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December 20, 2023, 1:00 AM
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| Leah Nylen / Bloomberg: |
Pharmacy chain Rite Aid must stop using facial recognition for five years as part of a settlement with the US FTC, which says the tech falsely flagged customers — - FTC says chain's surveillance system falsely flagged customers — Bankrupt pharmacy chain will stop using system, delete images
More: Federal Trade Commission, Rite Aid, Engadget, Forbes, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Axios, The Record, SiliconANGLE, Reuters, VentureBeat, The Verge, CNBC, and The Hill
Mastodon: @riotmuffin@ni.hil.ist. Bluesky: @pphone.bsky.social. X: @senmarkey, @bedoyaftc, @matthewstoller, @bedoyaftc, @ainowinstitute, @a_bacci, @ainowinstitute, and @linakhanftc
LinkedIn: Samuel A.A. Levine and Timnit Gebru
| Nickolas Diaz / Android Central: |
Samsung adds the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Z Fold 5 to its Self-Repair program, the first foldable devices, and expands the program to 30 more countries in Europe — Its latest smartphone series and laptop join in, too. — What you need to know — Samsung has expanded coverage of its Self-Repair program …
More: Samsung Newsroom, Android Authority, Sam Lover, Sammy Fans, PhoneArena, Neowin, 9to5Google, nextpit, The Verge, Engadget, Android Police, and Droid Life
| Dan Goodin / Ars Technica: |
Researchers detail a MITM attack on SSH that can break the integrity of the protocol, the first “practical attack of its kind”; fixes face compatibility issues — Novel Terrapin attack uses prefix truncation to downgrade the security of SSH channels.
More: Terrapin Attack, BleepingComputer, and SiliconANGLE
Threads: @nixcraft. Mastodon: @sadiedoreen@mastodon.social, @drahardja@sfba.social, @dangoodin@infosec.exchange, and @dangoodin@infosec.exchange
| Anissa Gardizy / The Information: |
Sources: AWS plans to overhaul its 60K-person sales team and aims to increase the share of Fortune 1,000 companies spending $10M+/year from less than 20% to 80% — Matt Garman, head of sales at Amazon Web Services, plans to reorganize his more than 60,000-person team to address problems …
More: SiliconANGLE. X: @nmasc_, @modestproposal1, @sunilmallya, @quinnypig, @anissagardizy8, and @nideveloper
| Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: |
Microsoft Copilot can now compose songs, including lyrics, instruments, and voices, from a sentence, due to a new integration with generative AI music app Suno — Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft's AI-powered chatbot, can now compose songs thanks to an integration with gen AI music app Suno.| Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: |
Comcast's Xfinity says hackers breached one of its Citrix servers in October 2023, two weeks after Citrix issued a patch, and stole data on 35,879,455 people — Comcast Cable Communications, doing business as Xfinity, disclosed on Monday that attackers who breached one of its Citrix servers …
More: TechCrunch, Maine.gov, Comcast, Ars Technica, Cyber Daily, 9to5Mac, Deadline, TechRadar, NBC Bay Area, Digital Trends, TechSpot, PCMag, Dark Reading, ExtremeTech, CSO, Fierce Telecom Industry News, The Register, TechStartups, Mashable, KnowTechie, Android Headlines, SC Media, Cybersecurity Dive, Baseline, PYMNTS.com, DataBreaches.net, The Record, ITPro, The Hollywood Reporter, and Variety
Mastodon: @briankrebs@infosec.exchange and @SteveD3@infosec.exchange
X: @lorenzofb, @vxunderground, @brettcallow, and @hackingdave
| Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer: |
Interpol: a global law enforcement operation led by South Korea seized $300M and led to the arrest of 3,500 cybercrime suspects between July and December 2023 — An international law enforcement operation codenamed ‘Operation HAECHI IV’ has led to the arrest of 3,500 suspects …
More: INTERPOL, The Register, Gizmodo, The Record, SiliconANGLE, and Cybernews.com
| Meir Orbach / CTech: |
Okta is acquiring Israeli cybersecurity company Spera, which raised a $10M seed in March 2023; source: the deal is worth ~$100M-$130M, contingent on milestones — The American identity and access management giant is making its first purchase in Israel. Spera, which raised $10 million …
More: Okta Inc., TechCrunch, PaymentSecurity.io, SiliconANGLE, The Information, and San Francisco Business Times
X: @saas_monkey and @toddmckinnon
LinkedIn: Sven Kniest, Jay Meier, Pramod Gosavi, and Henrique Bernardes B Teixeira
| Michael Kan / PCMag: |
HughesNet debuts a $110/month 100Mbps satellite internet plan, double its previous top speed; Starlink offers 220Mbps, but US Ookla data shows many get ~70Mbps — HughesNet's speed boost comes courtesy of the recently launched Jupiter 3 satellite, which is designed to serve customers in the Americas.
More: CNET, Cord Cutters News, ExtremeTech, and Fierce Wireless Industry News. Mastodon: @jay@cuthrell.com
| Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge: |
Matter broke its promise of an easier smart home experience, as the standard suffers from poor implementation, significant backpedaling, and glacial progress — The new smart home standard finally arrived this year. But poor implementation, significant backpedaling, and glacial progress have left it broken.| Isabel Gottlieb / Bloomberg Law: |
Harvey, which builds generative AI tools for law firms using OpenAI's tech, raised an $80M Series B co-led by Elad Gil and Kleiner Perkins at a $715M valuation — Harvey.ai raised an additional $80 million, it announced Tuesday, valuing the generative AI legal technology platform at $715 million.
| Jon Victor / The Information: |
Source: Google plans to reorganize a big part of its 30K-person ad sales unit, as the company relies more on ML techniques to help customers buy even more ads — Google plans to reorganize a big part of its 30,000-person ad sales unit, an executive told some staff last week, prompting anxiety that some departments will face job cuts.
| Carly Page / TechCrunch: |
The FBI, the UK, Denmark, Germany, Spain, and Australia seize ransomware gang ALPHV's dark web leak website; the US also seized “several websites” run by ALPHV — An international group of law enforcement agencies have seized the dark web leak site of the notorious ransomware gang known as ALPHV, or BlackCat.
More: US Department of Justice, Wired, BleepingComputer, Cybernews.com, Krebs on Security, InfoRiskToday.com, CyberScoop, Silicon Republic, ITPro, The Verge, PCMag, The Record, The Register, and Hackread
Mastodon: @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social, @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social, @PogoWasRight@infosec.exchange, @cR0w@infosec.exchange, @zackwhittaker@mastodon.social, @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social, and @metacurity@infosec.exchange
X: @vxunderground, @dojcrimdiv, @jamiemaccoll, @bushidotoken, @vxunderground, @nohackme, @itsreallynick, @vxunderground, @aejleslie, @azalsecurity, @sosintel, @uuallan, @ericgeller, @uk_daniel_card, and @vxunderground. LinkedIn: Jamie MacColl. Forums: Slashdot
| Anton Shilov / Tom's Hardware: |
Analysis: Huawei's HiSilicon Kirin 9000S, built on SMIC's 7nm process from 2023, is slower than the HiSilicon Kirin 9000, built on TSMC's 5nm process from 2020 — You cannot beat a 5nm processor with a 7nm chip. — The year was 2020, and Huawei released its HiSilicon Kirin 9000 …
More: NanoReview.net, Huawei Central, and PhoneArena
| Emilia David / The Verge: |
Stability AI debuts Stability AI Membership, with free, $20/month, and custom pricing enterprise tiers, limiting commercial use of its models to the paid tiers — Stability AI, the maker of the text-to-image model Stable Diffusion, is now offering a subscription service that standardizes … | Nilay Patel / The Verge: |
Q&A with Flexport co-founder Ryan Petersen on returning as CEO after firing Dave Clark, acquiring Deliverr and Convoy, Amazon, the Vision Fund, growth, and more — His replacement got the boot barely a year into the job. What brought Petersen back? … Today, I'm talking with Ryan Petersen.
More: The Information and CNBC
| Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: |
Google introduces a range of new features and updates for Google Maps in India, including Live View walking navigation, ML-powered Address Descriptors, and more — Google Tuesday introduced a range of new features and updates for its mapping service in India as it wraps up for the year and sets the base for the coming year.| David Shepardson / Reuters: |
NIST seeks public input by February 2, 2024 for setting guidelines in order to evaluate the safety of generative AI systems as directed by President Biden's EO — The Biden administration said on Tuesday it was taking the first step toward writing key standards and guidance for the safe deployment … | Harry McCracken / Fast Company: |
An interview with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman about the moderator rebellion, limiting free access to the company's API, AI's role in Reddit's future, and more — Rebellious moderators. Large language models' peril and promise. Maybe a long-awaited IPO. Amid it all, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman says the web megacommunity is on a roll.
X: @dannygroner, @fastcompany, and @harrymccracken
| Sarah Zheng / Bloomberg: |
Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu takes over for e-commerce business head Trudy Dai, one of Alibaba's earliest employees, who will now help oversee non-core assets globally — - Two-decade veteran Trudy Dai will help set up a holding firm — Alibaba's growth has fizzled out in recent years as PDD arose
More: The Information, Financial Times, Reuters, Nikkei Asia, CNBC, MarketWatch, and Alizila. X: @yicaichina
| Paige Smith / Bloomberg: |
Walmart expands its Affirm partnership and says more than 4,500 Walmart stores now offer BNPL options at self-checkout kiosks; AFRM jumps 15%+ — - Partnership grows to more stores, a self-checkout option — Affirm building out its presence during in-store transactions
More: Affirm Holdings, Inc., The Information, Investor's Business Daily, Reuters, CNBC, and PYMNTS.com. X: @curiousjorge65
| Pranshu Verma / Washington Post: |
NewsGuard: since May 2023, websites hosting AI-created fake news articles have grown from 49 to 600+; some post “hundreds if not thousands of articles” per day — AI is making it easy for anyone to create propaganda outlets, producing content that can be hard to differentiate from real news| Ben Glickman / Wall Street Journal: |
Google agrees to pay $700M and make app store changes, like offering an alternative billing system, to settle a 2021 antitrust lawsuit by 36 US states and DC — Agreement with coalition of states resolves antitrust litigation related to app store — Google parent Alphabet agreed …
More: The Verge, The Keyword, Epic Games, Associated Press, PhoneArena, KOIN-TV, United States District …, Cryptopolitan, GeekWire, MacRumors, Android Headlines, Gizmodo, gamedeveloper, Droid Life, SiliconANGLE, Silicon Valley Business …, New York Post, The Hill, The Messenger, SGV Tribune, Variety, MobileSyrup, Hartford Courant, Thurrott, Pocket Gamer.biz, BGR, Mashable, Neowin, The Register, SamMobile, AppleInsider, and Android Authority
| Eva Dou / Washington Post: |
More: Reuters, Ars Technica, TechRadar, Cord Cutters News, 9to5Google, Developer Tech News, Newser, NBC Bay Area, iPhone in Canada Blog, TechStartups, PYMNTS.com, and Phone Scoop
Forums: r/Android, r/news, and MacRumors Forums
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UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future — Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
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| David Heaney / UploadVR: |
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| David Hollingworth / Cyber Daily: |
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Threads: @tomwarrenuk. Mastodon: @Sonikku@techhub.social, @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social, and @Ransomlook@social.circl.lu
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Forums: r/GamingLeaksAndRumours, r/GamingLeaksAndRumours, and Slashdot
| Kanishka Singh / Reuters: |
More: CFTC, Inside Bitcoins, Bitcoinist.com, Ars Technica, Cryptopolitan, ZyCrypto, Crypto Briefing, Crypto Daily, Protos, CCN.com, Decrypt, CoinJournal, and Coinspeaker