Techmeme
December 7, 2023, 7:50 PM

Top News

Jay Peters / The Verge:
Meta rolls out end-to-end encryption to Messenger by default for one-on-one chats and calls, fulfilling a yearslong promise; E2EE for group chats remains opt-in  —  Meta is now rolling out end-to-end encryption for one-on-one chats and calls on Messenger and Facebook, finally fulfilling …
Wall Street Journal:
The US and UK governments jointly accuse Russia's FSB of orchestrating a wide-ranging, global hacking campaign since 2015 to interfere in British elections  —  The cyberattacks also allegedly took aim at U.S. energy networks and American spies  —  LONDON—The U.S. and U.K. governments …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Users say Google's Gemini Pro is loath to comment on potentially controversial news topics, fails to get basic facts right, and struggles with some coding tasks  —  This week, Google took the wraps off of Gemini, its new flagship generative AI model meant to power a range of products …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Montenegro Justice Minister Andrej Milovic has privately said he plans to extradite Do Kwon to the US rather than South Korea to face criminal charges  —  Alexander Osipovich and Marko Vešović  —  Montenegro's top justice official has privately said he plans …
Maxwell Zeff / Gizmodo:
X rolls out xAI's snarky, anti-woke chatbot Grok to X Premium+ users; X CEO Linda Yaccarino describes Grok as “the ultimate ride or die”  —  Select users with X Premium Plus received access to the AI starting Thursday.  —  Elon Musk's snarky, anti-woke chatbot, Grok …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Sony removing Discovery content due to licensing “arrangements” and unexpectedly banning PSN accounts are timely reminders that users don't own digital content  —  In less than a week, Sony has given us two timely reminders of the tenuousness of digital “ownership” — and both reminders involve things on PlayStation.
Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft says Russia-aligned propagandists duped at least seven Western celebrities via Cameo into recording videos used to attack Ukraine's President Zelensky  —  Microsoft found that celebrities were tricked into making videos used to attack Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
Wall Street Journal:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Meta rolls out tags on Threads, offering support for multiple words and spaces, and no # symbol; posts can only have one tag and the tag view is the search view  —  Tags — basically hashtags with a twist — are now rolling out globally on Threads, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced on Thursday.
Ben Weiss / Fortune:
Block opens preorders for its self-custodial Bitcoin hardware wallet Bitkey in 95+ countries, coming to the US in early 2024 for $150, after a beta in June 2023  —  Block, the payments company led by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, announced on Thursday that Bitkey, a physical device …
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
Researchers detail AutoSpill, a flaw in Android that can expose users' saved credentials from 1Password, LastPass, Keeper, and other popular password managers  —  A number of popular mobile password managers are inadvertently spilling user credentials due to a vulnerability in the autofill functionality of Android apps.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Spotify says CFO Paul Vogel plans to leave on March 31, 2024, and launches a search for a successor; Daniel Ek wants a CFO “with a different mix of experiences”  —  Spotify said chief financial officer Paul Vogel will leave the company next year and that it has launched a search to find a replacement.
Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg:
Robinhood launches a commission-free crypto trading app, supporting 25+ cryptocurrencies, in the EU, a week after the company launched stock trading in the UK  —  - More than 25 tokens available to trade for free at launch  — Launch comes as Bitcoin's price recovers to 19-month high
Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE:
Microsoft announces a major security leadership reshuffle as part of its Secure Future Initiative, replacing Bret Arsenault with Igor Tsyganskiy as Global CISO  —  Microsoft Corp. has announced a significant shakeup of its security team, with its long-time leader being put into a new role …
Erin Griffith / New York Times:
PitchBook estimates that at least ~3,200 private venture-backed US startups, which had raised a combined $27.2B in VC funding, have gone out of business in 2023  —  After staving off collapse by cutting costs, many young tech companies are out of options, fueling a cash bonfire.
Hayden Field / CNBC:
Q&A with IBM CEO Arvind Krishna on AI's business uses, Biden's EO, rolling out WatsonX in July 2023, growing IBM's AI business, falling behind in AI, and more  —  - IBM is angling hard for an AI comeback story, and CEO Arvind Krishna is counting on a recent pivot to enterprise AI tools in order to get there.
Financial Times:
A profile of Chinese whistleblower Tang Mingfang, who is still paying the price for calling out injustices at a Foxconn factory making Amazon devices in 2019  —  Four years after Tang Mingfang called out the injustices he witnessed at a Foxconn factory in China, nothing has changed — except for him
Jim Norman / Nintendo Life:
Nintendo cancels Nintendo Live 2024 Tokyo and delays Splatoon and Mario Kart esports events after “persistently receiving threats” against staff and spectators  —  Splatoon and Mario Kart events postponed too  —  Nintendo has today announced that the first Nintendo Live event of 2024 …
Kaya Yurieff / The Information:
TikTok forms a task force to tackle hate speech and plans to open its research API to civil society groups, after complaints about viral Israel-Hamas war videos  —  TikTok is preparing a slew of initiatives to defuse growing complaints that antisemitism and other hate speech has proliferated in videos about the Hamas-Israel war.

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.
Zoho:
The crossroads of AI and SaaS  —  Enabling businesses of all sizes to build products in-house and disqualifying SaaS tools that are not AI-powered.  In a span of just two years, AI has made a name for itself as the key driver for innovation.
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
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.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 12/20 - Gemini Flash Thinking
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 7:50 PM ET, December 7, 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

Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE:
Vittoria Elliott / Wired:

Earlier Picks

Reuters:
Washington Post:
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Rebekah Valentine / IGN:
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
Drew Harwell / Washington Post: