Techmeme
December 23, 2023, 3:20 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 …
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 …
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 …
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.
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.
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.
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 …
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority:
A Google Play Services update suggests Google's file-sharing feature Nearby Share could be rebranded to Quick Share, the name Samsung uses for a similar tool  —  - Nearby Share is Google's peer-to-peer file sharing service available on all Android devices with Google apps.

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:
How EQ plays a defining role in workplace communication  —  What if everyone you worked with had a psychic ability to understand how you're feeling and respond accordingly?  Wouldn't that be great?
IDrive:
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More News

Josh Sisco / Politico:
Ken White / The Popehat Report:

Earlier Picks

Jay Peters / The Verge:
Leo Schwartz / Fortune: