Techmeme
January 31, 2024, 1:40 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:
US Senate hearing: Mark Zuckerberg says Apple and Google app stores should verify ages; Linda Yaccarino says X isn't “the platform of choice for children”  —  Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and X's Linda Yaccarino are among five social media heads to face questioning by Congress
Angela Yang / NBC News:
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.”
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 the four major categories of apps that could emerge at the intersection of crypto and AI, and the prospects and challenges of each category  —  Special thanks to the Worldcoin and Modulus Labs teams, Xinyuan Sun, Martin Koeppelmann and Illia Polosukhin for feedback and discussion.
Aoyon Ashraf / CoinDesk:
An FTX lawyer says the 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, TexasThe biggest …
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 between 2014-2017  —  One of the world's largest seizures revealed during trial of woman accused of laundering cryptocurrency for her former employer
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 rising 2024 memory demand  —  - 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.
Dean Seal / Wall Street Journal:
The US DOJ says eBay agreed to pay $59M to settle allegations that it violated the Controlled Substances Act by allowing sales 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 not a big performance boost over the RTX 4070  —  Nvidia's RTX 4080 Super is the third and potentially final of Nvidia's refreshed 40-series GPUs.  The RTX 4070 Super got …
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 …
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
Alphabet:
Alphabet reports Q4 revenue up 13% YoY to $86B, net income up 52% to $20.7B, Google Cloud revenue up 26% to $9.2B, and headcount down 4%+; GOOG drops 5%+  —  MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - January 30, 2024 - Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG, GOOGL) today announced financial results for the quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2023.

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Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
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Microsoft:
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