Techmeme
December 23, 2023, 6:35 PM

Top News

New York Times:
Sources: Apple discussed multiyear $50M+ deals with NBC News, Condé Nast, IAC, and other media organizations to train its generative AI systems on news articles  —  The company has discussed multiyear deals worth at least $50 million to train its generative A.I. systems on publishers' news articles.
MacDonald Dzirutwe / Reuters:
The Central Bank of Nigeria lifts a ban, imposed in February 2021, on cryptocurrency transactions but says global trends show a need to regulate such activities  —  Nigeria's central bank has lifted a ban on transacting in cryptocurrencies, while saying global trends had shown a need to regulate …
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Ubisoft is investigating reports of a new security breach after security research collective VX-Underground shared screenshots of the company's internal tools  —  Ubisoft is investigating whether it suffered a breach after images of the company's internal software and developer tools were leaked online.
Edd Gent / IEEE Spectrum:
Experts warn against unrealistic expectations for quantum computers, citing the challenges in making fault-tolerant systems, qubits' slow operating speeds, more  —  Hype is everywhere, skeptics say, and practical applications are still far away  —  The quantum computer revolution …
Washington Post:
How Sam Altman, the dealmaking prodigy full of contradictions, became one of the best-known tech CEOs, including by cultivating close ties with Peter Thiel  —  Investing in everything from speakeasys to nuclear fusion, the Silicon Valley wunderkind, dealing-making prodigy is full of contradictions
Wall Street Journal:
Bots registered as 13-year-old users on TikTok were shown highly polarized content about the Israel-Hamas war in the For You feed, within hours after signing up  —  Imagine your 13-year-old signs up for TikTok and, while scrolling through videos, lingers on footage of explosions …
Bloomberg:
Sources: OpenAI is in early talks to raise funding at a $100B+ valuation, and discussed raising between $8B and $10B from Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a chip venture  —  OpenAI is in early discussions to raise a fresh round of funding at a valuation at or above $100 billion …
Steven Levy / Wired:
An interview with Meta Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun on open source AI, why AI danger is overhyped, whether AI could produce artistic work that has soul, more  —  It'll take over the world.  It won't subjugate humans.  For Meta's chief AI scientist, both things are true.  —  Do not preach doom to Yann LeCun.
Forbes:
How AI defense tech developer Rebellion Defense is struggling to survive after failing to win a US DOD contract, losing its founders, and shuttering its UK arm  —  Launched with funding from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Rebellion Defense promised to deliver cutting-edge AI for the U.S.-U.K. alliance.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Bluesky releases a public web view, allowing users to view posts on the platform without being logged in, and unveils a new logo with a butterfly  —  Bluesky remains an invite-only decentralized Twitter alternative, but now, you don't need to have an account and log in to be able to see posts …
Michael Gennaro / Courthouse News Service:
A US federal judge rules that Twitter breached its contracts with its employees by failing to pay bonuses in 2022, despite promising to pay 50% of the amounts  —  Current and former Twitter employees said they never received bonuses they were promised during Elon Musk's buyout of the social media platform.

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:
Recruiters, be that zeroth candidate  —  Welcome again!  Earlier, we looked at how personality assessments are evaluation tools that help look at candidates beyond resumes.  Let's look at how to use …
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

Lenny's Podcast:
Microsoft CPO: If you aren't prototyping with AI you're doing it wrong | Aparna Chennapragada
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Techmeme Ride Home:
(Bonus) World Cup Of Entrepreneurs Part 2
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Hard Fork:
Ed Helms Answers Your Hard Questions
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Great Chat:
Are VC jobs truly AI Proof? (Marc thinks so)
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:35 PM ET, December 23, 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

Josh Sisco / Politico:
Ken White / The Popehat Report:
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority:

Earlier Picks

Jay Peters / The Verge: