Techmeme
December 4, 2023, 10:10 PM

Top News

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch:
23andMe says hackers stole the ancestry data of 6.9M of its 14M customers, via a breach first disclosed in October 2023, by leveraging access to ~14K accounts  —  On Friday, genetic testing company 23andMe announced that hackers accessed the personal data of 0.1% of customers, or about 14,000 individuals.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Spotify lays off ~17% of its workforce, or ~1,500 staff, to “rightsize” its costs, citing slow economic growth and rising capital costs, its third cut in 2023  —  Spotify is eliminating about 17% jobs, its third round of layoffs, as the music streaming looks to become “both productive and efficient.”
Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
Asking ChatGPT to repeat words “forever” now violates OpenAI's terms of service, after Google researchers showed that doing so led it to reveal training data  —  Join the newsletter to get the latest updates.  —  Success  —  Great!  Check your inbox and click the link.  —  Error
Joseph Menn / Washington Post:
Disinformation scholar Joan Donovan claims in a whistleblower filing that her superiors dismissed her after Harvard got Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's $500M gift  —  In a whistleblower complaint, she breaks her silence over events that unsettled other misinformation researchers
Louis Columbus / VentureBeat:
Researchers scanned public repos and found 1,681 exposed Hugging Face API tokens belonging to Meta, Microsoft, Google, and others, many with write permissions  —  Further validating how brittle the security of generative AI models and their platforms are, Lasso Security helped Hugging Face dodge …
Kyle Bradshaw / 9to5Google:
Meta says cross-app chatting between Messenger and Instagram will be discontinued in “mid-December 2023”, after announcing the feature in September 2020  —  Meta is beginning the process of disconnecting the ability to have “cross-app chats” with your Instagram contacts via Facebook Messenger and vice-versa.
Peter Martin / Bloomberg:
US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says her department needs more money to stop China's chip gains and calls out Nvidia for redesigning around the US' curbs  —  - US commerce secretary cites Nvidia designs as case in point  — Tells chip CEOs ‘such is life’ as US security trumps revenue
WABetaInfo:
WhatsApp updates its iOS app to let users send photos and videos in their original quality files, start voice chats without ringing in large groups, and more  —  WhatsApp has just submitted a new stable update for iOS, available on the App Store: the build number is 23.24.73.  —  What's new in this update?
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
NYC-based generative AI video startup Runway partners with Getty Images on an AI video model, shipping in the coming months for use in Hollywood and advertising  —  Runway ML, the New York City video AI startup backed by Google and Nvidia, continues to entrench itself in the marketplace of the future.
Financial Times:
IBM announces 10 quantum computing projects, focusing mainly on areas like simulating quantum physics and solving problems in chemistry and materials science  —  Use of technology to solve scientific problems still falls short of commercialisation  —  Quantum computing is starting to fulfil …
The Guardian:
Investigation: Russia- and China-linked hackers targeted UK nuclear site Sellafield with sleeper malware as far back as 2015; data loss extent is still unknown  —  Exclusive: Malware may still be present and potential effects have been covered up by staff, investigation reveals

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
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:
Zoho CRM for Everyone - No More Missed Customers  —  Evolution is the secret of survival; everything that thrives in the world operates by that principle.  Animals, people, technology, products, businesses—and software, too.
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

Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Qasar Younis from Applied Intuition
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Airbnb's Midlife Transformation
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View:
China's catching up to US AI... Here's why it won't matter
Azeem Azhar explores how AI and exponential technologies are shaping our future.
Subscribe to Azeem Azhar's Exponential View.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
How Apple trapped itself in China
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.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Debunking Healthcare's Biggest Myths with Zach Weinberg and Derek Thompson
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
Spotlight On:
Supabase's Paul Copplestone on the difference between "playing startup" and strategy
A podcast from Accel about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.
Subscribe to Spotlight On.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:10 PM ET, December 4, 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

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Reuters:
Hayden Field / CNBC: