Note: Techmeme is hiring part-time editors. Go here to apply, or tell a friend!
Techmeme
April 3, 2024, 8:45 AM

Top News

Debby Wu / Bloomberg:
TSMC halts some chipmaking and evacuates plants after a 7.4 magnitude earthquake, Taiwan's biggest in 25 years, and plans to assess the impact; UMC did similar  —  - Chipmakers move some staff off of unspecified operation areas  — The earthquake rocked Taiwan and triggered tsunami warnings
Russ Cox / research!rsc:
A timeline of the attack on open-source project XZ Utils, which began in late 2021 and led to a backdoor with RCE in Linux distros from Debian, Red Hat, others  —  Over a period of over two years, an attacker using the name “Jia Tan” worked as a diligent, effective contributor to the xz compression library …
Washington Post:
The US Cyber Safety Review Board faults Microsoft for a “cascade of avoidable errors” that led to the 2023 Chinese hack of top US government officials' emails  —  The independent Cyber Safety Review Board's forthcoming report knocks the tech giant for shoddy cybersecurity practices …
Theo Wayt / The Information:
Amazon plans to remove Just Walk Out from most of its grocery stores and add more grocery stores with Dash Carts, which let shoppers scan items while they shop  —  Amazon's grab-and-go checkout system, Just Walk Out, has been a centerpiece of its ambitions to transform bricks-and-mortar supermarkets.
Michael Kan / PCMag:
Google details Device Bound Session Credentials, a feature that aims to stop browser cookie theft and uses the PCs' TPM chip, in beta in some Chrome versions  —  ‘Device Bound Session Credentials’ will tap the TPM chip in today's PCs.  Google is testing it with some users running the beta version of Chrome.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Newzoo: PC and console game revenues grew 2.6% YoY to $93.5B in 2023, but average quarterly playtime hours fell 26% from Q1 2021 through Q4 2023  —  The PC and console market grew 2.6% in 2023, but playtime hours fell during the year, according to the second annual report on the market-by-market researcher Newzoo.
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Anthropic researchers detail “many-shot jailbreaking”, which can evade LLMs' safety guardrails by including a large number of faux dialogues in a single prompt  —  How do you get an AI to answer a question it's not supposed to?  There are many such “jailbreak” techniques …
Wes Davis / The Verge:
POTUS' official Threads account starts using Meta's ActivityPub integration to post on the decentralized networking protocol  —  POTUS puts the ‘fed’ in ‘fediverse.’  —  The official US president Threads account, currently helmed by President Joe Biden, has begun using Meta's ActivityPub integration …
Ian King / Bloomberg:
Intel says its Foundry division had $18.9B in 2023 revenue, down 31% YoY, a $7B operating loss, up from $5.2B, and expects 2024 to be the peak of its losses  —  - In a change, company breaks out numbers for manufacturing unit  — New Intel Foundry division is expected to break even by 2030
David Shepardson / Reuters:
The FCC plans to vote on April 25 to restore net neutrality rules and assume regulatory oversight of broadband internet that was rescinded under President Trump  —  The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will vote to reinstate landmark net neutrality rules and assume new regulatory oversight …
New York Times:
An interview with Oren Etzioni, the former CEO of Allen Institute for AI, on his nonprofit TrueMedia.org, which offers free tools for identifying deepfakes  —  Oren Etzioni worries A.I.-generated fakes could overwhelm upcoming elections.Kyle Johnson for The New York Times
Emilia David / The Verge:
Stability AI releases Stable Audio 2.0, letting users create three minute sound clips from copyright-free audio samples, available for free via its website  —  Stable Audio 2., an audio generation model for Stability AI, now lets users upload their own audio samples which they can then transform using prompts …
Cissy Zhou / Nikkei Asia:
A rising number of Chinese tech workers face legal action from former employers, including Pinduoduo and Tencent, looking to enforce strict noncompete clauses  —  From Tencent to Pinduoduo, companies use surveillance and lawsuits to retain staff as competition ramps up
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Billie Eilish, Katy Perry, and 200+ others sign a letter to AI developers and tech firms decrying “predatory” AI that steals voices, replaces artists, and more  —  - Jen Jacobson, executive director at The Artist Rights Alliance (ARA), the trade group representing the artists signing the letter …

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.
UiPath:
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
Zoho:
6 Tips to Unlock Revenue with Transactional Emails  —  This is a guest post by Tabular.You might think of transactional emails as boring necessities, but the truth is, they're far more powerful than you realize.
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:
Big Meta/Anduril Deal Is A Big Deal
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
The Social Radars:
Ron Conway, Founder, SV Angel Part 4 (Bonus)
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
Subscribe to The Social Radars.
Hard Fork:
The A.I. Jobpocalypse + Building at Anthropic with Mike Krieger + Hard Fork Crimes Division
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.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Rick Smith (CEO, Axon): The Wild Ride From Near-Bankruptcy to $50B+
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'Sewing Machine Repair Shop', With Patrick McGee
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
How private equity kills companies and communities
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:45 AM ET, April 3, 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

Zeyi Yang / MIT Technology Review:
Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
David Ingram / NBC News:

Earlier Picks

Raymond Wong / Inverse:
David Pierce / The Verge:
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times:
Bloomberg:
Wall Street Journal: