Techmeme
June 12, 2023, 12:15 PM

Top News

Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg:
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer says he does not “feel an imperative” from users to release a major Xbox upgrade, preferring instead the “hardware we have”  —  Microsoft Corp.'s video gaming chief Phil Spencer said he doesn't “feel an imperative” to come out with a major upgrade of its Xbox game console.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Wes Davis / The Verge:
Reddark: thousands of subreddits are going dark in protest after Reddit CEO Steve Huffman's remarks on API changes in an AMA on June 9  —  The version of Reddit we'll see over the next few days may be a shell of itself.  More than 100 subreddits have already gone dark …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Over 7,000 subreddits have gone dark to protest API changes, and Reddit experienced an outage for about an hour this morning  —  Reddit has been going through some issues for many on Monday, with the outage happening the same day as thousands of subreddits going dark to protest the site's new API pricing terms.
Dan Primack / Axios:
a16z plans to open a crypto-focused office in London and leads a $43M round in UK-based Gensyn, which offers a decentralized compute network for training AI  —  America's largest investor in crypto startups believes that the industry's future may be across the pond, and is opening …
Monica Chin / The Verge:
MacBook Air (15-inch) review: big screen, thin and light chassis, excellent trackpad, keyboard, performance, and battery, but limited ports and upgradability  —  Apple's first big-screened MacBook Air addresses a long-standing need in the company's laptop lineup.  And it comes with zero surprises and no sticker shock.
Shinhye Kang / Bloomberg:
South Korean prosecutors say an ex-Samsung executive allegedly stole blueprints and designs in 2018 and 2019 to replicate an entire chip plant in China  —  A former Samsung Electronics Co. executive allegedly stole blueprints and designs to try and replicate an entire semiconductor plant in China …
Yuka Hayashi / Wall Street Journal:
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
A tech reporter on why he bought a 2023 World Book Encyclopedia printed set: nostalgia, permanence, and no AI or human tampering, link rot, or stealth edits  —  The still-updated World Book Encyclopedia is my antidote to the information apocalypse.  —  These days, many of us live online …
Matthias Bastian / The Decoder:
Meta launches MusicGen, an open-source AI model to generate short pieces of music using text prompts that can optionally be aligned to an existing melody  —  Meta's MusicGen can generate short new pieces of music based on text prompts, which can optionally be aligned to an existing melody.
Laurie Clarke / Politico:
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says DeepMind, OpenAI, and Anthropic agreed to open up their AI models to the UK government for research and safety purposes  —  LONDON — Google DeepMind, OpenAI and Anthropic have agreed to open up their AI models to the U.K. government for research and safety purposes …
Ian Tucker / The Guardian:
Q&A with Signal president Meredith Whittaker on how existential warnings about AI might help Big Tech entrench its power, the UK's Online Safety Bill, and more  —  The president of the not-for-profit messaging app on how she believes existential warnings about AI allow big tech to entrench their power …
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Salesforce renames its AI tools portfolio to AI Cloud, plans to roll out AI features in summer, and doubles its generative AI fund, announced in March, to $500M  —  Salesforce Inc. is elevating new generative artificial intelligence features in its products and doubling its investment …
Sarah Kessler / New York Times:
Tristan Cross / The Guardian:
A writer who learned to code after losing his job reflects on AI chatbots, which repackage ideas and lack lateral thinking, and why humans are irreplaceable  —  Silicon Valley wants to make us believe humans are predictable and our skills replaceable.  I've learned that's nonsense

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Google:
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UiPath:
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Zoho:
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Earlier Picks

Newley Purnell / Wall Street Journal: