Techmeme
March 16, 2023, 12:00 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Microsoft plans to bring OpenAI's GPT-4 to Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Word, and its other apps in the coming months, calling the feature Microsoft 365 Copilot  —  Microsoft Corp.'s effort to overhaul its entire lineup with OpenAI technology has spread to one of the company's oldest and best-known products: its Office apps.
John D. McKinnon / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: the Biden administration and CFIUS are demanding that TikTok's Chinese owners sell their stakes in the company or face a possible US ban of the app  —  TikTok says forced sale won't resolve national security issues; its CEO set to appear before Congress next week
Dan Sabbagh / The Guardian:
In a U-turn, the UK bans TikTok from ministers' and civil servants' work phones after a National Cyber Security Centre review, following the EU and the US  —  Move brings Britain in line with US and Europe and reflects worsening relations with China  —  Britain is to ban the Chinese owned …
Stu Woo / Wall Street Journal:
James Vincent / The Verge:
Experts criticize OpenAI for not disclosing GPT-4's training data or methods used; OpenAI co-founder says its past approach to openly sharing research was wrong  —  The system's capabilities are still being assessed, but as researchers and experts pore over its accompanying materials …
Ryan Broderick / Garbage Day:
OpenAI's GPT-4 is an outrageous, if imperfect, step forward, offering a glimpse of a future internet where generative AI creates one big personalized web portal  —  Read to the end for a good Twitter reply  —  Building A Portal To Everything  —  Very often I will come up with a big existential question …
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
New York Times:
Sources: five days after seizing SVB, the FDIC has conducted a stop-and-start auction process, failing so far to find a willing buyer for all of SVB's assets  —  Big rivals are thus far shying away from scooping up the bank's assets.  —  Five days after seizing control of Silicon Valley Bank …
FTX:
An FTX bankruptcy filing describes $3.2B+ in payments and loans to founders and executives, chiefly from Alameda Research, including ~$2.2B to Sam Bankman-Fried  —  Identify Over $3.2 Billion in Transfers to Founders and Key Employees  —  Forensic Work Continues on Intercompany and Other Transactions
Yimou Lee / Reuters:
Sources: Foxconn will make AirPods for the first time and plans to invest $200M+ in a plant in Telangana, India; a source says Apple wanted production in India  —  Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn (2317.TW) has won an order to make AirPods for Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and plans to build …
TechCrunch:
NYC-based Via plans to acquire London-based Citymapper, which has ~50M users and raised ~$60M; sources say investors are mostly not making their money back  —  Last month, when transportation startup Via raised $110 million at a $3.5 billion valuation, CEO Daniel Ramot said it planned …
Sam Kessler / CoinDesk:
The Arbitrum Foundation, which develops the Ethereum Layer 2 platform Arbitrum, plans to airdrop its long-awaited ARB token on March 23 and transition to a DAO  —  The long-awaited ARB token will grant holders the ability to vote on changes to the leading Ethereum layer 2 network.
Bloomberg:
Baidu announces its Ernie Bot in a pre-recorded video, with founder Robin Li talking over a scripted video of interactions with the AI; BIDU drops 5%+  —  Baidu Inc. debuted China's answer to ChatGPT via a recorded video, disappointing investors hoping for a real-time demo …
Christine Hall / TechCrunch:
Parker, which offers a corporate credit card for e-commerce brands doing $3M to $100M in annual sales, emerges from stealth with $37M in equity and $120M debt  —  Parker, a startup offering a corporate credit card for e-commerce businesses, emerged from stealth Thursday with $157 million …
Margaux Nijkerk / CoinDesk:
Ethereum developers set a target date of around April 12 for the long-awaited Shanghai hard fork, delayed from its initial March target  —  Developers agreed to April 12 for the long-awaited upgrade that will enable staked ETH withdrawals.  —  Join the most important conversation in crypto …
Dan Primack / Axios:
Stripe raised a $6.5B+ Series I at a $50B valuation to help its employees cover tax obligations for the expiration of RSUs and to fund a new stock tender offer  —  Digital payments firm Stripe on Wednesday announced that it has raised more than $6.5 billion at a $50 billion valuation.

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
5 common accounting mistakes  —  This is a guest post by Yaali Bizappln Solutions.  A lot of businesses manage their customers and finances on separate platforms.  This disconnect often leads to missed invoices …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 11/21 - What The DOJ Wants Google To Do
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:00 PM ET, March 16, 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.

More News

Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:
Jen Wieczner / New York Magazine:

Earlier Picks

Jamie Crawley / CoinDesk:
Kyle Bradshaw / 9to5Google: