Techmeme
December 20, 2023, 6:35 AM

Top News

Leah Nylen / Bloomberg:
Pharmacy chain Rite Aid must stop using facial recognition for five years as part of a settlement with the US FTC, which says the tech falsely flagged customers  —  - FTC says chain's surveillance system falsely flagged customers  — Bankrupt pharmacy chain will stop using system, delete images
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Nickolas Diaz / Android Central:
Samsung adds the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Z Fold 5 to its Self-Repair program, the first foldable devices, and expands the program to 30 more countries in Europe  —  Its latest smartphone series and laptop join in, too.  —  What you need to know  — Samsung has expanded coverage of its Self-Repair program …
Saritha Rai / Bloomberg:
Researchers say AI robot CyberRunner outmaneuvers humans in the maze game Labyrinth, in a breakthrough for AI beating humans at direct physical applications  —  - Robot learned in record time to guide a ball through a maze  — The AI robot used two knobs to manipulate playing surface
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Microsoft Copilot can now compose songs, including lyrics, instruments, and voices, from a sentence, due to a new integration with generative AI music app Suno  —  Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft's AI-powered chatbot, can now compose songs thanks to an integration with gen AI music app Suno.
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Interpol: a global law enforcement operation led by South Korea seized $300M and led to the arrest of 3,500 cybercrime suspects between July and December 2023  —  An international law enforcement operation codenamed ‘Operation HAECHI IV’ has led to the arrest of 3,500 suspects …
Anissa Gardizy / The Information:
Sources: AWS plans to overhaul its 60K-person sales team and aims to increase the share of Fortune 1,000 companies spending $10M+/year from less than 20% to 80%  —  Matt Garman, head of sales at Amazon Web Services, plans to reorganize his more than 60,000-person team to address problems …
Michael Kan / PCMag:
HughesNet debuts a $110/month 100Mbps satellite internet plan, double its previous top speed; Starlink offers 220Mbps, but US Ookla data shows many get ~70Mbps  —  HughesNet's speed boost comes courtesy of the recently launched Jupiter 3 satellite, which is designed to serve customers in the Americas.
Ellen Huet / Bloomberg:
A look at the tech sector's longevity obsession, with Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, Larry Page, and others pledging millions of dollars to firms pursuing longer life  —  Tech titans, venture capitalists, crypto enthusiasts and AI researchers have turned longevity research into something between the hottest science and a tragic comedy.
John Herrman / New York Magazine:
OpenAI's deals with publishers are a hedge against a scenario in which scraping becomes harder, training material more expensive, and real-time data more scarce  —  This past week, Axel Springer, the German media conglomerate that owns Politico and Business Insider, signed a “multiyear licensing deal” …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
The EU designates Pornhub, XVideos, and Stripchat as Very Large Online Platforms under the DSA, meaning stricter rules on age verification and illegal content  —  Porn sites Pornhub, XVideos, and Stripchat face stricter requirements to verify the ages of their users after being officially designated as …
Sarah Zheng / Bloomberg:
Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu takes over the e-commerce business from Trudy Dai, one of Alibaba's earliest employees, who will now help oversee non-core assets globally  —  - Two-decade veteran Trudy Dai will help set up a holding firm  — Alibaba's growth has fizzled out in recent years as PDD arose
Emilia David / The Verge:
Stability AI debuts Stability AI Membership, with free, $20/month, and custom pricing enterprise tiers, limiting commercial use of its models to the paid tiers  —  Stability AI, the maker of the text-to-image model Stable Diffusion, is now offering a subscription service that standardizes …
John Yoon / New York Times:
A look at South Korea's AI industry, one of the world's most competitive and diverse, as startups train on Korean language and culture to compete with US giants  —  While they lag behind their U.S. counterparts, their focus on non-English languages could help loosen the American grip on artificial intelligence.
More: MSPoweruser
David Shepardson / Reuters:
The NIST seeks public input by February 2, 2024 for setting guidelines to evaluate the safety of generative AI systems, as directed by President Biden's AI EO  —  The Biden administration said on Tuesday it was taking the first step toward writing key standards and guidance for the safe deployment …

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 6:35 AM ET, December 20, 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

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Meir Orbach / CTech:

Earlier Picks

David Heaney / UploadVR:
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Ben Glickman / Wall Street Journal:
Kanishka Singh / Reuters: