Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise
Techmeme
December 20, 2023, 6:35 AM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Get our daily newsletter and never miss a story!   ⓧ Newsletter

Top News

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
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.
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 …
Saritha Rai / Bloomberg:
Researchers say AI robot CyberRunner outmaneuvers humans in the maze game Labyrinth, in a breakthrough for AI beating humans at direct physical applications  —  - Robot learned in record time to guide a ball through a maze  — The AI robot used two knobs to manipulate playing surface
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.
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 …
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 …
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.
Ellen Huet / Bloomberg:
A look at the tech sector's longevity obsession, with Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, Larry Page, and others pledging millions of dollars to firms pursuing longer life  —  Tech titans, venture capitalists, crypto enthusiasts and AI researchers have turned longevity research into something between the hottest science and a tragic comedy.
John Herrman / New York Magazine:
OpenAI's deals with publishers are a hedge against a scenario in which scraping becomes harder, training material more expensive, and real-time data more scarce  —  This past week, Axel Springer, the German media conglomerate that owns Politico and Business Insider, signed a “multiyear licensing deal” …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
The EU designates Pornhub, XVideos, and Stripchat as Very Large Online Platforms under the DSA, meaning stricter rules on age verification and illegal content  —  Porn sites Pornhub, XVideos, and Stripchat face stricter requirements to verify the ages of their users after being officially designated as …
Sarah Zheng / Bloomberg:
Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu takes over the e-commerce business from 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
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 …
John Yoon / New York Times:
A look at South Korea's AI industry, one of the world's most competitive and diverse, as startups train on Korean language and culture to compete with US giants  —  While they lag behind their U.S. counterparts, their focus on non-English languages could help loosen the American grip on artificial intelligence.
More: MSPoweruser
David Shepardson / Reuters:
The NIST seeks public input by February 2, 2024 for setting guidelines to evaluate the safety of generative AI systems, as directed by President Biden's AI EO  —  The Biden administration said on Tuesday it was taking the first step toward writing key standards and guidance for the safe deployment …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Generate videos with Veo 3 in Google Gemini  —  Create high-quality, 8-second videos with Veo 3, our state-of-the-art AI video generator.  Try it with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.
Codegen:
Ship with AI: The Future of Coding is Here  —  Use natural language in Slack to trigger real PRs, docs, dashboards, infra & more.  Codegen connects GitHub, Linear, Notion, and beyond.
Zoho:
WhatsApp-CRM: Drive business growth with efficient customer communication  —  This is a guest post by WAPlus.For many businesses, WhatsApp has become an indispensable channel for customer communication.
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.
Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
 Some In Hollywood (Quietly) LOVE AI
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Sponsor this podcast
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
 Runway CEO Cris Valenzuela wants Hollywood to embrace AI video
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Lenny's Podcast:
 Anthropic's CPO on what comes next | Mike Krieger (co-founder of Instagram)
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.
Diggnation:
 Flow by Google, Alex Voices a Predator, and 41 Days Sober
Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht give you their unique, sometimes awkward, and always hilarious take on the edges of the internet.
Subscribe to Diggnation.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View:
 Tyler Cowen on how AI will reorder economies, schools, and spirituality
Azeem Azhar explores how AI and exponential technologies are shaping our future.
Subscribe to Azeem Azhar's Exponential View.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
 Bluesky Wasn't Supposed to be a Twitter Rival. Now It Is.
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Add your podcast here
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:35 AM ET, December 20, 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.

From Mediagazer

Minho Kim / New York Times:
A Trump administration letter to Congress outlines a plan to restructure VOA that would shrink the agency to 18 employees, down from roughly 1,400 in March

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:
The Sun appoints Jack Elsom as political editor, replacing Harry Cole, who is relocating to the US to become editor at large, and drops its business page

Peter White / Deadline:
Sources: WBD initiates a round of layoffs in its cable TV divisions, affecting well under 100 employees and largely impacting the Discovery side of the company

More News

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Google introduces a range of new features and updates for Google Maps in India, including Live View walking navigation and ML-powered Address Descriptors
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

Earlier Picks

David Heaney / UploadVR:
Meta updates its OpenXR extension with tongue tracking, letting developers use the feature in the Quest Pro, but hasn't added support to the Meta Avatars SDK
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
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
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
Kanishka Singh / Reuters:
A US judge approves a previously announced settlement between Binance and the CFTC, asking Binance to pay $2.7B and Changpeng Zhao to pay $150M to the regulator
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter