Techmeme
May 2, 2023, 8:20 PM

Top News

Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Apple and Google submit a proposed industry specification to help combat unwanted location tracking by Bluetooth devices and ask for input from other companies  —  - Apple and Google said that they are working together to prevent lost item trackers like Apple's AirTag from being used to track people without their permission.
Kim Zetter / Wired:
An in-depth look inside the US DOJ and Volexity's investigation into the SolarWinds hack, one of the most sophisticated cyberespionage campaigns of the decade  —  The attackers were in thousands of corporate and government networks.  They might still be there now.  Behind the scenes of the SolarWinds investigation.
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says the company plans to slow or stop back-office hiring, impacting ~26K staff, and ~30% could “easily” be replaced by AI in five years  —  International Business Machines Corp. Chief Executive Officer Arvind Krishna said the company expects to pause hiring …
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Europol, the FBI, and others take down the dark web Monopoly Market, arrest 288 vendors and customers, and seize €50.8M in cash and crypto and 850kg of drugs  —  An international law enforcement operation codenamed ‘SpecTor’ has arrested 288 dark web vendors and customers worldwide …
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Twitter restores free API access for verified government or publicly owned services tweeting weather alerts, transportation updates, and emergency notifications  —  Twitter's decision to shut off its free API caused more than a few problems for public institutions that depend on the functionality …
Frank Chaparro / The Block:
Coinbase launches International Exchange, planning to let international users trade perpetual futures out of Bermuda, as the company tussles with US regulators  —  - Coinbase plans to let international users trade perpetual futures out of Bermuda through a new platform.
Will Douglas Heaven / MIT Technology Review:
A profile of and interview with deep learning pioneer Geoffrey Hinton, including why he now thinks neural networks are “a new and better form of intelligence”  —  “I have suddenly switched my views on whether these things are going to be more intelligent than us.”
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
AMD reports Q1 revenue down 9% YoY to $5.35B, vs. $5.3B est., a $139M net loss, Client revenue down 65% YoY to $739M, and Q2 guidance below est.; AMD drops 5%+  —  - AMD's report comes as the PC industry is in a deep slump, with shipments dropping 30% in the first quarter, according to IDC.
Lucas Ropek / Gizmodo:
The Writers Guild of America strikes after negotiations over pay and AI issues with Netflix, Disney, Apple, Amazon, Sony, and others failed; nearly 12K may join  —  The Writers Guild of America, the union that bargains on behalf of Hollywood's screenwriters, has called a strike after negotiations …
Aaron Holmes / The Information:
Sources: Microsoft plans to sell a ChatGPT version on a dedicated cloud server in Q2 that separates the data from that of other clients and costs up to 10x more  —  Not everyone trusts OpenAI's ChatGPT.  —  While the new artificial intelligence-powered chatbot has proved popular …
Medha Singh / Reuters:
Online study company Chegg suspends its full-year outlook, saying ChatGPT's popularity is pressuring its subscriber growth; CHGG drops ~50%, now down 64%+ YTD  —  What's the cost of students using ChatGPT for homework?  For U.S. education services provider Chegg Inc (CHGG.N), it could be nearly $1 billion in market valuation.
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
US lawmakers reintroduce the Kids Online Safety Act with updates aimed at addressing potential harms, but fail to appease some activists and industry groups  —  - A bipartisan pair of senators reintroduced the Kids Online Safety Act on Tuesday with updates that aimed to address concerns …
Peter Kafka / Vox:
Q&A with Nick Denton, Jonah Peretti, and also Ben Smith, whose book Traffic details the rise and fall of BuzzFeed and Gawker, on digital media and its reckoning  —  A conversation with two media pioneers — plus Ben Smith, whose new book chronicles their rise and fall.
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Inflection AI, founded by Reid Hoffman, Mustafa Suleyman, and Karén Simonyan, debuts Pi, a chatbot that's more sounding board than “repackaged Wikipedia answer”  —  Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of the year-old startup that's already raised $225 million and claims to run …
New York Times:
Despite Google's October 2021 pledge to demonetize climate denial content, CCDH researchers find 100 YouTube videos with 18M+ views featuring ads for big brands  —  Google said in 2021 that it would stop running ads alongside videos and other content that denied the existence and causes of climate change.

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