Monday, March 20, 2023

Taiwan's Ministry of Finance data: chip exports to China and Hong Kong fell 31.3% YoY in February, the worst decline since 2009 and above January's 27.1% fall (Yoshihiro Sato/Bloomberg)

Yoshihiro Sato / Bloomberg:
Taiwan's Ministry of Finance data: chip exports to China and Hong Kong fell 31.3% YoY in February, the worst decline since 2009 and above January's 27.1% fall  —  Taiwan's exports of integrated circuit chips to China and Hong Kong fell for a fourth month in February as Washington-Beijing tensions simmer …



Learning social skills next target for AI: Study

Siri and Google Assistant may be able to schedule meetings on request, but so far they don't have the social understanding to independently prioritise the appointments. https://ift.tt/FYJUoBZ

Samsung to invest in smart manufacturing capability, research and development in India

"We will continue our investment to bring the optimised and or smart factory to the Noida facilities. We will continue our investment there. I believe this our investment for the smart factory will bring competitiveness in the production," Roh said. https://ift.tt/nGJpSP0

An interview with Sam Altman on OpenAI's GPT-4, how "people should be happy" that OpenAI is a "little bit scared of" its tools, misinformation, rivals, and more (ABC News)

ABC News:
An interview with Sam Altman on OpenAI's GPT-4, how “people should be happy” that OpenAI is a “little bit scared of” its tools, misinformation, rivals, and more  —  “This will be the greatest technology humanity has yet developed,” he said.  —  OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks with ABC News, Mar. 15, 2023.



How open source intelligence, or OSINT, researchers are using public data to untangle the mystery of the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage, helping debunk claims (Matt Burgess/Wired)

Matt Burgess / Wired:
How open source intelligence, or OSINT, researchers are using public data to untangle the mystery of the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage, helping debunk claims  —  Open source intelligence researchers are verifying and debunking opaque claims about who ruptured the gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea.



China's anti-graft watchdog begins to investigate ex-Tsinghua Unigroup Chairman Zhao Weiguo, the latest executive to be ensnared in its chip corruption dragnet (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
China's anti-graft watchdog begins to investigate ex-Tsinghua Unigroup Chairman Zhao Weiguo, the latest executive to be ensnared in its chip corruption dragnet  —  China's top anti-graft watchdog has begun an investigation of former Tsinghua Unigroup Chairman Zhao Weiguo …



Sunday, March 19, 2023

Learning social skills next target for AI: Study

Siri and Google Assistant may be able to schedule meetings on request, but so far they don't have the social understanding to independently prioritise the appointments. According to researchers based in China, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is smart, but it is stunted by a lack of social skills. "Artificial intelligence has changed our society and our daily life," first author Lifeng Fan, from Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence (BIGAI) said. https://ift.tt/QKgXDW4

UK scientists develop 'cosmic concrete' to build houses on Mars

A team of scientists in the UK has created a new material, dubbed 'StarCrete' which is made from extra-terrestrial dust, potato starch, and a pinch of salt and could be used to build houses on Martian surface. Building infrastructure in space is currently prohibitively expensive and difficult to achieve. But, StarCrete offers one possible solution, according to the team at the University of Manchester. https://ift.tt/yQ19iHS

YouTube Music will now auto-download recently played songs on Android

YouTube Music has got a new feature that will enable users to automatically download recently played songs they played. The feature, which is available on Android, is enabled by default. The feature was spotted by 9to5Google, and a few TOI-Gadgets now team members are able to see it under Settings > Downloads and storage menu. The feature is available for those with a Premium subscription. https://ift.tt/B5Km9RL

Source: in an upcoming testimony to Congress this Thursday, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew plans to say TikTok has 150M MAUs in the US, up from 100M in August 2020 (Carol E. Lee/NBC News)

Carol E. Lee / NBC News:
Source: in an upcoming testimony to Congress this Thursday, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew plans to say TikTok has 150M MAUs in the US, up from 100M in August 2020  —  When TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies before Congress on Thursday, he plans to unveil new internal data that suggests …



The FDIC announces an agreement to sell Signature Bank's assets to Flagstar Bank, a subsidiary of New York Community Bancorp (Pete Schroeder/Reuters)

Pete Schroeder / Reuters:
The FDIC announces an agreement to sell Signature Bank's assets to Flagstar Bank, a subsidiary of New York Community Bancorp  —  A subsidiary of New York Community Bancorp (NYCB.N) has entered into an agreement with U.S. regulators to purchase deposits and loans from New York-based Signature Bank …



Sources: Netflix's ad-supported tier reached about 1M MAUs in the US after its second month, and the company has hit its forecasted deliveries to advertisers (Lucas Shaw/Bloomberg)

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Sources: Netflix's ad-supported tier reached about 1M MAUs in the US after its second month, and the company has hit its forecasted deliveries to advertisers  —  Good afternoon from Los Angeles.  It's good to be home and I hope your March Madness bracket is doing better than mine.



UChicago researchers launch a free app to help artists prevent AI models from stealing their "artistic IP", by adding imperceptible "perturbations" to their art (Natasha Lomas/TechCrunch)

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
UChicago researchers launch a free app to help artists prevent AI models from stealing their “artistic IP”, by adding imperceptible “perturbations” to their art  —  Generative art's style mimicry, interrupted  —  The asymmetry in time and effort it takes human artists …



Researchers detail a recently fixed aCropalypse vulnerability in Google Pixel's Markup tool that lets some screenshots be retroactively unredacted or uncropped (Abner Li/9to5Google)

Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Researchers detail a recently fixed aCropalypse vulnerability in Google Pixel's Markup tool that lets some screenshots be retroactively unredacted or uncropped  —  Besides the Samsung Exynos modem issue, Android 13 QPR2 with the March 2023 security update fixes a vulnerability with the Pixel's Markup screenshot tool.



Finland, Canada, the US, and other countries are testing tech for passport-free travel, including facial recognition and a "digital travel credential" (Matt Burgess/Wired)

Matt Burgess / Wired : Finland, Canada, the US, and other countries are testing tech for passport-free travel, including facial recogniti...