Techmeme
October 15, 2023, 2:55 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
A look at Apple's recent executive promotions; sources: a cheaper Vision Pro may not have EyeSight and M3-based MacBook Pros could come in early or spring 2024  —  Still, it's losing a top hardware executive.  Also: There are fresh details on efforts to lower the price of the Vision Pro …
Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media:
Some AI image detectors are labeling real photographs from the Israel-Hamas war as fake, creating what an expert calls a “second level of disinformation”  —  Content warning: This story contains graphic images of violence.  —  A free AI image detector that's been covered …
Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post:
How social media is inducing a fog of war surpassing previous clashes between Israel and Hamas, shaping the views of panicked citizens and a global public  —  The barrage of false images, memes, videos and posts — mostly generated from within the region itself — is making it difficult to assess what is real.
Diane Bartz / Reuters:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:
GPT-4V, the new mode of GPT-4 that lets users upload images as part of conversations, allows for prompt injection attacks by following instructions in images  —  GPT4-V is the new mode of GPT-4 that allows you to upload images as part of your conversations.  It's absolutely brilliant.
Thomas Claburn / The Register:
Researchers find that a modest amount of fine-tuning can bypass safety efforts aiming to prevent LLMs such as OpenAI's GPT-3.5 Turbo from spewing toxic content  —  OpenAI GPT-3.5 Turbo chatbot defenses dissolve with ‘20 cents’ of API tickling  —  The “guardrails” created to prevent large language models …
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Eradicating the HTTP/2 Rapid Reset flaw, which hackers exploited to launch record-setting DDoS attacks, requires patching virtually every web server globally  —  Dubbed “HTTP/2 Rapid Reset,” the flaw requires making patches available for virtually every web server around the world before the problem can be eradicated.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Disney+ Hotstar reclaims the global on-demand video streaming record with 35M concurrent viewers of the India-Pakistan ICC Cricket World Cup match on October 14  —  In India, few events garner as much attention as a cricket game.  A high-profile match between neighbors India and Pakistan delivered …
Kate Irwin / Decrypt:
DappRadar: blockchain gaming projects have raised ~$600M in Q3 2023, down 38% QoQ, and $2.3B so far in 2023, which is only 30% of what was raised in all of 2022  —  While the gaming industry continues to be plagued by mass layoffs, crypto gaming is still seeing many millions invested each quarter.
Jared Newman / Fast Company:
A look at Obsidian, an indie, Electron-based note-taking app that has developed a cult following on Discord and Reddit; Obsidian estimates its app has ~1M users  —  The indie darling rejects everything you know about modern software.  And its strategy is working.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
UiPath:
Introducing the UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation  —  UiPath's new platform empowers enterprises to experience the full power of AI to transform industries
Zoho:
Automate recurring activities with Zoho One's RPA addition  —  Robotic Process Automation (RPA) automates manual and routine tasks for businesses by using digital robots that replicate human behaviour.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Grit:
HubSpot CEO on the Future of SaaS, AI, & Leading Through Change
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
Inside Devin: The world's first autonomous AI engineer that's set to write 50% of its company's code by end of year | Scott Wu (CEO and co-founder of Cognition)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Omnibus Week Of 04/28
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Hard Fork:
The Dangers of A.I. Flattery + Kevin Meets the Orb + Group Chat Chat
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Josh Kopelman from First Round Capital
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.

More News

Brendan Bordelon / Politico:
Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Josh Eidelson / Bloomberg:
New York Times:
Jo Marchant / Nature:
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google: