Sunday, June 18, 2023

Hands-on with an Adobe Photoshop beta's Generative Fill AI feature which lets users add objects to remove content from and expand images using text prompts (Washington Post)

Washington Post:
Hands-on with an Adobe Photoshop beta's Generative Fill AI feature, which lets users add objects to, remove content from, and expand images using text prompts  —  A new ‘generative fill’ AI capability can create joyful Photoshop edits — and frightening deepfakes



A look at US hospitals using sometimes flawed AI-based diagnosis tools as some clinicians say they feel pressure from administrations to defer to the algorithm (Lisa Bannon/Wall Street Journal)

Lisa Bannon / Wall Street Journal:
A look at US hospitals using sometimes flawed AI-based diagnosis tools, as some clinicians say they feel pressure from administrations to defer to the algorithm  —  Artificial intelligence raises difficult questions about who makes the call in a health crisis: the human or the machine?



Investors of Bengaluru-based Mojocare say they found "financial irregularities" at the healthtech startup which has raised $23M from Sequoia India and others (Manish Singh/TechCrunch)

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Investors of Bengaluru-based Mojocare say they found “financial irregularities” at the healthtech startup, which has raised ~$23M from Sequoia India and others  —  Mojocare investors have found “financial irregularities” at the Indian health and wellness startup and are moving …



The UK names Ian Hogarth to lead its AI Foundation Model Taskforce; Hogarth co-founded concert discovery service Songkick which sold to Warner Music in 2017 (Michael Holden/Reuters)

Michael Holden / Reuters:
The UK names Ian Hogarth to lead its AI Foundation Model Taskforce; Hogarth co-founded concert discovery service Songkick, which sold to Warner Music in 2017  —  The British government said on Sunday that tech entrepreneur Ian Hogarth would head its new taskforce to look at the safety risks posed by artificial intelligence.



Intel has agreed in principle to build a $25B manufacturing plant in Israel which is slated to begin operations by 2027 and remain active until at least 2035 (Marissa Newman/Bloomberg)

Marissa Newman / Bloomberg:
Intel has agreed in principle to build a $25B manufacturing plant in Israel, which is slated to begin operations by 2027 and remain active until at least 2035  —  Intel Corp. has agreed in principle to build a $25 billion manufacturing plant in Israel in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed …



How Huawei lost a $200M contract to build Danish telecom TDC's 5G network in 2019 after TDC opened a probe suspecting Huawei of unethical business practices (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
How Huawei lost a $200M contract to build Danish telecom TDC's 5G network in 2019, after TDC opened a probe suspecting Huawei of unethical business practices  —  At a hastily scheduled meeting on March 5, 2019, the bidding to upgrade Denmark's cellular network crossed over into something strange.



Saturday, June 17, 2023

Block announces an open beta program for Bitkey its self-custodial Bitcoin wallet with Coinbase and CashApp integrations (Andrew Throuvalas/Decrypt)

Andrew Throuvalas / Decrypt:
Block announces an open beta program for Bitkey, its self-custodial Bitcoin wallet, with Coinbase and CashApp integrations  —  Bitkey will allow beta users to withdraw Bitcoin from Coinbase and Cashapp using “copy and paste.”  —  Jack Dorsey's payments company Block announced an open beta program …



Reddit's management risks putting the service in a death spiral as users revolt dedicated moderators quit and its vibrant content moves to other platforms (Boone Ashworth/Wired)

Boone Ashworth / Wired:
Reddit's management risks putting the service in a death spiral as users revolt, dedicated moderators quit, and its vibrant content moves to other platforms  —  When the user revolt ends—if it ever does—Reddit's community won't ever be the same.  —  It's pretty easy to piss people off on Reddit.



Meta scrambles to refocus its resources on usable AI products after a decade-long focus on research in its AI division disincentivized work on generative AI (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Meta scrambles to refocus its resources on usable AI products after a decade-long focus on research in its AI division disincentivized work on generative AI  —  The CEO considers artificial intelligence critical to long-term growth and is taking more control over efforts.



Sources: the US has found it difficult to distinguish between tech that China can use for its military and tech used commercially by firms particularly with AI (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: the US has found it difficult to distinguish between tech that China can use for its military and tech used commercially by firms, particularly with AI  —  Defining risky artificial intelligence poses challenge as Washington moves to curb investment in Chinese tech



Chipmakers like TSMC and Samsung race to curb emissions as chip manufacturing makes up most of a device's carbon output a tough job in fossil fuel-reliant Asia (June Yoon/Financial Times)

June Yoon / Financial Times:
Chipmakers like TSMC and Samsung race to curb emissions as chip manufacturing makes up most of a device's carbon output, a tough job in fossil fuel-reliant Asia  —  Meanwhile sister companies with green energy knowhow look set to cash in  —  A greener future is not necessarily a lower-tech future.



A profile of Jack Ma the Chinese tech icon who disappeared from public view for three months after regulators questioned him over a November 2020 speech (Lavender Au/Wired)

Lavender Au / Wired:
A profile of Jack Ma, the Chinese tech icon who disappeared from public view for three months after regulators questioned him over a November 2020 speech  —  The iconic Alibaba founder disappeared from view after criticizing China's government.  He returned to the country in March—as a teacher, not a businessman.



Friday, June 16, 2023

In a meeting with Bill Gates Xi Jinping says China is willing to engage in tech cooperation with the US; Xi is expected to meet Antony Blinken later this week (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
In a meeting with Bill Gates, Xi Jinping says China is willing to engage in tech cooperation with the US; Xi is expected to meet Antony Blinken later this week  —  President Xi Jinping said China is willing to work with the world on technology innovation and global challenges including …



Twitter suspends the accounts of public records database PlainSite and its founder Aaron Greenspan who has tracked litigation against Tesla and Twitter (Lora Kolodny/CNBC)

Lora Kolodny / CNBC:
Twitter suspends the accounts of public records database PlainSite and its founder Aaron Greenspan, who has tracked litigation against Tesla and Twitter  —  - Elon Musk-led Twitter on Tuesday suspended the Twitter accounts of PlainSite and its founder Aaron Greenspan, a prominent critic of Tesla and Musk.



Intel plans to invest as much as $4.6B to build a semiconductor assembly and test facility in Wroclaw Poland as the EU seeks to boost chip production (Wojciech Moskwa/Bloomberg)

Wojciech Moskwa / Bloomberg:
Intel plans to invest as much as $4.6B to build a semiconductor assembly and test facility in Wroclaw, Poland, as the EU seeks to boost chip production  —  Intel Corp. plans to invest as much as $4.6 billion to build a semiconductor assembly and test facility in western Poland …



Montenegro says Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon will be extradited to the US, potentially ending a standoff over competing demands by the US and South Korea (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg : Montenegro says Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon will be extradited to the US, potentially ending a standoff over competing ...