Monday, April 1, 2024

Interviews and Telegram messages detail how Russian middlemen used Tether to avoid US sanctions and procure parts for drones and other high-tech equipment (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Interviews and Telegram messages detail how Russian middlemen used Tether to avoid US sanctions and procure parts for drones and other high-tech equipment  —  How Russian middlemen used tether to avoid U.S. sanctions and procure parts for drones and other high-tech equipment



Sources: OpenAI discussed training GPT-5 on public YouTube video transcripts; AI industry's need for high-quality text data may outstrip supply within two years (Deepa Seetharaman/Wall Street Journal)

Deepa Seetharaman / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: OpenAI discussed training GPT-5 on public YouTube video transcripts; AI industry's need for high-quality text data may outstrip supply within two years  —  Firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic are working to find enough information to train next-generation artificial-intelligence models



Microsoft plans to unbundle Teams from Office 365 globally starting April 1 amid antitrust scrutiny, after a similar unbundling in EU in August 2023 (Foo Yun Chee/Reuters)

Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Microsoft plans to unbundle Teams from Office 365 globally starting April 1 amid antitrust scrutiny, after a similar unbundling in EU in August 2023  —  Microsoft (MSFT.O) will sell its chat and video app Teams separately from its Office product globally, the U.S. tech giant said on Monday …



Sunday, March 31, 2024

Demis Hassabis says the AI hype caused by a surge of money is clouding research; CB Insights: VCs invested $42.5B in 2,500 AI startup equity rounds in 2023 (John Thornhill/Financial Times)

John Thornhill / Financial Times:
Demis Hassabis says the AI hype caused by a surge of money is clouding research; CB Insights: VCs invested $42.5B in 2,500 AI startup equity rounds in 2023  —  British AI pioneer says the billions of dollars being poured into start-ups is obscuring scientific progress in the field



Sources: Dell, HP, and other US tech firms have asked their Taiwanese suppliers to boost production of AI-related hardware in Mexico to reduce reliance on China (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Dell, HP, and other US tech firms have asked their Taiwanese suppliers to boost production of AI-related hardware in Mexico to reduce reliance on China  —  Taiwan-based contract manufacturers step up investment south of the U.S. border for American clients



MrBeast's "retention editing", which uses quick cuts and loud sounds, took over social media, but may fade away as the YouTuber shifts to slower, focused videos (Taylor Lorenz/Washington Post)

Taylor Lorenz / Washington Post:
MrBeast's “retention editing”, which uses quick cuts and loud sounds, took over social media, but may fade away as the YouTuber shifts to slower, focused videos  —  The popularity of so-called retention editing made a generation of creators go viral, but when every video looks the same it's harder than ever to stand out



A look at AI's impact on video game actors, as some fear their voices might be misused while others hope to collect extra payments on top of a base minimum (David Smith/The Guardian)

David Smith / The Guardian:
A look at AI's impact on video game actors, as some fear their voices might be misused while others hope to collect extra payments on top of a base minimum  —  The increased use of AI to replicate the voice and movements of actors has benefits but some are concerned over how and when it might be used and who might be left short-changed



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 …



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...