Wednesday, February 1, 2023

An interview with Chris Miller, a Tufts professor and author of the book Chip War, on EUV lithography, ASML's role in global chip manufacturing, TSMC, and more (Nilay Patel/The Verge)

Nilay Patel / The Verge:
An interview with Chris Miller, a Tufts professor and author of the book Chip War, on EUV lithography, ASML's role in global chip manufacturing, TSMC, and more  —  Professor Chris Miller's new book Chip War explains the complicated global politics inside your iPhone.



A look at Spanish-language livestreaming growth on Twitch; the platform's audience for Spanish, its fastest-growing language, grew sixfold from 2019 to 2022 (Cecilia D'Anastasio/Bloomberg)

Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg:
A look at Spanish-language livestreaming growth on Twitch; the platform's audience for Spanish, its fastest-growing language, grew sixfold from 2019 to 2022  —  Samantha Rivera was studying engineering in Mexico in 2020 when a group of friends convinced her she could draw an audience …



A report by the White House's NTIA describes Apple and Google as "gatekeepers" of mobile app stores and suggests legislation to improve competition and choice (Ashley Gold/Axios)

Ashley Gold / Axios:
A report by the White House's NTIA describes Apple and Google as “gatekeepers” of mobile app stores and suggests legislation to improve competition and choice  —  A new Biden administration report describes Apple and Google as “gatekeepers” of mobile app stores and suggests legislation …



Meta's Ready at Dawn studio plans to shutter Echo VR, one of the best-rated and most popular free Quest games, after layoffs, to focus on "our next project" (Ben Lang/Road to VR)

Ben Lang / Road to VR:
Meta's Ready at Dawn studio plans to shutter Echo VR, one of the best-rated and most popular free Quest games, after layoffs, to focus on “our next project”  —  As a parting gift, players can claim lots of premium cosmetic items for free  —  The Entire VR Industry in One Little Email



Sources: the UK's semiconductor plan, which missed a publication deadline last fall, has suffered from government disarray, as the US and EU move forward (Politico)

Politico:
Sources: the UK's semiconductor plan, which missed a publication deadline last fall, has suffered from government disarray, as the US and EU move forward  —  The UK's long-awaited chips strategy remains mired in Whitehall wrangling.  —  LONDON — As nations around the world scramble …



Western Digital raised $900M from Apollo Global and Elliott, sources say as a precursor to a merger with Japan's Kioxia, as the memory chip industry struggles (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Western Digital raised $900M from Apollo Global and Elliott, sources say as a precursor to a merger with Japan's Kioxia, as the memory chip industry struggles  —  Western Digital Corp. is receiving a $900 million investment led by Apollo Global Management Inc., getting financial firepower …



A look at Blind, an anonymous professional networking site that has emerged as a lifeline for tech workers seeking information and advice about the mass layoffs (Catherine Thorbecke/CNN)

Catherine Thorbecke / CNN:
A look at Blind, an anonymous professional networking site that has emerged as a lifeline for tech workers seeking information and advice about the mass layoffs  —  In the week before Microsoft publicly announced plans to cut 10,000 jobs, thousands of workers at the tech giant who were eager …



Tuesday, January 31, 2023

A roundup of potential rivals to OpenAI's ChatGPT service: DeepMind's Sparrow, Google's LaMDA, Anthropic's Claude, and Character AI (Sharon Goldman/VentureBeat)

Sharon Goldman / VentureBeat:
A roundup of potential rivals to OpenAI's ChatGPT service: DeepMind's Sparrow, Google's LaMDA, Anthropic's Claude, and Character AI  —  Today, ChatGPT is two months old.  —  Yes, believe it or not, it was less than nine weeks ago that OpenAI launched what it simply described as an …



A look at the history of generative AI and developments that paved the way for breakthroughs, including CUDA, convolutional neural networks, and transformers (Haomiao Huang/Ars Technica)

Haomiao Huang / Ars Technica:
A look at the history of generative AI and developments that paved the way for breakthroughs, including CUDA, convolutional neural networks, and transformers  —  A new class of incredibly powerful AI models has made recent breakthroughs possible.  —  Progress in AI systems often feels cyclical.



EU Commission changes, triggered by human rights group ICCL, mean regulators in Ireland and elsewhere will report six times a year on GDPR, violations, and more (Parmy Olson/Bloomberg)

Parmy Olson / Bloomberg:
EU Commission changes, triggered by human rights group ICCL, mean regulators in Ireland and elsewhere will report six times a year on GDPR, violations, and more  —  It's well established that the European Union has some of the strictest privacy laws in the world, threatening fines of up to 4% of a company's annual turnover.



Dutch social enterprise Fairphone, which makes sustainable, modular consumer electronics, raised €49M in "growth capital", bringing its total funding to ~€86.6M (Natasha Lomas/TechCrunch)

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Dutch social enterprise Fairphone, which makes sustainable, modular consumer electronics, raised €49M in “growth capital”, bringing its total funding to ~€86.6M  —  Dutch social enterprise Fairphone, which makes modular and — the claim is — more sustainable …



An in-depth analysis of Yandex's leaked source code shows 17,854 ranking factors, scraping Google, Bing, YouTube, and TikTok, "Vital Hosts" boosts, and more (Michael King/Search Engine Land)

Michael King / Search Engine Land:
An in-depth analysis of Yandex's leaked source code shows 17,854 ranking factors, scraping Google, Bing, YouTube, and TikTok, “Vital Hosts” boosts, and more  —  Yandex isn't Google, but there is a lot SEOs can learn about how a modern search engine is built from reviewing this codebase.



A draft EU proposal details plans to ask Netflix, Alphabet, and other "large traffic generators" to help pay for next-generation internet infrastructure (Jillian Deutsch/Bloomberg)

Jillian Deutsch / Bloomberg:
A draft EU proposal details plans to ask Netflix, Alphabet, and other “large traffic generators” to help pay for next-generation internet infrastructure  —  The European Union is weighing a proposal to make technology companies that use the most bandwidth, like Netflix Inc. and Alphabet Inc. …



Russian cryptocurrency payment network A7 expands to Africa, as Moscow builds an alternative payments system amid western sanctions after its Ukraine invasion (Financial Times)

Financial Times : Russian cryptocurrency payment network A7 expands to Africa, as Moscow builds an alternative payments system amid weste...