Tuesday, January 9, 2024

In a November 2023 appeal, Apple objected to EU's DMA designation of all App Stores as a single service, iOS interoperability, and iMessage NIICS designation (Foo Yun Chee/Reuters)

Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
In a November 2023 appeal, Apple objected to EU's DMA designation of all App Stores as a single service, iOS interoperability, and iMessage NIICS designation  —  Apple (AAPL.O) has challenged EU tech rules designating its five App Stores as a single core platform service subject to onerous obligations …



Beijing's judicial bureau says a state-backed institution cracked Apple's AirDrop to identify message senders, and police found multiple suspects via the method (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Beijing's judicial bureau says a state-backed institution cracked Apple's AirDrop to identify message senders, and police found multiple suspects via the method  —  - Beijing agency claims to have found way to identify senders  — Declaration follows efforts to crack down on sensitive content



How the internet reshaped itself around Google's algorithms, including by using SEO tricks, and the company's role in many websites now using similar designs (Mia Sato/The Verge)

Mia Sato / The Verge:
How the internet reshaped itself around Google's algorithms, including by using SEO tricks, and the company's role in many websites now using similar designs  —  How the internet reshaped itself around Google's search algorithms — and into a world where websites look the same.  —  Animations by Richard Parry



Monday, January 8, 2024

Amazon, Google, and Microsoft received licenses to establish HQs in Riyadh, after the government planned to halt contracts to companies without regional HQs (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Amazon, Google, and Microsoft received licenses to establish HQs in Riyadh, after the government planned to halt contracts to companies without regional HQs  —  - Global firms had Jan. 1 deadline to shift regional HQs  — Saudi Arabia wants multinationals to have local offices



Sources: Nvidia plans to begin mass producing its chips designed for China, the H20, L20, and L2, in Q2 2024, after the original November 2023 goal was delayed (Reuters)

Reuters:
Sources: Nvidia plans to begin mass producing its chips designed for China, the H20, L20, and L2, in Q2 2024, after the original November 2023 goal was delayed  —  U.S. chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA.O) plans to begin mass production in the second quarter of 2024 of an artificial intelligence (AI) …



Q&A with University of Michigan researchers about their research into the effectiveness of using prompts to assign interpersonal and professional roles to LLMs (Sisi Wei/The Markup)

Sisi Wei / The Markup:
Q&A with University of Michigan researchers about their research into the effectiveness of using prompts to assign interpersonal and professional roles to LLMs  —  A conversation with Mingqian Zheng, Jiaxin Pei, and David Jurgens  —  Happy New Year.  It's Sisi here.



Sunday, January 7, 2024

Xreal unveils the $699 Air 2 Ultra glasses, adding dual 3D cameras to map the wearer's environment and enable hand tracking, with shipments starting in March (Adi Robertson/The Verge)

Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Xreal unveils the $699 Air 2 Ultra glasses, adding dual 3D cameras to map the wearer's environment and enable hand tracking, with shipments starting in March  —  Augmented reality company Xreal has revealed a new entry in its Air glasses lineup: the $699 Air 2 Ultra.



A look at Apple's preparations for the Vision Pro's US launch and main challenges in 2024, like lagging in generative AI, reviving revenue growth, and antitrust (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
A look at Apple's preparations for the Vision Pro's US launch and main challenges in 2024, like lagging in generative AI, reviving revenue growth, and antitrust  —  Apple has a big year ahead for new products, but also faces challenges ranging from trying to catch up in AI to dealing with changes to the App Store.



An interview with Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes about the state's efforts to curb AI-manufactured deceptions ahead of the upcoming 2024 US elections (A Martínez/NPR)

A Martínez / NPR:
An interview with Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes about the state's efforts to curb AI-manufactured deceptions ahead of the upcoming 2024 US elections  —  NPR's A Martinez talks with Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes about the use of artificial intelligence to curb AI-manufactured threats …



How Midjourney v6 and DALL-E 3 produce "plagiaristic outputs", even when not directly asked to do so, which could expose users to copyright infringement claims (IEEE Spectrum)

IEEE Spectrum:
How Midjourney v6 and DALL-E 3 produce “plagiaristic outputs”, even when not directly asked to do so, which could expose users to copyright infringement claims  —  This is a guest post.  The views expressed here are solely those of the authors and do not represent positions of IEEE Spectrum or the IEEE.



Saturday, January 6, 2024

Users say X is increasingly showing malicious crypto ads, including links to crypto drainers, fake airdrops, and Telegram channels promoting pump and dumps (Lawrence Abrams/BleepingComputer)

Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Users say X is increasingly showing malicious crypto ads, including links to crypto drainers, fake airdrops, and Telegram channels promoting pump and dumps  —  Cybercriminals are abusing X advertisements to promote websites that lead to crypto drainers, fake airdrops, and other scams.



Adam Mosseri says Threads had some issues with "low quality recommendations" over the last few weeks and should get "much better over the next few weeks" (Jay Peters/The Verge)

Jay Peters / The Verge:
Adam Mosseri says Threads had some issues with “low quality recommendations” over the last few weeks and should get “much better over the next few weeks”  —  Adam Mosseri says that Threads has had some issues with what he calls “low quality recommendations” over the last few weeks.



The British Library will spend £6M-£7M, or 40% of its reserves, to recover from an October 2023 cyber attack that has rendered most of its services inaccessible (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
The British Library will spend £6M-£7M, or 40% of its reserves, to recover from an October 2023 cyber attack that has rendered most of its services inaccessible  —  London-based institution faces spending millions of pounds to rebuild most digital services



Daniel Stenberg, founder of open-source project curl, says easy access to LLMs is resulting in junk AI-assisted bug reports, wasting developer time and energy (Daniel Stenberg/daniel.haxx.se)

Daniel Stenberg / daniel.haxx.se:
Daniel Stenberg, founder of open-source project curl, says easy access to LLMs is resulting in junk AI-assisted bug reports, wasting developer time and energy  —  I have held back on writing anything about AI or how we (not) use AI for development in the curl factory.  Now I can't hold back anymore.



SpaceX launches Starlink in Indonesia to improve internet access in remote parts of the country, starting with three local health centers (Stefanno Sulaiman/Reuters)

Stefanno Sulaiman / Reuters : SpaceX launches Starlink in Indonesia to improve internet access in remote parts of the country, starting w...