Techmeme
February 7, 2024, 1:50 PM

Top News

Wayne Ma / The Information:
Source: Apple is building prototypes of at least two iPhones that fold widthwise; the phones are in early development and not set for production in 2024 or 2025  —  Apple is building prototypes of at least two iPhones that fold widthwise like a clamshell, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation.
Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:
Apple partners with University of California researchers to release open-source AI model MGIE, which can edit images based on natural language instructions  —  Apple has released a new open-source AI model, called “MGIE,” that can edit images based on natural language instructions.
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Microsoft updates Copilot with a redesigned look, a new AI model for Copilot's Balanced mode called Deucalion, and new image creation and editing features  —  In a startling move, Microsoft today announced a redesigned look for its Copilot AI search and chatbot experience on the web …
Chainalysis:
Ransomware payments in 2023 hit a record $1.1B, up from $567M in 2022 and $983M in 2021, after a major escalation of the frequency, scope, and volume of attacks  —  The Chainalysis 2024 Crypto Crime Report  —  Coming soon  —  In 2023, ransomware actors intensified their operations …
Emilia David / The Verge:
OpenAI says DALL-E 3 will add watermarks to images with C2PA metadata but acknowledges the metadata can “easily be removed either accidentally or intentionally”  —  OpenAI's image generator DALL-E 3 will add watermarks to image metadata as more companies roll out support for standards …
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Charlie Sorrel / iFixit News:
Apple Vision Pro teardown: 50 Vision Pro pixels fit into a single iPhone 15 Pro pixel, the display is not technically 4K, has a ~100° field of view, and more  —  After the whirlwind of team activity that was our initial Vision Pro teardown, we've been digging much, much deeper into those dual displays …
Jane Zhang / Bloomberg:
Alibaba reports Q3 revenue up 5% YoY to ~$36.7B, net income down 69% YoY to ~$2B, Taobao and Tmall revenue up 2% YoY to ~$18B, and approves a $25B share buyback  —  - The move may appeal to some investors as growth plateaus  — Alibaba is grappling with market and internal uncertainty
Charles Pulliam-Moore / The Verge:
Disney begins emailing Disney+ subscribers about TOS changes that will make sharing accounts harder, days after sending out similar notices to Hulu subscribers  —  Today, Disney Plus began sending out emails informing subscribers about new changes to its terms of service that will …
Kate Knibbs / Wired:
An interview with Nebojša Vujinović Vujo, who runs 2,000+ AI-generated news sites, often hosted on popular, dormant domains, and claims to have human editors  —  Serbian DJ turned internet entrepreneur Nebojša Vujinović Vujo floods abandoned news sites with AI-generated articles.
Camilla Hodgson / Financial Times:
Uber reports Q4 revenue up 15% YoY to $9.9B, Gross Bookings up 22% YoY to $37.6B, a $1.9B net income, 150M MAUs, and first full-year operating profit of $1.1B  —  Rides, deliveries and ads increase as company celebrates ‘inflection point’  —  Uber has reported its first annual operating profit …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google updates Google Maps for Android to overlay the weather and air quality index when browsing the map layer, a feature the iOS app has had for some time  —  Like the iOS app, Google Maps for Android now overlays the weather and AQI when you're browsing the map layer.
Rohan Goswami / CNBC:
Roblox reports Q4 revenue up 30% YoY to $749.9M, bookings up 25% YoY to a record $1.1B, DAUs up 22% YoY to 71.5M, and $2.8B in 2023 revenue; RBLX jumps 13%+  —  - Roblox reported results for the fiscal fourth quarter and full year that beat consensus estimates on the top and bottom lines.
Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:
Smaug-72B, a Qwen-72B-based open-source LLM released by Abacus AI, tops the Hugging Face Open LLM leaderboard and outperforms GPT-3.5 on several benchmarks  —  A new open-source language model has claimed the throne of the best in the world, according to the latest rankings from Hugging Face …
Alexandre Rajbhandari / Bloomberg:
Paris-based payments company Worldline plans to lay off around 8% of its global workforce, or ~1,400 jobs, as it seeks to cut annual costs by €200M from 2025  —  - Company seeks to cut annual costs by €200 million from 2025  — Worldline employs about 18,000 staff in more than 40 countries
Kaitlyn Tiffany / The Atlantic:
Inside Zuzalu, a co-living experiment organized by Vitalik Buterin in Montenegro in 2023, as the techno-utopian “Network State” concept inspires more projects  —  Silicon Valley has always dreamed of building its own utopias.  Who's ready to move in?  —  I.
AJ Vicens / CyberScoop:
Google's TAG publishes a report on commercial spyware, detailing ~40 vendors, and says global governments should take more aggressive steps to combat spyware  —  The commercial spyware industry continues to supply highly advanced surveillance capabilities despite efforts to better regulate it.

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