Techmeme
February 14, 2024, 8:55 PM

Top News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft and OpenAI say hackers, including Russian, North Korean, Iranian, and Chinese-backed groups, are already using LLMs to refine and improve cyberattacks  —  Microsoft and OpenAI are revealing today that hackers are already using large language models like ChatGPT to refine and improve their existing cyberattacks.
Alex Heath / The Verge:
In a video, Mark Zuckerberg shares his thoughts on the Vision Pro, saying Quest 3 “is the better product, period”, highlighting Apple's tradeoffs, and more  —  Now that it can be strapped to our faces and worn in strange places, opinions about Apple's Vision Pro are flying left and right.
More: CNBC, Newser, Bitcoin Insider, Deadline, Dexerto, Raleigh News & Observer, MobileSyrup, ExtremeTech, New York Post, KnowTechie, BroBible, TechRadar, Wait But Why, Marques Brownlee on YouTube, Business Insider, and UploadVR
M.G. Siegler / Spyglass:
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
X removes paid checkmarks from some accounts after a watchdog group found 28 verified accounts allegedly tied to Hezbollah and other US-sanctioned entities  —  X (aka Twitter) accused of violating sanctions by taking payment from terrorists.  —  A watchdog group's investigation found …
Bloomberg:
Sony Q3: revenue up 22% YoY to ~$25.11B, operating income up 10% YoY to ~$3.1B, both meeting estimates; 8.2M PS5 units sold, roughly 1M lower than estimated  —  - Demand for global electronics is sagging in a downturn  — Underwhelming PlayStation 5 sales led to outlook cut
Sean Michael Kerner / VentureBeat:
Stability AI details Stable Cascade, a new image generation model built on the Würstchen architecture, which improves performance and accuracy compared to SDXL  —  Stability AI, the company behind the popular Stable Diffusion text-to-image generative AI technology is now previewing …
Aamir Siddiqui / Android Authority:
Samsung announces an upcoming Galaxy S24 series update that adds a Vividness display slider, after users complained that the more natural color tuning is dull  —  - Samsung has announced that the upcoming February update for the Galaxy S24 series will improve its display and camera experiences.
Aaron Holmes / The Information:
Source: OpenAI has been developing a web search product partly powered by Bing  —  OpenAI has been developing a web search product that would bring the Microsoft-backed startup into more direct competition with Google, according to someone with knowledge of OpenAI's plans.
Wes Davis / The Verge:
DuckDuckGo adds a Sync & Backup tool to its browser that syncs passwords, bookmarks, and favorites without requiring an account, and says the data is E2EE  —  DuckDuckGo has added a new “Sync & Backup” feature to its privacy-first browser that will keep passwords, bookmarks …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Slack rolls out AI features that summarize threads, offer channel recaps, let users ask questions, and more to Enterprise users, after testing Slack AI in 2023  —  Slack is launching a suite of built-in AI features that serve up summaries of threads and channel recaps, while also allowing …
Elizabeth Lopatto / The Verge:
Leander Kahney / Cult of Mac:
Many Vision Pro users are returning their devices, saying it's too expensive, heavy, or isolating, as the 14-day return window nears its end for first buyers  —  Many early adopters seem set on returning their Apple Vision Pro headsets.  As the 14-day return window approaches for people …
Aggi Cantrill / Bloomberg:
Google's TAG details how pro-Palestinian hacking group Blackatom tried to dupe Israeli software engineers into downloading malware weeks ahead of October 7  —  Apple's Longest-Serving Designer to Depart Company, Adding to Exodus  —  Apple iMessage, Microsoft Bing Dodge EU's Big Tech Crackdown
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Meta appoints Hock E. Tan, the president and CEO of Broadcom, and philanthropist John Arnold, an Arnold Ventures co-founder, to its board, effective immediately  —  - Broadcom's Hock Tan, philanthropist John Arnold join board  — Sandberg to step down at annual shareholder's meeting in May
More: Meta, The Information, and CNBC
Threads: @karissabeBluesky: @scriban.bsky.socialX: @optimist_fund, @johnarnoldfndtn, @dylan522p, and @mikeisaacLinkedIn: Hock TanFacebook: Mark Zuckerberg
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Cisco reports Q2 revenue down 6% YoY to $12.79B, vs. $12.71B est., and plans to cut 5% of its global workforce, or about 4,250 jobs; CSCO drops 5%+ after hours  —  - Cisco said it would let go of 5% of employees, which works out to around 4,250 people.  — The company's quarterly and full-year forecasts were light.
Paayal Zaveri / Bloomberg:
Y Combinator releases a new list of 20 types of startups the accelerator wants to join its program, the biggest overhaul of its Request for Startups since 2018  —  The prominent Silicon Valley startup accelerator overhauled its list of promising startup sectors.
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Rasa, which provides a framework and a low-code UI to help enterprises build AI chatbots, raised a $30M Series C co-led by StepStone Group and PayPal Ventures  —  It's no fun as a customer to have an interaction with a bot when it's clearly a bot with which you're engaging.
Thomas Germain / Gizmodo:
A Mozilla study of 11 AI romance chatbots finds they can harvest shockingly personal information, and that 10 of them may sell or share the data they collect  —  The privacy mess is troubling because the chatbots actively encourage you to share details that are far more personal than in a typical app.
The Information:
AI researcher Andrej Karpathy, one of OpenAI's founding members, leaves the startup; Karpathy was developing a product that he had described as an AI assistant  —  Andrej Karpathy, one of the founding members of OpenAI, has left the company, a spokesperson confirmed.

Sponsor Posts

TELUS Digital:
See how your customer experience priorities compare  —  TELUS Digital surveyed leaders about the tech they're investing in, the KPIs they're tracking and their plans for outsourcing.  Get the results.  No form fill required!
Intel:
Intel Delivers powerful CPUs for AI and Networking  —  With the onset of AI, businesses demand powerful and efficient CPUs.  Explore new Intel Xeon 6 processors, for the broadest set of workloads with leadership performance and lower TCO.
Zoho:
Introducing new capabilities in Zoho PDF Editor: Add watermarks, secure your content, collect digital signatures, and more  —  Easily organize, edit, and secure your PDFs with the latest version …
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

Techmeme Ride Home:
Has Intel Found A Way Out?
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:
Tech Stock Shock + Solving the Mystery of OpenAI's "Blip" + Tinder's Flirt-Off
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.
BG2 Pod:
Liberation Day, Tariffs, US v China Open Source, OpenAI Fundraise, $CRWV, TikTok
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
What AI anime memes tell us about the future of art and humanity
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Great Chat:
Battle of the startup cities
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Zach Weinberg (Co-Founder & CEO, Curie.Bio) on The Tariff Trap, Self-Inflicted Recession Risk, and Open AI's Fundraise
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:55 PM ET, February 14, 2024.

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

Lauren Kaori Gurley / Washington Post:
Bloomberg:
Alfred Ng / Politico:
More: WiredMastodon: @alng@journa.hostX: @ronwyden and @jsrailton

Earlier Picks

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Alistair Barr / Business Insider:
Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:
David Pierce / The Verge: