Bookmarks (1137)

Paresh Dave / Wired: Sony researchers: skin tone measures adopted by Google, Meta, and others for their image algorithms don't properly capture the red and yellow hues in human skin  —  Google, Meta, and others test their algorithms for bias using standardized skin tone scales.

Kamaron Leach / Bloomberg: PE firm Vista, with another backer, acquires a majority stake in TRG Screen, which makes subscription spend management software; sources say for about $250M  —  - Vista is said to invest $250 million with another backer  — Pamlico will exit its TRG stake after first investing in 2018

Reuters: Filing: the SEC asked a federal judge on October 3 to deny a Coinbase motion seeking the dismissal of SEC's lawsuit by citing a court ruling in Ripple's favor  —  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday asked a federal judge to deny a motion from Coinbase Global (COIN.O) …

David Pierce / The Verge: The Browser Company updates Arc with GPT 3.5 and Anthropic features: Ask ChatGPT, Tidy Tab Titles, Tidy Downloads, Five-Second Previews, and Ask on Page  —  At some point, if you're a company doing pretty much anything in the year 2023, you have to have an AI strategy.  It's just business.

János Allenbach-Ammann / Euractiv: The European Commission starts collective risk assessments on advanced chips, AI, quantum, and biotech, the most sensitive areas for security and tech leakage  —  Content-Type:  —  News Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.

Jesse Hamilton / CoinDesk: Ripple's Singapore arm secures a license as a major payment institution from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, after an in-principle approval in June 2023  —  After a June in-principle approval, a subsidiary for Ripple has been granted its license by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk: A US judge rejects the SEC's motion to file an interlocutory appeal against July 2023's Ripple ruling and sets an April 2024 trial date to resolve other issues  —  XRP rallied about 5% following the decision.  —  Register Now  —  A federal judge has rejected the U.S. Securities …

Timi Cantisano / XDA Developers: Samsung announces the 6.4" Galaxy S23 FE for $600, the 10.9" Galaxy Tab S9 FE for $450, the 12.4" Galaxy Tab S9 FE+ for $700, and the Galaxy Buds FE for $100  —  The Galaxy S23 FE, Tab S9 FE, and Buds FE usher in a new lineup of affordable Samsung products.  —  KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Information: Sources: Anthropic is in talks to raise $2B+ from Google and others, at a $20B to $30B valuation, and projects generating $200M in revenue by the end of 2023  —  Anthropic, one of the main rivals of OpenAI, is in talks with investors to raise at least $2 billion in new funding …

Kalhan Rosenblatt / NBC News: MrBeast asks whether social media platforms are “ready to handle the rise of AI deepfakes” after a deepfake scam TikTok ad, since deleted, used his likeness  —  MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, called the rise of AI deepfakes “a serious problem” in response to a fake ad circulating online.

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Code in the latest build of the Spotify app suggests the company is working on AI-generated playlists based on users' prompts, likely available in English only  —  Following the successful launch of Spotify's AI-powered DJ feature and, more recently, added support for AI-translated podcasts …

Jef Feeley / Bloomberg: A US judge rules X violated its duties to cover employee legal expenses and must pay $1.1M in fees to Parag Agrawal, Vijaya Gadde, and other former executives  —  - Former CEO, general counsel say Twitter stiffed them on fees  — X's lawyers said amount of fees sought was a ‘clear abuse’

David Pierce / The Verge: Microsoft rolls out DALL-E 3 to all Bing Chat and Bing Image Creator users; OpenAI plans to roll out DALL-E 3 to paying ChatGPT subscribers later in October  —  ‘Bing, make me a picture of a dog taking a bath in a waterfall but the water is all Skittles.’  —  The image generator inside …

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette: The UK's Independent Publishers Alliance urges members to block OpenAI and Google crawling, as OpenAI extends ChatGPT's training database beyond September 2021  —  Independent Publishers Alliance urges members to block GPTBot and Google Bard crawler ASAP.  —  ChatGPT's threat …

Tom Warren / The Verge: Microsoft unveils new OneDrive features, like Copilot integration coming in December, a Fluent design refresh for its web app, better offline support, and more  —  Microsoft is announcing the third generation of its OneDrive cloud storage today, complete with the company's AI-powered Copilot system …

Tage Kene-Okafor / TechCrunch: Cape Town-based Stitch, which enables businesses to build, optimize, and scale financial products using its APIs, raised a $25M Series A extension led by Ribbit  —  Open banking, in which traditional banks release their data via application programming interfaces (APIs) …

Dan Taylor / Tech.eu: London-based Unitary, an AI-based visual content moderation tool which is currently classifying 6M videos per day, raised a $15M Series A led by Creandum  —  London-based startup Unitary raises $15 million for its AI-driven visual content moderation tool.  The technology identifies harmful content, enhancing online safety.

Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal: Sources: Meta pitched a plan to EU regulators to charge European users a subscription fee to use Facebook and Instagram without ads starting at €10 per month  —  European users would have option to pay fee or agree to personalized ads, according to company's pitch to regulators

Bloomberg: Investigation: several Taiwanese tech companies are secretly helping Huawei build chip plants in southern China, an unusual collaboration with political risks  —  - Critics slam Taiwan's government for inadequate China curbs  — Taiwan has pledged to keep advanced tech from Chinese military

Steven Ehrlich / Forbes: Email: Chainalysis lays off ~150 employees, or 15%+ of its workforce, and plans to focus on government contracts; the company cut staff by ~5% in February 2023  —  Chainalysis is laying off approximately 150 employees, or slightly more than 15% of its staff of 900, CEO Michael Gronager told employees …

Todd Spangler / Variety: TikTok confirms the company is running a limited-scale test of an ad-free subscription plan, but only says the market is not the US and does not share the price  —  TikTok is exploring a new way to make money: The popular video app has kicked off a limited-scale test of a monthly subscription service that eliminates ads.

Sylvia Varnham O'Regan / The Information: Source: Instagram seeks to revive interest in Threads by getting creators to post more, making Threads a place for real-time updates about big events, and more  —  Three months ago, Threads, Meta Platforms' answer to Twitter, was the hottest social media app around.  In just days, 100 million people had signed up for it.

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch: Filing: Virginia-based cybersecurity company IronNet, which was founded in 2014 by a former NSA director and raised $400M+, has shut down and laid off its staff  —  IronNet, a once-promising cybersecurity startup founded by a former NSA director and funded by cyber and defense investors …

Wall Street Journal: Sources: ByteDance offers to buy back staff shares at a $223.5B valuation, down nearly 26% YoY, and made $20B+ in 2022 operating profit as revenue growth slowed  —  Social-media company reported an operating profit of more than $20 billion as its valuation fell by about 26%

Billy Perrigo / TIME: Sources: at Foxconn's Sriperumbudur factory, key to Apple's pivot to India, issues persist, like disciplinary wage docking and poorer conditions for contractors  —  Set back from a dusty highway in South India, three newly completed factory buildings rise up behind a black spiked iron fence.

CNBC: Documents and sources undermine Flexport founder Ryan Petersen's claims that CEO Dave Clark overspent, overhired, and overpromised before being forced to resign  —  - Immediately following Dave Clark's abrupt ouster as CEO of Flexport, founder Ryan Petersen said the company was hiring too aggressively and needed to rein in spending.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: While Adobe, Getty Images, Stability AI, and YouTube have pledged to share some generative AI profits with creators, none have shared specific payout amounts  —  As tech companies begin to monetize generative AI, the creators on whose work it is trained are asking for their fair share.

Wall Street Journal: US v. Google: Satya Nadella says Google cemented its search dominance via default search deals with Apple and he may have been overenthusiastic about ChatGPT  —  Satya Nadella says it will take more than ChatGPT to check Google's advantage in internet search  —  WASHINGTON—Google has used unfair tactics to hobble

Todd Spangler / Variety: Paris Hilton and her company 11:11 Media sign a partnership with X to create four original video content programs per year to promote X's Live Shopping product  —  Paris Hilton is getting her X on.  —  The influencer and entrepreneur — who has 16.6 million followers on X …

Aamir Siddiqui / Android Authority: TikTok is testing an ad-free monthly subscription plan  —  For $4.99 per month in the testing phase, users will be able to enjoy an ad-free TikTok experience.  —  •  —  TL;DR  — Code within the TikTok app indicates that TikTok is testing an ad-free monthly subscription plan.

New York Times: Fact-checking sites have been declining worldwide as social media platforms cut back on disinformation efforts, and bogus AI-generated content thrives online  —  The momentum behind organizations that aim to combat online falsehoods has started to taper off.

Reed Albergotti / Semafor: Q&A with Microsoft's consumer chief marketing officer Yusuf Mehdi on AI trends, competition, taking over some of Panos Panay's responsibilities, and more  —  Usually, when Microsoft unveils its new laptops, the focus is on the hardware.  Last week, it was all about the software …

Katie Paul / Reuters: Nick Clegg says Meta used public Facebook and Instagram posts to train its new AI assistant and took steps to filter private details from training datasets  —  Meta Platforms (META.O) used public Facebook and Instagram posts to train parts of its new Meta AI virtual assistant …

Jeff Baumgartner / Light Reading: Filing: LG suspends the inclusion of ATSC 3.0, an IP-based broadcast system, in its 2024 lineup of US TVs due to a “challenging and uncertain patent landscape”  —  Citing a ‘challenging and uncertain patent landscape,’ LG has suspended the inclusion of ATSC 3.0 tech in its 2024 TV lineup.

Casey Newton / Platformer: Between ChatGPT's surprisingly human voice and Meta's AI characters, we may be witnessing the rise of social networks populated by synthetic companions  —  Between ChatGPT's surprisingly human voice and Meta's AI characters, our feeds may be about to change forever

Reuters: Filing: Robinhood says it expects a $100M charge in Q3 to resolve some legal and regulatory matters that were previously disclosed  —  Robinhood Markets (HOOD.O) expects a $100-million charge in the third quarter to resolve some legal and regulatory matters that were previously disclosed, the trading app operator said on Friday.

Sean Fine / Globe and Mail: A Canadian appeals court rules that Google's search engine is covered by federal privacy law, which could give Canadians the “right to be forgotten” on Google  —  Google's search engine is covered by federal privacy law, a court has ruled, opening the door for people to demand …

Patrick Holland / CNET: Apple says iPhone 15 models could be running “warmer than expected” due to a few factors, like an iOS 17 bug and updates to Instagram and other third-party apps  —  Widespread complaints about overheating of the new iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max can be traced to several factors …

Associated Press: NSA's outgoing director Paul Nakasone announces an AI security center, after an NSA study identified protecting American AI models as a national security issue  —  The National Security Agency is starting an artificial intelligence security center — a crucial mission as AI capabilities …

Katrina Manson / Bloomberg: US DoD Chief Digital and AI Officer Craig Martell says the agency wants to use AI safely and urges companies to be more transparent about their AI software  —  - Defense Department is holding symposium to discuss AI  — Official says agency wants to use the algorithms safely

John Thornhill / Financial Times: An interview with Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström about his upbringing, his VC firm Atomico, the vitality of Europe's startup space, a Skype “mafia”, and more  —  The Skype co-founder turned venture capitalist on how Europe's start-ups can challenge America's giants

Dade Hayes / Deadline: Q&A with YouTube Chief Business Officer Mary Ellen Coe on NFL Sunday Ticket “exceeding expectations”, Multiview interest, the Charter-Disney dispute, and more  —  - YouTube Chief Business Officer Mary Ellen Coe On NFL Sunday Ticket “Exceeding Expectations”, Unexpected Disney-Charter Plugs & More

Taylor Lorenz / Washington Post: A history of Vine's failure to build relationships with its top creators, who Vine leadership resented for gaming the app's ranking algorithm and their humor  —  The wildly popular video app's contentious relationship with its own power users offers a cautionary tale for social platforms

New York Times: Leaked internal messages from 2020 and 2021 detail Huawei's efforts to lobby Greek officials; filings: Huawei's 2022 sales in Greece rose 56% YoY to €258M  —  Leaked internal messages detail efforts by the Chinese tech giant to court Greek officials and fight an American-led effort against its technology.

Juro Osawa / The Information: Data and sources: TikTok Shop was on pace to handle $6B+ worth of transactions in Indonesia in 2023, before its ban in the country, and $17B+ in Southeast Asia  —  TikTok just cannot escape government scrutiny.  Even as the hugely popular ByteDance-owned app expands in the U.S. despite …

Olivia Solon / Bloomberg: Research: ahead of Slovakia's parliamentary elections, AI-generated deepfake videos of politicians are spreading on Facebook, Telegram, and other platforms  —  Videos featuring AI-generated deepfake voices of politicians are spreading on social media ahead of the Slovak parliamentary elections this weekend …

Joel Khalili / Wired: A look at FTX 2.0 Coalition, a group of creditors led by FTX CEO John Ray III that has almost 3,000 members and is looking to relaunch the exchange without SBF  —  As SBF's trial approaches, a group of FTX creditors want to relaunch the collapsed exchange.  It's not as crazy as it sounds.

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica: Researchers report critical vulnerabilities in the Exim mail transfer agent allowing remote code execution; Exim is used by as many as 253K servers  —  Remote code execution requiring no authentication fixed. 2 other RCEs remain unpatched.  —  Thousands of servers running the Exim mail transfer agent …

Carl Franzen / VentureBeat: Meta quietly unveils Llama 2 Long, which has been trained with longer sequences, outperforming GPT-3.5 Turbo and Claude 2 when responding to long user prompts  —  Meta Platforms showed off a bevy of new AI features for its consumer-facing services Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp …

Forbes: Letter: the US SEC told Bolt the startup likely won't face enforcement action after a 15-month probe into whether Bolt violated securities laws when fundraising  —  In a letter viewed by Forbes, the SEC said that it does not intend to recommend any action against the startup following …