Sunday, August 14, 2022

A look at the growing bipartisan scrutiny of TikTok in the US; email: House officials told staff they did not recommend using the app, citing security concerns (David McCabe/New York Times)

David McCabe / New York Times:
A look at the growing bipartisan scrutiny of TikTok in the US; email: House officials told staff they did not recommend using the app, citing security concerns  —  National security concerns over the Chinese-owned viral video app remain unresolved.  Lawmakers and regulators are increasingly pushing for action.



New York City-based Kumospace, which offers video chat and remote work tools with a "virtual office" feel, has raised a $21M Series A led by Lightspeed (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
New York City-based Kumospace, which offers video chat and remote work tools with a “virtual office” feel, has raised a $21M Series A led by Lightspeed  —  After more than two years of remote work, many employees have no interest in returning to the office — at least not without good reason.



Big investment firms, including Abrdn, BlackRock, and Charles Schwab, are embracing digital assets despite the crypto crash, as consumer groups raise concerns (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
Big investment firms, including Abrdn, BlackRock, and Charles Schwab, are embracing digital assets despite the crypto crash, as consumer groups raise concerns  —  Abrdn, BlackRock and Charles Schwab have done deals or launched products tied to digital assets this month



Some computational neuroscientists say self-supervised AI learning models have shown a closer correspondence to brain function than supervised-learning models (Anil Ananthaswamy/Quanta Magazine)

Anil Ananthaswamy / Quanta Magazine:
Some computational neuroscientists say self-supervised AI learning models have shown a closer correspondence to brain function than supervised-learning models  —  Self-supervised learning allows a neural network to figure out for itself what matters.  The process might be what makes our own brains so successful.



Analysis: Tencent and Alibaba, whose stocks have dropped 60% and 65% respectively since February 2021, have lost more market value than any other stock globally (Jeanny Yu/Bloomberg)

Jeanny Yu / Bloomberg:
Analysis: Tencent and Alibaba, whose stocks have dropped 60% and 65% respectively since February 2021, have lost more market value than any other stock globally  —  Just 18 months ago, Tencent Holdings Ltd. was on the cusp of becoming Asia's second trillion-dollar company …



Source: China has blocked Tencent-backed health platform DXY from posting on Weibo, WeChat, and Douyin amid its criticism of China's efforts to fight COVID-19 (Cissy Zhou/Nikkei Asia)

Cissy Zhou / Nikkei Asia:
Source: China has blocked Tencent-backed health platform DXY from posting on Weibo, WeChat, and Douyin amid its criticism of China's efforts to fight COVID-19  —  Dingxiang Yuan posted articles debunking use of traditional medicine for virus  —  HONG KONG — China has suspended …



Saturday, August 13, 2022

A look at Sam Bankman-Fried's US lobbying, seeking to make CFTC, not SEC, oversee crypto markets and change how commodity futures markets operate in the US (Freddy Brewster/Los Angeles Times)

Freddy Brewster / Los Angeles Times:
A look at Sam Bankman-Fried's US lobbying, seeking to make CFTC, not SEC, oversee crypto markets and change how commodity futures markets operate in the US  —  In May, an eccentric 30-year-old cryptocurrency billionaire named Sam Bankman-Fried made a startling proclamation.



Experts say Coinbase's decision to stop emailed price alerts during 2022's crypto crash likely contributed to retail investor losses and was potentially illegal (Ali Breland/Mother Jones)

Ali Breland / Mother Jones:
Experts say Coinbase's decision to stop emailed price alerts during 2022's crypto crash likely contributed to retail investor losses and was potentially illegal  —  Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.



Zoom vulnerability can give attackers root access to macOS: Report

A security researcher has found a way that an attacker could leverage the macOS version of Zoom to gain access over the entire operating system. https://ift.tt/LCx8s4P

Researcher hacks Elon Musk's Starlink internet system with homemade device: Report

A cyber-security researcher has hacked the Elon Musk-run Starlink satellite-based internet system by using a $25 homemade device. https://ift.tt/hTrGq3n

Stable Diffusion, a DALL-E 2-like system now available to 1K+ researchers, is raising tricky ethical questions by allowing depictions of public figures and more (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Stable Diffusion, a DALL-E 2-like system now available to 1K+ researchers, is raising tricky ethical questions by allowing depictions of public figures and more  —  DALL-E 2, OpenAI's powerful text-to-image AI system, can create photos in the style of cartoonists, 19th century daguerreotypists, stop-motion animators and more.



Google is reportedly warning employees about layoffs

As Big Tech companies begin to lay off employees in the global economic downturn, Google executives have reportedly warned workers to either boost performance or prepare to leave as "there will be blood on the streets" if the next quarterly earnings are not good. https://ift.tt/DOT98za

Cisco says hacker breached its network via employee Google account

"During the investigation, it was determined that a Cisco employee's credentials were compromised after an attacker gained control of a personal Google account," wrote Cisco Talos. https://ift.tt/3RsBm5A

Sources: the US State Department ordered embassies to push back against foreign influence campaigns, as officials worry anti-US views are taking root worldwide (New York Times)

New York Times : Sources: the US State Department ordered embassies to push back against foreign influence campaigns, as officials worry ...