Monday, December 25, 2023

After vocal commitments following George Floyd's murder in 2020, DEI programs at Big Tech companies, including Meta and Google, are in broad retreat in 2023 (Jennifer Elias/CNBC)

Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
After vocal commitments following George Floyd's murder in 2020, DEI programs at Big Tech companies, including Meta and Google, are in broad retreat in 2023  —  - After vocal commitments following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, DEI programs in the tech industry are in broad retreat.



Kuo: Apple Vision Pro shipments are estimated to be approximately 500,000 units in 2024 and will most likely be available in late January or early February (Omar Sohail/Wccftech)

Omar Sohail / Wccftech:
Kuo: Apple Vision Pro shipments are estimated to be approximately 500,000 units in 2024 and will most likely be available in late January or early February  —  An earlier Apple Vision Pro launch timeline stated that the mixed-reality headset's shipments would start in February next year …



China's new gaming rules can be 'worse' for smaller developers: Report

China's National Press and Publication Administration recently proposed new gaming rules that would prohibit companies from incentivising daily sign-ins for games and other revenue-generating practices. Stock values of Chinese gaming giants Tencent, NetEase, and Bilibili have gone down since the announcement. According to a report by UBS, China's proposed gaming rules are expected to hit smaller developers more than large ones and may also reduce overall online advertising revenue in the gaming industry. https://ift.tt/70ENWHi

The US is focusing on blocking North Korea's ability to launder its crypto stolen via cyberattacks, which the US thinks funds North Korea's weapons programs (John Sakellariadis/Politico)

John Sakellariadis / Politico:
The US is focusing on blocking North Korea's ability to launder its crypto stolen via cyberattacks, which the US thinks funds North Korea's weapons programs  —  The Biden administration is doing more to counter North Korean hackers amid concerns their cryptocurrency heists are powering the country's weapons programs.



Sunday, December 24, 2023

Researchers from Apple and Columbia University released Ferret, an open source multimodal LLM that can recognize and describe any shape in an image, in October (Sharon Goldman/VentureBeat)

Sharon Goldman / VentureBeat:
Researchers from Apple and Columbia University released Ferret, an open source multimodal LLM that can recognize and describe any shape in an image, in October  —  With little fanfare, researchers from Apple and Columbia University released an open source multimodal LLM, called Ferret, in October 2023.



Nvidia and its staff donated $15M to Israeli nonprofits helping civilians affected by the Israel-Hamas war, the largest humanitarian fundraiser for the company (Steven Scheer/Reuters)

Steven Scheer / Reuters:
Nvidia and its staff donated $15M to Israeli nonprofits helping civilians affected by the Israel-Hamas war, the largest humanitarian fundraiser for the company  —  U.S. chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA.O) and its employees have donated $15 million to Israeli non-profit organisations …



A look at Take-Two's $12B Zynga deal in 2022, just as casual games peaked post pandemic, Apple introduced ATT, and the mobile game market headed into a downturn (Cecilia D'Anastasio/Bloomberg)

Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg:
A look at Take-Two's $12B Zynga deal in 2022, just as casual games peaked post pandemic, Apple introduced ATT, and the mobile game market headed into a downturn  —  Video-game giant's push into smartphone titles was expensive and late.  —  Excitement over the upcoming release of Grand Theft Auto VI …



These are the 10 most trending games of 2023 as per Google

https://www.gadgetsnow.com/tech-news/these-are-the-10-most-trending-games-of-2023-as-per-google/articleshow/106250194.cms

Saturday, December 23, 2023

The Central Bank of Nigeria lifts a ban, imposed in February 2021, on cryptocurrency transactions but says global trends show a need to regulate such activities (MacDonald Dzirutwe/Reuters)

MacDonald Dzirutwe / Reuters:
The Central Bank of Nigeria lifts a ban, imposed in February 2021, on cryptocurrency transactions but says global trends show a need to regulate such activities  —  Nigeria's central bank has lifted a ban on transacting in cryptocurrencies, while saying global trends had shown a need to regulate …



How Sam Altman, the dealmaking prodigy full of contradictions, became one of the best-known tech CEOs, including by cultivating close ties with Peter Thiel (Washington Post)

Washington Post:
How Sam Altman, the dealmaking prodigy full of contradictions, became one of the best-known tech CEOs, including by cultivating close ties with Peter Thiel  —  Investing in everything from speakeasys to nuclear fusion, the Silicon Valley wunderkind, dealing-making prodigy is full of contradictions



Bots registered as 13-year-old users on TikTok were shown highly polarized content about the Israel-Hamas war in the For You feed, within hours after signing up (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Bots registered as 13-year-old users on TikTok were shown highly polarized content about the Israel-Hamas war in the For You feed, within hours after signing up  —  Imagine your 13-year-old signs up for TikTok and, while scrolling through videos, lingers on footage of explosions …



A profile of FTC Chair Lina Khan, who on a trip to Silicon Valley in November aimed to convince a skeptical tech sector that the government was there to help (Josh Sisco/Politico)

Josh Sisco / Politico:
A profile of FTC Chair Lina Khan, who on a trip to Silicon Valley in November aimed to convince a skeptical tech sector that the government was there to help  —  FTC Chair Lina Khan's vast ambitions to cut back on corporate power could be a huge part of Biden's legacy — if they come to fruition.



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...