Saturday, March 30, 2024

AT&T confirms that data dumped online appears to be from 2019 or earlier and contains personal details of 7.6M current and 65.4M former account holders (Zack Whittaker/TechCrunch)

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
AT&T confirms that data dumped online appears to be from 2019 or earlier and contains personal details of 7.6M current and 65.4M former account holders  —  US telco giant takes action after 2019 data breach  —  Phone giant AT&T is reseting customer account passcodes after a huge cache …



An interview with Morris Chang on starting TSMC at the age of 55, the company not designing or selling its own chips, returning to Taiwan from the US, and more (Ben Cohen/Wall Street Journal)

Ben Cohen / Wall Street Journal:
An interview with Morris Chang on starting TSMC at the age of 55, the company not designing or selling its own chips, returning to Taiwan from the US, and more  —  Morris Chang had decades of experience before he founded a business that's indispensable to the global economy.



Tech CEOs looking to "go direct" and avoid traditional media, which they view as unfairly critical, turn to friendly podcasters like Lex Fridman (Ellen Huet/Bloomberg)

Ellen Huet / Bloomberg:
Tech CEOs looking to “go direct” and avoid traditional media, which they view as unfairly critical, turn to friendly podcasters like Lex Fridman  —  Tech CEOs have a growing set of ways to sidestep traditional media.  But first...  Don't press



As Gmail turns 20 on April 1, a look at its impact on online communication and its future as other messaging apps have come to dominate how we communicate (Victoria Song/The Verge)

Victoria Song / The Verge:
As Gmail turns 20 on April 1, a look at its impact on online communication and its future as other messaging apps have come to dominate how we communicate  —  Gmail revolutionized email with fast search and a whole gigabyte of storage.  But where's it headed next?



Friday, March 29, 2024

A look at the MGM hack, carried out by Star Fraud group, part of the Com online community of teenagers from English-speaking countries that also spawned Lapsus$ (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
A look at the MGM hack, carried out by Star Fraud group, part of the Com online community of teenagers from English-speaking countries that also spawned Lapsus$  —  A gang of young criminals.  A more than $30 million ransom.  Casinos in disarray.  Six days inside the cyberattack that put corporate America on notice.



How the semiconductor industry can reach 1T transistor GPUs, which will be needed within a decade if the AI revolution continues at its current pace (IEEE Spectrum)

IEEE Spectrum:
How the semiconductor industry can reach 1T transistor GPUs, which will be needed within a decade if the AI revolution continues at its current pace  —  Advances in semiconductors are feeding the AI boom  —  In 1997 the IBM Deep Blue supercomputer defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov.



Sources: Accel is in talks to lead a round in Scale AI at a $13B valuation, up from $7.3B in 2021; Scale AI generated $675M+ in revenue in 2023, up ~150% YoY (The Information)

The Information:
Sources: Accel is in talks to lead a round in Scale AI at a $13B valuation, up from $7.3B in 2021; Scale AI generated $675M+ in revenue in 2023, up ~150% YoY  —  Venture capital firm Accel, an early investor in the data labeling startup Scale AI, is in talks to lead a new round of funding …



The TikTok divestment bill will not offer any meaningful privacy protection from China, but it will further entrench the dominance of US-based social networks (Meredith Whittaker/LPE Project)

Meredith Whittaker / LPE Project:
The TikTok divestment bill will not offer any meaningful privacy protection from China, but it will further entrench the dominance of US-based social networks  —  Earlier this month, the United States House of Representatives passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act …



Sunday, March 24, 2024

Despite X's push to attract creators, its strategy remains unclear, as some creators cite concerns about the state of X's ad business and inconsistent payments (Alexa Corse/Wall Street Journal)

Alexa Corse / Wall Street Journal:
Despite X's push to attract creators, its strategy remains unclear, as some creators cite concerns about the state of X's ad business and inconsistent payments  —  Despite platform's push, many creators say X is still a long way away from becoming a major source of revenue for them



Chinese officials have begun following the new PC, laptop, and server guidelines to phase out Intel/AMD processors and Windows from government PCs and servers (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
Chinese officials have begun following the new PC, laptop, and server guidelines to phase out Intel/AMD processors and Windows from government PCs and servers  —  China has introduced new guidelines that will mean US microprocessors from Intel and AMD are phased out of government PCs and servers …



An analysis of the DOJ's case against Apple; sources: Apple will start rolling out its system to update packaged iPhones' software to its US stores in April (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
An analysis of the DOJ's case against Apple; sources: Apple will start rolling out its system to update packaged iPhones' software to its US stores in April  —  With its lawsuit against Apple, the Justice Department focuses on outdated issues and irrelevant points, missing an opportunity to address more pressing concerns.



The US NLRB rules that Amazon must negotiate with the Amazon Labor Union, which represents ~5K workers at its Staten Island warehouse; Amazon plans to appeal (Greg Bensinger/Reuters)

Greg Bensinger / Reuters : The US NLRB rules that Amazon must negotiate with the Amazon Labor Union, which represents ~5K workers at its ...