Techmeme
January 31, 2024, 2:25 PM

Top News

Washington Post:
A live blog of the US Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on kids' online safety, including testimony from Mark Zuckerberg, Linda Yaccarino, and Evan Spiegel  —  The chief executives of five major tech companies are testifying Wednesday about allegations they failed to protect children …
New York Times:
US lawmakers release 90 pages of Meta emails from 2021, showing Mark Zuckerberg rejected calls to bulk up resources for children's well-being and safety  —  Lawmakers released internal emails detailing the company's failed efforts to add staff to focus on the online safety of minors, hours before a hearing on the topic.
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:
Angela Yang / NBC News:
Mark Zuckerberg apologizes to parents in the audience of a US Senate hearing who say that Meta's apps contributed to their children's suicide or exploitation  —  “I'm sorry for everything you've all gone through,” the Meta CEO said at a Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing called …
Dustin Volz / Wall Street Journal:
The FBI and US DOJ disrupt Volt Typhoon, a uniquely dangerous Chinese hacking operation to hijack hundreds of Cisco and Netgear routers at end-of-life status  —  Chinese hackers prepare to ‘wreak havoc’ against Americans, FBI Director Chris Wray tells Congress
MK Manoylov / The Block:
Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen confirms “unauthorized access” to “a few of my personal XRP accounts”, after ZachXBT noted outflows of 213M XRP, worth $112.5M  —  - Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen said Wednesday that there had been “unauthorized access” to “a few of my personal XRP accounts.”
Aoyon Ashraf / CoinDesk:
An FTX lawyer says the defunct crypto exchange expects to fully repay its customers and has abandoned efforts to restart the platform, due to a lack of buyers  —  Its FTT token surged about 11% after the news.  —  10 Years of Decentralizing the Future  —  May 29-31, 2024 - Austin …
Todd Spangler / Variety:
UMG plans to stop licensing content to TikTok after their deal expires on January 31, saying they didn't reach terms over issues like artist compensation and AI  —  UMG said that its agreement with TikTok is set to expire on Jan. 31.  “The companies have not agreed to terms for a new agreement …
Vitalik Buterin / Vitalik Buterin's website:
A look at four major categories of promising applications that could emerge at the intersections of crypto and AI, and the prospects and challenges of each  —  Special thanks to the Worldcoin and Modulus Labs teams, Xinyuan Sun, Martin Koeppelmann and Illia Polosukhin for feedback and discussion.
Eri Sugiura / Financial Times:
UK prosecutors say the Met Police seized 61K bitcoin, worth £1.4B+, in 2018, as part of a trial over an alleged ~£5B investment fraud in China from 2014 to 2017  —  One of the world's largest seizures revealed during trial of woman accused of laundering cryptocurrency for her former employer
Dean Seal / Wall Street Journal:
The US DOJ says eBay agreed to pay $59M to settle allegations of violating the Controlled Substances Act by allowing the sale of pill presses and other items  —  Justice Department says eBay has also agreed to enhance its compliance program  —  EBay will pay $59 million to settle …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Nvidia RTX 4080 Super review: a $200 price cut to $999, 16GB of VRAM, and impressive 4K performance, but a bulky adapter and outperforms the RTX 4070 a little  —  Nvidia's RTX 4080 Super is the third and potentially final of Nvidia's refreshed 40-series GPUs.
Sheila Chiang / CNBC:
Samsung reports Q4 revenue down 3.8% YoY to ~$51B, vs. ~$52.1B est., operating profit down 35% YoY to ~$2.1B, vs. ~$2.6B est., and a memory chip price recovery  —  - Samsung on Wednesday reported a 34.57% drop in operating profit in the fourth quarter from a year ago, in line with its guidance issued earlier this month.
Adrienne LaFrance / The Atlantic:
Silicon Valley's powerful companies claim to embrace Enlightenment values, but instead are leading an antidemocratic, illiberal, and authoritarian technocracy  —  Silicon Valley has its own ascendant political ideology.  It's past time we call it what it is.
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Bipartisan Senators unveil the DEFIANCE Act, which would let people sue over deepfake porn and other AI “intimate” images, after the viral Taylor Swift images  —  US lawmakers have proposed letting people sue over faked pornographic images of themselves, following the spread …
Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:
23andMe's stock, which hit a $6B valuation after a 2021 IPO, has crashed 98% and 23andMe may run out of cash by 2025, as CEO Anne Wojcicki plots a turnaround  —  From celebrity ‘spit parties’ to a drop in the bucket: The once-hot DNA-testing company is struggling to profit
More: NewserForums: Hacker News and Slashdot
Tej Parikh / Financial Times:
Q&A with Stanford professor Erik Brynjolfsson on generative AI, potential productivity gains, his “J-curve” and “Turing trap” concepts, AI drawbacks, and more  —  The Stanford professor on what generative AI will mean for productivity, jobs and the society of the future
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
The Reserve Bank of India issues new curbs against Paytm's Payments Bank, including barring new deposits, credit transactions, and more after February 29  —  The Reserve Bank of India issued new strict curbs on Paytm's Payments Bank, which processes transactions for financial services giant Paytm …
Paresh Dave / Wired:
Sources: Google splits up its 30-strong Responsible Innovation team, after leader and founder Jen Gennai suddenly left; RESIN conducted 500+ reviews in 2023  —  A crucial team at Google that reviewed new AI products for compliance with its rules for responsible AI development faces …
Greg Bensinger / Reuters:
Sources: Cruise does not expect to see its robotaxis on city streets again until Q4 2024 and is considering Houston and Dallas as likely cities for a relaunch  —  General Motors' (GM.N) Cruise self-driving car unit faces a trip that could last the better part of this year to convince regulators …
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Q&A with Sen. Brian Schatz on Congress' dysfunction in the tech space, regulating tech firms, the EU's DMA, AI, deepfakes, social media laws for kids, and more  —  Today, I'm talking with Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii.  He's been in the Senate for a little more than a decade now, and he's seen a lot in that time.
More: BloombergThreads: @aaronrosspowellX: @senbrianschatz and @ksandler1Forums: r/politics
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft Q2: devices revenue down 9% YoY, Windows OEM revenue up 11% YoY, Xbox content and services revenue up 61% YoY, search and news ad revenue up 8% YoY  —  Microsoft just posted the second quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results.  The software maker made $62 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q2.
Microsoft:

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Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
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Alphabet: