Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Moto X40 receives HDR+ certification ahead of official launch

Previous rumours suggest that the upcoming Moto X40 smartphone will sport a 6.67-inch OLED display that might offer Full HD+ resolution. Under the hood, the device will be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC paired with LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 3.1 storage. https://ift.tt/SnsAJMH

Memo: Changpeng Zhao tells Binance staff to expect a "bumpy" several months but the exchange "will survive any crypto winter", following massive withdrawals (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Memo: Changpeng Zhao tells Binance staff to expect a “bumpy” several months but the exchange “will survive any crypto winter”, following massive withdrawals  —  Binance Holdings Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao warned his colleagues to expect tough months ahead …



Tuesday, December 13, 2022

Twitter dissolves Trust and Safety Council after key members quit

Twitter dissolved its advisory group Trust and Safety Council, after nearly all key members resigned in protest of controversial changes Elon Musk has brought to the company. https://ift.tt/U5GMnoX

Vic.ai, which offers an accounting automation service, raised a $52M Series C led by GGV Capital and ICONIQ Growth, bringing its total funding to $115M (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Vic.ai, which offers an accounting automation service, raised a $52M Series C led by GGV Capital and ICONIQ Growth, bringing its total funding to $115M  —  AI is an imperfect technology, but one task at which it excels is identifying patterns in vast amounts of data.



Officials and studies: US spy agencies have been slow to adapt to open source intelligence, falling behind China, which has the largest and most focused effort (Warren P. Strobel/Wall Street Journal)

Warren P. Strobel / Wall Street Journal:
Officials and studies: US spy agencies have been slow to adapt to open source intelligence, falling behind China, which has the largest and most focused effort  —  China outpaces efforts by U.S. intelligence agencies to harness power of publicly available data  —  The U.S. Strategy to Catch Up on China's Global Push for Influence



Chinese police arrest 63 people accused of laundering up to ~$1.7B using Tether, starting in May 2021, after arresting 1,100+ people on similar charges in 2021 (Arjun Kharpal/CNBC)

Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:
Chinese police arrest 63 people accused of laundering up to ~$1.7B using Tether, starting in May 2021, after arresting 1,100+ people on similar charges in 2021  —  - Police in China arrested 63 people accused of laundering as much as 12 billion Chinese yuan ($1.7 billion) via cryptocurrency.



Google's quest to digitize the US DoD's trove of 31M+ tissue samples and 55M+ slides, the world's largest human biorepository, raises ethical and legal concerns (James Bandler/ProPublica)

James Bandler / ProPublica:
Google's quest to digitize the US DoD's trove of 31M+ tissue samples and 55M+ slides, the world's largest human biorepository, raises ethical and legal concerns  —  ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power.  Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they're published.



The SEC charges Sam Bankman-Fried with defrauding investors and concealing diverting FTX customer funds to Alameda while raising over $1.8B (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission:
The SEC charges Sam Bankman-Fried with defrauding investors and concealing diverting FTX customer funds to Alameda while raising over $1.8B  —  Defendant concealed his diversion of FTX customers' funds to crypto trading firm Alameda Research while raising more than $1.8 billion from investors



Changpeng Zhao seeks to reassure Binance users on USDC outflows, saying they can "withdraw any other stablecoin"; Nansen shows $1.6B in ETH outflows in 24 hours (Adam James/The Block)

Adam James / The Block:
Changpeng Zhao seeks to reassure Binance users on USDC outflows, saying they can “withdraw any other stablecoin”; Nansen shows $1.6B in ETH outflows in 24 hours  —  - Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has addressed major USD Coin outflows.  — Some $1.6 billion has been withdrawn …



Sunday, December 11, 2022

Sources: Thoma Bravo is in advanced talks to acquire Coupa Software, which helps companies manage their spending, after outbidding Vista Equity Partners (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Sources: Thoma Bravo is in advanced talks to acquire Coupa Software, which helps companies manage their spending, after outbidding Vista Equity Partners  —  Thoma Bravo LLC is in advanced talks to acquire Coupa Software Inc. after outbidding Vista Equity Partners, according to people familiar with the matter.



With AI image generation tools like Stable Diffusion and DreamBooth, it's easy to make damaging deepfakes using just a few images of a person from social media (Benj Edwards/Ars Technica)

Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
With AI image generation tools like Stable Diffusion and DreamBooth, it's easy to make damaging deepfakes using just a few images of a person from social media  —  AI tech makes it trivial to generate harmful fake photos from a few social media pictures.  —  If you're one of the billions …



Twitter's Community Notes, the crowd-powered feature to fact check tweets previously known as Birdwatch, starts rolling out to all users globally (Igor Bonifacic/Engadget)

Igor Bonifacic / Engadget:
Twitter's Community Notes, the crowd-powered feature to fact check tweets previously known as Birdwatch, starts rolling out to all users globally  —  Twitter has begun rolling out Community Notes to all of its users globally, the company announced on Saturday.



The subpar performance of FAANG stocks, which account for more than 10% of the S&P 500 weighting, will be a big drag on the market in the coming years (Kit Rees/Bloomberg)

Kit Rees / Bloomberg:
The subpar performance of FAANG stocks, which account for more than 10% of the S&P 500 weighting, will be a big drag on the market in the coming years  —  For some investors, this year's rout in high-flying technology stocks is more than a bear market: It's the end of an era for a handful …



Ex-staffers say Twitter's mass firing of security staff and growing reliance on automation will help China and other authoritarian regimes in silencing critics (Adam Rawnsley/Rolling Stone)

Adam Rawnsley / Rolling Stone:
Ex-staffers say Twitter's mass firing of security staff and growing reliance on automation will help China and other authoritarian regimes in silencing critics  —  Elon's mass firing of security staff and increased reliance on automation is going to make it easier for tyrants to shout …



Uber's slow response to law enforcement requests and a complex request process are leaving drivers vulnerable to repeated attacks by riders using fake accounts (Dara Kerr/The Markup)

Dara Kerr / The Markup:
Uber's slow response to law enforcement requests and a complex request process are leaving drivers vulnerable to repeated attacks by riders using fake accounts  —  An investigation by The Markup found that Uber is slow to respond to law enforcement requests, leaving drivers vulnerable to repeated attacks



Electricians are flocking to regions around the US to build data centers, as AI shapes up to be an economy-bending force that creates boom towns (New York Times)

New York Times : Electricians are flocking to regions around the US to build data centers, as AI shapes up to be an economy-bending force...