Tuesday, February 28, 2023
How to customise the Touch Bar on MacBook Pro
Apple faces EU charge over App Store rules as regulators narrow case
Microsoft expands PC Game Pass to 40 new countries, including in Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, taking its total to 86 (Bloomberg)
Microsoft expands PC Game Pass to 40 new countries, including in Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, taking its total to 86 — The Xbox console has been the key to Microsoft Corp.'s clout in the gaming industry since its release more than two decades ago.
iPhone custom WhatsApp stickers: How to create, share and more
Research: PC-based GPU shipments fell 38% YoY to 64.2M in Q4 2022, with a 24% fall in desktops and 43% in notebooks, the biggest drop since a 2011 peak (Jon Peddie Research)
Research: PC-based GPU shipments fell 38% YoY to 64.2M in Q4 2022, with a 24% fall in desktops and 43% in notebooks, the biggest drop since a 2011 peak — Jon Peddie Research reports that the growth of the global PC-based graphics processor unit (GPU) market reached 64.2 million units …
Cashfree acquires Zecpe to strengthen its D2C Payments Suite
Monday, February 27, 2023
Fraudsters hit LinkedIn with recruitment scam wave amid tech layoffs
Snap plans to release a Snapchat chatbot, called "My AI", powered by OpenAI's ChatGPT, pinned to the app's chat tab, available initially to Plus subscribers (Alex Heath/The Verge)
Snap plans to release a Snapchat chatbot, called “My AI”, powered by OpenAI's ChatGPT, pinned to the app's chat tab, available initially to Plus subscribers — Snapchat is introducing a chatbot powered by the latest version of OpenAI's ChatGPT.
To achieve its chip moonshot, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says the US must reform its education system and triple graduates in chip-related fields by 2032 (Rana Foroohar/Financial Times)
To achieve its chip moonshot, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says the US must reform its education system and triple graduates in chip-related fields by 2032 — To build a domestic industry, the US must reform how it teaches its workforce — In the decade following US President John F …
Cloud security and visibility startup Wiz raised a $300M Series D led by Lightspeed at a $10B valuation, up from $6B in October 2021 after raising $250M (Meir Orbach/CTech)
Cloud security and visibility startup Wiz raised a $300M Series D led by Lightspeed at a $10B valuation, up from $6B in October 2021 after raising $250M — The Israeli startup said that it will not hold any of the funds in Israel due to the impending judicial coup
Google announces new features for Android, ChromeOS, and Wear OS, including Fast Pair support for Chromebooks, Keep shortcuts, and Wear OS accessibility modes (Aisha Malik/TechCrunch)
Google announces new features for Android, ChromeOS, and Wear OS, including Fast Pair support for Chromebooks, Keep shortcuts, and Wear OS accessibility modes — Google has announced a slew of new features for Android, Chromebook and Wear OS that are designed to improve connectivity, productivity and accessibility.
Sunday, February 26, 2023
Some experts, particularly those advocating for "ethical AI" or "responsible AI", say Microsoft and OpenAI's new Bing experiment is dangerous for the public (Wall Street Journal)
Some experts, particularly those advocating for “ethical AI” or “responsible AI”, say Microsoft and OpenAI's new Bing experiment is dangerous for the public — Even the people behind new artificial intelligence systems say their buzzy products are ‘somewhat broken.’ They're relying on us to fix them.
Reports: 50+ Twitter staff were laid off over the weekend, including Twitter's product lead Esther Crawford, and Revue founder Martijn de Kuijper (Emma Roth/The Verge)
Reports: 50+ Twitter staff were laid off over the weekend, including Twitter's product lead Esther Crawford, and Revue founder Martijn de Kuijper — Crawford headed up various projects at Twitter, including the company's Blue with verification subscription as well as Twitter's forthcoming payments platform.
Source: Esther Crawford, who became one of the most influential leaders at Twitter after Musk's takeover, is out as Director of Product Management (Zoë Schiffer/@zoeschiffer)
Source: Esther Crawford, who became one of the most influential leaders at Twitter after Musk's takeover, is out as Director of Product Management — Just got confirmation that Esther Crawford, chief executive of Twitter Payments, is out.
Inside Apple Exploratory Design Group, which works on a glucose monitor, other advanced tech, and was behind some of the chip and battery tech in iPhones, Macs (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)
Inside Apple Exploratory Design Group, which works on a glucose monitor, other advanced tech, and was behind some of the chip and battery tech in iPhones, Macs — Apple has a secret team working to bring noninvasive glucose monitoring to its smartwatch, but that's not all it's pursuing.
Some AI companies are hiring "prompt engineers", who create and refine text prompts for AI systems to understand their faults and coax optimal results (Drew Harwell/Washington Post)
Some AI companies are hiring “prompt engineers”, who create and refine text prompts for AI systems to understand their faults and coax optimal results — When Riley Goodside starts talking with the artificial-intelligence system GPT-3, he likes to first establish his dominance.
Editors at some literary magazines say they are getting overwhelmed by AI-generated submissions, potentially crowding out genuine submissions from newer writers (Mia Sato/The Verge)
Editors at some literary magazines say they are getting overwhelmed by AI-generated submissions, potentially crowding out genuine submissions from newer writers — A short story titled “The Last Hope” first hit Sheila Williams' desk in early January.
Saturday, February 25, 2023
Elliptic: pro-Ukraine causes received $200M+ in crypto donations in the last year, with $80M+ sent directly to Ukraine's government; Russian entities got ~$5M (Scott Chipolina/Financial Times)
Elliptic: pro-Ukraine causes received $200M+ in crypto donations in the last year, with $80M+ sent directly to Ukraine's government; Russian entities got ~$5M — Plus updates on all the big names, including Binance and FTX … Crypto's impact on geopolitical issues does not often make for uplifting reading.
U.S. formally ends fight against Meta's purchase of VR content maker
WhatsApp reportedly testing 'schedule group calls' feature on its platform
How thieves are watching iPhone owners publicly tap their passcodes to lock victims out of accounts, access data, and loot financial apps after stealing devices (Wall Street Journal)
How thieves are watching iPhone owners publicly tap their passcodes to lock victims out of accounts, access data, and loot financial apps after stealing devices — The passcode that unlocks your phone can give thieves access to your money and data; 'it's like a treasure box'
Midjourney temporarily bans some words about the human reproductive system to prevent generating shocking or gory images, while the company "improves things" (Melissa Heikkilä/MIT Technology Review)
Midjourney temporarily bans some words about the human reproductive system to prevent generating shocking or gory images, while the company “improves things” — Midjourney says it's a temporary measure to stop people from using its system to create shocking or gory images.
Crypto analytics firm Inca Digital: Huobi and KuCoin still allow traders to transact with debit cards issued by sanctioned Russian banks on their P2P platforms (Politico)
Crypto analytics firm Inca Digital: Huobi and KuCoin still allow traders to transact with debit cards issued by sanctioned Russian banks on their P2P platforms — Two of the world's largest crypto exchanges failed to take steps to prevent sanctioned Russian banks from using their platforms …
Friday, February 24, 2023
Lab grown diamonds are used in satellites, computer chips and jewellery
Memo: Ericsson plans to lay off 8,500 of its 105K+ employees, or 8% of its staff; in December, the company said it would cut costs by ~$880M by the end of 2023 (Supantha Mukherjee/Reuters)
Memo: Ericsson plans to lay off 8,500 of its 105K+ employees, or 8% of its staff; in December, the company said it would cut costs by ~$880M by the end of 2023 — Telecom equipment maker Ericsson (ERICb.ST) will lay off 8,500 employees globally as part of its plan to cut costs, a memo sent to employees and seen by Reuters said.
China says it sees the potential of ChatGPT-like technology
MWC Barcelona, arriving next week, feels more Europe-focused, with expected launches of Chinese phones already available in China and unlikely to come to the US (Jon Porter/The Verge)
MWC Barcelona, arriving next week, feels more Europe-focused, with expected launches of Chinese phones already available in China and unlikely to come to the US — In less than a week, some of the world's biggest mobile players will be crowded into the Fira de Barcelona convention center …
How the founders of the Buy Nothing Project, which grew via Facebook Groups of neighbors exchanging free stuff, built their own app amid member resentment (Vauhini Vara/Wired)
How the founders of the Buy Nothing Project, which grew via Facebook Groups of neighbors exchanging free stuff, built their own app amid member resentment — How an idealistic community for exchanging free stuff tried to break away from Facebook and ended up breaking apart.
Kuo: Apple plans a cheaper second-gen AR/MR headset with two high-end and low-end models, built by Luxcaseict and Foxconn, respectively, likely coming in 2025 (Tim Hardwick/MacRumors)
Kuo: Apple plans a cheaper second-gen AR/MR headset with two high-end and low-end models, built by Luxcaseict and Foxconn, respectively, likely coming in 2025 — Apple's cheaper second-generation AR/VR headset will come in two high-end and low-end models, according to Apple industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
Thursday, February 23, 2023
Alibaba reports Q3 revenue up 2% YoY to ~$35.9B, China commerce revenue down 1% YoY to ~$24.6B, and net income up 69% YoY to ~$6.8B; BABA jumps 6%+ (Arjun Kharpal/CNBC)
Alibaba reports Q3 revenue up 2% YoY to ~$35.9B, China commerce revenue down 1% YoY to ~$24.6B, and net income up 69% YoY to ~$6.8B; BABA jumps 6%+ — - Alibaba reported earnings for its fiscal third quarter that smashed expectations, sending shares soaring 6% higher.
Tel Aviv-based chip startup Chain Reaction, which plans to begin mass producing its blockchain chip Electrum, raised $70M led by Morgan Creek Digital (Jane Lanhee Lee/Reuters)
Tel Aviv-based chip startup Chain Reaction, which plans to begin mass producing its blockchain chip Electrum, raised $70M led by Morgan Creek Digital — Tel Aviv-based blockchain chip startup Chain Reaction on Thursday said it raised $70 million which will be used to expand its engineering team …
An analysis of 100+ studies finds that social media is a major cause of mental illness in teen girls, not just a tiny correlate, especially after 2012 (Jon Haidt/After Babel)
An analysis of 100+ studies finds that social media is a major cause of mental illness in teen girls, not just a tiny correlate, especially after 2012 — Journalists should stop saying that the evidence is just correlational — A big story last week was the partial release …
How to find songs for reels using Instagram's Audio tab
Analysis of the 40 most popular Android apps on the Google Play Store finds nearly 80% had discrepancies between their privacy policies and Data Safety labels (Mozilla Foundation)
Analysis of the 40 most popular Android apps on the Google Play Store finds nearly 80% had discrepancies between their privacy policies and Data Safety labels — The apps' privacy policies, however, both explicitly state that they share user information with advertisers, Internet service providers …
Wednesday, February 22, 2023
The SEC has now issued dozens of enforcement actions to crypto companies, moves critics say let the agency shape crypto without a direct system of regulations (Jesse Hamilton/CoinDesk)
The SEC has now issued dozens of enforcement actions to crypto companies, moves critics say let the agency shape crypto without a direct system of regulations — U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler thinks the cryptocurrency industry is playing a game with his agency.
Uber launches a redesigned version of its app globally, including adding a simpler homescreen, a Services tab, and live tracking on iOS 16 (Rebecca Bellan/TechCrunch)
Uber launches a redesigned version of its app globally, including adding a simpler homescreen, a Services tab, and live tracking on iOS 16 — Uber is releasing an updated version of its app that aims to simplify and personalize the experience for customers.
A look at Abu Dhabi-based AI startup G42, as sources say US intelligence officials fixated on CEO Xiao Peng ahead of its China divestment and Microsoft deal (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg : A look at Abu Dhabi-based AI startup G42, as sources say US intelligence officials fixated on CEO Xiao Peng ahead of its Chin...
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Jake Offenhartz / Gothamist : Since October, the NYPD has deployed a quadruped robot called Spot to a handful of crime scenes and hostage...
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Andrew Tarantola / Engadget : An adapted excerpt from the book “Your Computer Is on Fire”, on how voice assistants like Siri and Alexa al...
