Techmeme
December 19, 2021, 5:40 PM

Top News

Anton Shilov / AnandTech:
Report: chipmakers are on track to spend $152B on new fabs and production equipment in 2021, up 34% YoY, which is the strongest YoY growth since 2017  —  Semiconductor makers have drastically increased their capital expenditures (CapEx) this year in response to unprecedented demand for chips that is going to last for years.
Tweets: @zachweinberg
Ben Bowman / The Streamable:
YouTube TV reaches a deal with Disney to bring back 17+ channels including ABC, Disney, ESPN, Freeform, FX, and National Geographic  —  After one day of being dark, YouTube TV and Disney have reached a deal which will see more than 17 Disney-owned channels, including local ABC affiliates, Disney Channel, and ESPN return to the service.
Alex Pasternack / Fast Company:
How Chinese Wikipedia volunteers fighting censorship, threats, arrest, and violence expose the challenges to the Wikimedia Foundation's free-knowledge mission  —  This past July, before he was banned from Wikipedia, Techyan was one of dozens of volunteers preparing to speak at the free-knowledge movement's annual conference, Wikimania.
Melanie Mitchell / Quanta Magazine:
AI language models like GPT-3 can achieve up to 97% accuracy on some Winograd schemas, but understanding language doesn't equate to understanding the world  —  It's simple enough for AI to seem to comprehend data, but devising a true test of a machine's knowledge has proved difficult.
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Interview with Jameel Jaffer of the Knight First Amendment Institute on how Congress can regulate social media platforms while abiding by the First Amendment  —  One of the hardest problems at the intersection of tech and policy right now is the question of how to regulate social media platforms.
Wall Street Journal:
Investigation: a dozen automated TikTok accounts, registered as 13-year-olds, were shown tens of thousands of weight-loss videos within a few weeks of joining  —  The app's algorithm can send users down rabbit holes of narrow interest, resulting in potentially dangerous content such as emaciated images …

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Featured Podcasts

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.
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Techmeme Ride Home:
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The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
Trump vs The Media, Round 2, with Sara Fischer
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.
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Spotlight On:
Graphite's Merrill Lutsky on Revolutionizing Code Review for the AI Era
A podcast from Accel about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.
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Invest Like the Best:
Darren Farber - The Business of Defense
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
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Decoder with Nilay Patel:
CEO Matt Bromberg on ending Unity's 'war' against its customers
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
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Earlier Picks

UPI:
Kate Krader / Bloomberg:
Reuters:
Kim Lyons / The Verge: