Techmeme
March 22, 2023, 8:35 PM

Top News

Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
The US SEC sues Tron founder Justin Sun and his companies for the alleged “unregistered offer and sale of crypto asset securities” TRX and BTT, fraud, and more  —  The SEC alleged TRX, BTT are unregistered securities, and claimed Sun created an “extensive wash trading” program to boost their trading volume.
CNBC:
Coinbase says it received an SEC notice warning the company of potential US securities law violations and recommending that the SEC take an enforcement action  —  - The SEC issued crypto exchange Coinbase a Wells notice, warning the exchange that it identified potential violations of U.S. securities law.
CNBC:
The US SEC charges Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul, Akon, and other celebrities for promoting crypto tokens TRX and BTT without disclosing that they were compensated  —  - The SEC unveiled charges against diplomat Justin Sun for fraud and securities violations, while also charging celebrity backers including Jake Paul and Lindsay Lohan.
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
GitHub announces Copilot X, a new Copilot version with chat and voice features using OpenAI's GPT-4 to help with certain coding tasks, available via a waitlist  —  Microsoft Corp.'s GitHub unit created one of the first widely deployed programs using OpenAI's language-generation tools …
Washington Post:
Poll of 1,027 US adults: 41% support a TikTok ban, 25% oppose it, and 71% are concerned that ByteDance is based in China; 17% of US daily users support a ban  —  As D.C. pushes for action against TikTok, a Washington Post poll finds more support than oppose banning the app
Alex Barinka / Bloomberg:
Washington Post:
New York Times:
Chris Stokel-Walker / BuzzFeed News:
Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins says Midjourney banned him after he made images of a Donald Trump arrest; the company banned the word “arrested” in its tool  —  “I suspect it was pushing my luck when I did the [Twitter] thread,” Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins said.
Luke Plunkett / Kotaku:
Ubisoft unveils Ghostwriter, an internal AI tool saving its scriptwriters time by creating first drafts and more realistic non-player character interactions  —  Ubisoft Ghostwriter is described by the company as ‘an AI tool’  —  Ubisoft, the publishers behind Assassin's Creed …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Mozilla announces Mozilla.ai, an AI-focused startup with a $30M seed from the Mozilla Foundation to create a “trustworthy”, independent open-source AI stack  —  On the eve of its 25th anniversary, Mozilla, the not-for-profit behind the Firefox browser, is launching an AI-focused startup.
Virginia Heffernan / Wired:
Inside TSMC's facilities in Taiwan, where Fab 18 makes 1 quintillion transistors for Apple every six months, and an interview with Chairman Mark Liu  —  As the US boosts production of silicon chips, an American journalist goes inside TSMC, the mysterious Taiwanese company at the center of the global industry.
Sean Endicott / Windows Central:
Microsoft launches Loop, its Notion and Asana competitor, in preview, letting users collaborate in shared Microsoft 365 workspaces on the web, Android, and iOS  —  You can now try out Microsoft's new collaboration tool Loop.  —  What you need to know  — Microsoft Loop is now available in preview.
Jaron Schneider / PetaPixel:
Amazon-owned digital photography site DPReview is closing on April 10; people can request to download photos or texts they've uploaded to the site until April 6  —  DPReview, easily one of the most beloved publications among photography enthusiasts, will shut down and its content will be deleted.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Amazon introduces new Fire TVs and the cheaper TV lineup 2-Series, says 200M+ Fire TV devices have been sold, and expands Luna to the UK, Germany, and Canada  —  Amazon announced today that it has sold a total of over 200 million Fire TV devices.  That number is a combination of Fire TV streamers …
Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
Memo: Spotify has spent less than 10% of its $100M Creator Equity Fund, announced in February 2022 to promote diversity in music after the Joe Rogan controversy  —  Spotify Technology SA's $100 million Creator Equity Fund, designed to promote diversity in music and podcasts following controversial comments …
Cade Metz / New York Times:
The Association for Computing Machinery awards Bob Metcalfe the 2022 Turing Award for the invention, standardization, and commercialization of Ethernet  —  In the 1970s, Bob Metcalfe helped develop the primary technology that lets you send email or connect with a printer over an office network.
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Crypto exchange Bitget acquires a controlling stake in crypto wallet company BitKeep with a $30M investment at a $300M valuation  —  - Bitget has invested $30 million in BitKeep at a $300 million valuation.  — The crypto exchange is now the controlling stakeholder of the wallet provider.

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