Techmeme
February 16, 2024, 6:55 PM

Top News

Parmy Olson / Bloomberg:
OpenAI's Sora announcement sparks awe and horror, as the startup continues to be frustratingly secretive about the data used to train the text-to-video model  —  Sam Altman is being secretive in all the wrong places as he barrels toward superintelligent AI.  —  Every new OpenAI announcement sparks some measure of awe and terror.
Steven Levy / Wired:
More: OpenAI, XDA Developers, The Atlantic, Silicon Republic, Towards Data Science, Benzinga, The Verge, New York Times, Associated Press, TechCrunch, Moneycontrol, Investor's Business Daily, CNET, MIT Technology Review, USA Today, SlashGear, UPROXX, Aftermath, Futurism, KnowTechie, New York Post, Fortune, CoinGape, Windows Central, TIME, CCN.com, Tubefilter, Silicon Canals, PhoneArena, Moss and Fog, The Algorithmic Bridge, Dataconomy, Tom's Guide, TechCircle, Analytics India Magazine, International Business Times, Inc.com, MediaNama, Redmond Pie, Dexerto, ZDNet, TechSpot, InfoQ, Tech Monitor, Nairametrics, SamMobile, Cryptopolitan, Business Standard, Tech in Asia, Ben's Bites, Neowin, Cybernews.com, GSMArena.com, Joan Westenberg, TweakTown, TechRadar, Reuters, Axios, The Information, and Bloomberg
New York Times:
Sources: OpenAI has completed a deal that values the company at $80B or more; OpenAI would sell existing shares in a tender offer led by Thrive Capital  —  The A.I. start-up's valuation tripled in less than 10 months.  —  OpenAI has completed a deal that values the San Francisco artificial …
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Google releases Android 15's first developer preview, with updates related to Android's Dynamic Performance Framework, privacy, the camera experience, and more  —  Our first official glimpse of Android 15 is here.  It includes a lot of under-the-hood tweaks to strengthen communication between hardware …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Sam Altman is working to get US approval for his chip project, as involving the UAE and others risks raising national security and antitrust concerns  —  - Middle East investors, factories may prompt security concerns  — Potential new company could trigger antitrust review
Susan Lazaruk / Vancouver Sun:
Canada's Civil Resolution Tribunal rules that Air Canada should give a passenger a retroactive discount, which was erroneously promised by the airlines' chatbot  —  A B.C. man booked an Air Canada flight to Toronto for his grandmother's funeral using the website's chatbot …
Noam Scheiber / New York Times:
Court filing: Amazon claims the NLRB is unconstitutional, after the agency said Amazon illegally retaliated against workers; SpaceX has made a similar claim  —  The company made the novel claim, echoing arguments by SpaceX and Trader Joe's, in a legal filing while fighting a case.
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
PitchBook: VC investment in crypto rose 2.5% QoQ in Q4 2023 to $1.9B, the first rise since Q1 2022; Q4 2023 saw 12 crypto exits, the lowest number since Q4 2020  —  - PitchBook said in a fourth-quarter update that the level of investment for crypto-related companies in the fourth quarter totaled $1.9 billion …
William Gallagher / AppleInsider:
Epic plans to “start developing the Epic Games Store on iOS soon” and launch the store in 2024, thanks to the DMA, after Apple approved its developer account  —  Three years after Apple kicked Epic Games off the App Store for breaking terms of business, it has allowed the firm …
Washington Post:
Foreign propaganda accounts aiming to influence US elections are flourishing on X, which no longer attends biweekly info-sharing meetings with social platforms  —  X hasn't sent a representative in months to biweekly information-sharing meetings with other social media companies
More: Ars TechnicaThreads: @renee.direstaMastodon: @w7voa@journa.host and @aaronjschaffer@mastodon …X: @thedragonfeederLinkedIn: Yael EisenstatForums: r/Twitter
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google Search Labs is testing a “Talk to a Live Representative” feature, which calls a business on the user's behalf and holds until a human becomes available  —  Google Search Labs is testing a “Talk to a Live Representative” feature where it will “help you place the call …
RT Watson / The Block:
Yuga Labs acquires Kevin Rose's NFT startup Proof, and plans to fold Proof's NFT project Moonbirds into its gamefied, metaverse project Otherside  —  - Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs announced it has acquired Proof, which created the Moonbirds non-fungible token collection.
Amy Or / Bloomberg:
Sources: Reddit signed a deal early in 2024, worth ~$60M on an annualized basis, allowing a large unnamed AI company to train its models on Reddit's content  —  - Social media firm agrees $60 million deal with AI company  — Reddit advised to seek at least $5 billion IPO valuation
Associated Press:
Adobe, Amazon, Google, IBM, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, TikTok, X, and 11 other companies sign a voluntary accord to fight deepfakes that deliberately trick voters  —  Major technology companies signed a pact Friday to voluntarily adopt “reasonable precautions” to prevent artificial intelligence tools …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Clubhouse adds texting to group voice chats, letting users train a custom voice and send asynchronous texts that the app will read out in the sender's voice  —  Clubhouse, the once-popular live audio app, announced today that users can now text their friends and they'll hear those texts in the sender's custom voice.

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Meta:
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