Techmeme
November 5, 2023, 1:30 PM

Top News

xAI:
Elon Musk's xAI releases Grok, an AI model that the startup says surpasses rivals in its compute class, including ChatGPT-3.5, to a “limited number” of US users  —  Grok is an AI modeled after the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, so intended to answer almost anything and, far harder, even suggest what questions to ask!
Wes Davis / The Verge:
A look at companies' responses, including from Meta, Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and Apple, to potential US Copyright Office rules for AI and copyrighted content  —  The biggest companies in AI aren't interested in paying to use copyrighted material as training data, and here are their reasons why.
New York Times:
Sources: GM spent an average of $588M per quarter on Cruise over the past year, up 42% YoY, and staff intervened to assist its vehicles every 2.5 to five miles  —  Cruise has hired a law firm to investigate how it responded to regulators, as its cars sit idle and questions grow about its C.E.O.'s expansion plans.
Mike Young / AIModels.fyi:
Researchers say AI models like GPT-4 respond with improved performance when prompted with emotional context because of how these models handle nuanced prompts  —  Researchers show LLMs respond with improved performance when prompted with emotional context  —  In the grand narrative …
TechCrunch:
Hands-on with Google Play Protect's real-time scanning for sideloaded Android apps, which didn't stop five predatory loan apps and two fake apps from installing  —  Here's our hands-on review of the new Android security feature  —  Android's in-built security engine Google Play Protect …
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Emails: X began work on a marketplace for purchasing account handles that have been left unused, asking for a $50K flat fee from potential buyers in some cases  —  Rumored to be in the works for the past year, the initiative appears to have begun rolling out recently, with email solicitations being sent to potential buyers.
David Streitfeld / New York Times:
A look at the gap between Amazon's dazzling drone delivery claims and the mundane reality, as only some small objects can be delivered when the weather allows  —  Amazon's much-hyped drone project is dropping small objects on driveways.  Some customers are not sure what it delivers beyond minestrone.
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Okta's autopsy report on its support system breach understated the role of a badly configured service account, the biggest contributing factor to the breach  —  If a transgression by a single employee breaches your network, you're doing it wrong.  —  Identity and authentication management provider Okta …
Wall Street Journal:
Q&A with Adobe General Counsel and Chief Trust Officer Dana Rao on the Content Authenticity Initiative, content credentials, deepfake detection issues, and more  —  Instead of detecting fakes, this effort aims to authenticate and track online images from the start; Adobe's chief trust officer on the strategy
Andrew Hayward / Decrypt:
NFT marketplace Magic Eden and Yuga Labs plan to launch an Ethereum platform that will be “contractually obligated” to honor creator royalties on NFT sales  —  Magic Eden's new Ethereum NFT marketplace will be “contractually obligated” to pay royalties.  What does that mean for traders?
Andrew Hayward / Decrypt:
OpenSea lays off ~50% of staff and is moving to “OpenSea 2.0”; after laying off 20% of its workforce in July 2022, the NFT marketplace said 230 staff remained  —  A company representative told Decrypt that approximately 50% of employees were impacted across the company.
Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
How chip companies are experimenting with obscure materials, like synthetic diamonds and ultrapure glass, to improve performance and combat heat in microchips  —  To beat the heat that our devices throw off, engineers are experimenting with synthetic diamonds, ultrapure glass and other obscure materials

Sponsor Posts

OVHcloud:
Sustainable from the ground up  —  Discover eco-friendly cloud solutions powered by advanced water-cooling technology.  Join a trusted cloud leader and transform your digital landscape.
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.
Kulkan Security:
Hire Kulkan as your penetration testing partner  —  Kulkan prioritizes deep-dive manual security reviews, dissecting your software and infrastructure to find issues that once remediated can truly reduce security risk.
Zoho:
Build bridges, not silos: Collaboration for modern work management  —  When work was mostly in-person, real human cues facilitated collaboration.  However, since the digital revolution, we've struggled to find …
Opal:
Introducing Tadpole: the tiny webcam for laptops  —  With a mirrorless Sony sensor, directional microphone, and tap-to-mute feature, the Tadpole works with both Mac and PC and is the perfect webcam to take with you everywhere.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
EP 109: Sebastian Siemiatkowski (CEO, Klarna) on the Future of Klarna, Valuation Changes and AI in Finance
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show!
Techmeme Ride Home:
(IHP) The Gary Kildall Legend Part 2
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 1:30 PM ET, November 5, 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

Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
Alex Cranz / The Verge:
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Gabor Cselle / Gabor Cselle on Medium:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: