Techmeme
December 15, 2023, 6:40 PM

Top News

David Gilbert / Wired:
Researchers: Microsoft Copilot answers some political queries in the US and other countries with conspiracies, misinformation, and out-of-date or incorrect info  —  Research shared exclusively with WIRED shows that Copilot, Microsoft's AI chatbot, often responds to questions about elections with lies and conspiracy theories.
Joseph Cox / 404 Media:
Cox Media Group claims it can listen to consumers' conversations through microphones in smartphones, smart TVs, and other devices and use the data to target ads  —  A marketing team within media giant Cox Media Group (CMG) claims it has the capability to listen to ambient conversations …
Financial Times:
Stacy Elliott / Decrypt:
Crypto wallet maker Ledger updates Connect Kit to remove some malicious code, live for five hours, after a former employee “fell victim to a phishing attack”  —  Crypto wallet manufacturer Ledger has confirmed an exploit that led it to warn users to “stop using dapps” …
Ash Parrish / The Verge:
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Docs: ByteDance used OpenAI's API to develop its own LLM, codenamed Project Seed; employees discussed “whitewashing” the evidence through “data desensitization”  —  TikTok's entrancing “For You” feed made its parent company, ByteDance, an AI leader on the world stage.
Glenn Fleishman / Retool:
A look back at Yahoo Pipes, which from 2007 to 2015 let users drag and drop elements in a browser to make data feeds, influencing a generation of UI designers  —  Want to know whether the latest logged earthquakes were near you?  Aggregate 100 top news sites, but only see items that mention cats?
Jesse Hamilton / CoinDesk:
The US SEC rejects Coinbase's petition for formal digital asset rules, because the “existing securities regime appropriately governs crypto asset securities”  —  The U.S. exchange had formally petitioned the agency to start writing comprehensive crypto rules, but after “careful” consideration, the SEC said no.
Nicholas Sutrich / Android Central:
Microsoft launches its basic Office suite on the Meta Quest store for free, letting all Quests run Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in a mixed reality environment  —  Now you can tweak spreadsheets while playing Xbox, all in VR.  —  What you need to know  — Meta Quest users can now use Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in VR.
Jordan Pearson / VICE:
Some X users report seeing ads for apps that use AI to “undress” women in photos; TikTok and Meta have started to block search terms related to “nudify” apps  —  A week after TikTok and Meta blocked certain search terms related to so-called “nudify” apps, X has not taken the same measures, Motherboard found.
Forbes:
Google says it will no longer respond to geofence warrants after making changes to how Google Maps stores and accesses users' opt-in Location History  —  “Geofence warrants,” which allow law enforcement to get location data across a wide area, have become commonplace in recent years.

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Zoho:
The crossroads of AI and SaaS  —  Enabling businesses of all sizes to build products in-house and disqualifying SaaS tools that are not AI-powered.  In a span of just two years, AI has made a name for itself as the key driver for innovation.
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
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.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 12/20 - Gemini Flash Thinking
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 6:40 PM ET, December 15, 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

Timmy Shen / The Block:
Wall Street Journal:
Nikkei Asia:
Taylor Lorenz / Washington Post:

Earlier Picks

Paul Alcorn / Tom's Hardware:
Will Knight / Wired:
Rohan Goswami / CNBC:
Will Douglas Heaven / MIT Technology Review:
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Aria Alamalhodaei / TechCrunch:
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: