~techmeme | Bookmarks (1039)

Scott Stein / CNET: Meta opens up its VR OS called Horizon OS to third parties and says Asus and Lenovo are both planning Meta Horizon OS-compatible headsets  —  Meta's Horizon OS, as it's now called, will bring Quest-alikes: Asus, Lenovo, and even an Xbox variant are coming.  Here's what to expect.

Rohan Goswami / CNBC: Cloud data management company Informatica says it is not currently in talks to be acquired, after Salesforce's reported interest in a ~$10B deal; INFA falls 8%+  —  Amit Walia, CEO, Informatica at the New York Stock Exchange, October 27, 2021.  —  Enterprise data management company Informatica …

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: The EU opens another TikTok probe and will assess whether TikTok Lite's design, which financially rewards users for watching or liking videos, is “addictive”  —  The European Union has opened a second formal investigation into TikTok, announcing Monday that it suspects …

Reuters: Russia sentences Meta spokesperson Andy Stone in absentia to six years for “publicly defending terrorism”; Russia designates Meta as an extremist organization  —  A military court in Moscow on Monday sentenced Meta Platforms (META.O) spokesperson Andy Stone to six years in prison for …

Nilay Patel / The Verge: Q&A with Discord CEO Jason Citron on creating a more private internet, developers, community, gaming origins, moderation, layoffs, Loom video meetings, and more  —  For teens and gamers, Discord has become their entire online social lives.  Co-founder Jason Citron thinks the internet is headed more in that direction.

Will Oremus / Washington Post: Stanford Internet Observatory: AI images could overwhelm federally authorized CSAM clearinghouse CyberTipline, which gets tens of millions of tips per year  —  A flood of AI-generated child pornography threatens to overwhelm the nation's creaky reporting system for child exploitation, Stanford report warns

New York Times: How TikTok has influenced US culture and shaped Hollywood, privacy, fashion, shopping, news, music, trends, cooking, mental health, national security, and more  —  Has there ever been an app more American seeming than TikTok, with its messy democratic creativity, exhibitionism, utter lack of limits and vast variety of hustlers?

MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC: A look at Block-funded Gridless, which operates bitcoin mines in Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia, powered through solar power and wasted energy from a geothermal site  —  WATCH NOW  —  Jack Dorsey backed start-up taps into geothermal, hydro and solar power to run bitcoin mines across Africa

Thomas Claburn / The Register: Researchers: when given 15 CVE descriptions, GPT-4 autonomously exploited 87% of the vulnerabilities, compared to 0% for every other model tested  —  While some other LLMs appear to flat-out suck  —  AI agents, which combine large language models with automation software …

Riho Nagao / Nikkei Asia: Nvidia will provide the software for Japan's ABCI-Q, a hybrid supercomputer that offers quantum computing capability for drug research and other uses  —  U.S. chip designer to provide software for nation's quantum computing initiative  —  TOKYO — Japan's government-backed technology institute …

OatmealDome: Open-source GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin is not coming to App Store as Apple doesn't allow JIT recompilers on iOS, possibly due to security considerations  —  Two weeks ago, Apple modified their App Store guidelines to allow retro game emulators in the App Store.

Lauren Feiner / The Verge: The House passes a TikTok divestiture bill with a longer sale deadline as part of a package of Ukraine/Israel aid bills, pressuring the Senate to vote on TikTok  —  The House once again passed a bill that could ban TikTok from the US unless its Chinese parent company ByteDance divests it …

Financial Times: Sources: seeking an edge over China in AI deals, the Biden administration is brokering talks between US companies and the UAE, including Microsoft's G42 deal  —  Biden administration brokers talks between Microsoft, OpenAI Google and the UAE, as Washington seeks edge over China

Isabelle Bousquette / Wall Street Journal: PCs that can run large AI models may drive an enterprise PC replacement cycle, but some CIOs say they'll wait for the category to mature and prices to come down  —  But CIOs aren't quite convinced that everyone needs an AI-enabled PC just yet  —  The biggest innovation in years has come …

Kate Rogers / CNBC: A look at Los Angeles' Homelessness Prevention pilot program, which uses AI to identify those at risk of becoming homeless, offering aid to keep them housed  —  A woman walks past tents for the homeless lining a street in Los Angeles, Calif. on Feb. 1, 2021.

David Cassel / The New Stack: An interview with Linus Torvalds at the Open Source Summit North America on the XZ Utils exploit, open source development, RISC-V, AI, and more  —  SEATTLE-Linux creator Linus Torvalds sat down Wednesday for a “keynote interview” at the Linux Foundation's Open Source Summit North America in Seattle.

Gaby Del Valle / The Verge: President Biden signs the bill reauthorizing FISA's Section 702, extending the controversial warrantless surveillance program through 2026  —  The Senate has passed a bill reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a controversial program that allows warrantless spying …

Robert Burnson / Bloomberg: Court filing: OpenAI says Elon Musk's claim that the company has abandoned its altruistic principles is “revisionist history” and a bid to boost his AI company  —  OpenAI says Elon Musk's claim that the company has abandoned its altruistic principles in pursuit of profits is nothing more than …

Daniel Wiessner / Reuters: Google scraps a 2019 policy requiring US suppliers and staffing firms to pay their employees $15 an hour and provide health insurance and other benefits  —  Alphabet Inc's Google (GOOGL.O) on Friday said it will roll back requirements that U.S. suppliers and staffing firms pay their employees …

Coco Feng / South China Morning Post: National Bureau of Statistics: China's integrated circuit output rose 40% YoY to 98.1B units in Q1, a sign that the country is expanding legacy chip production  —  - The output has soared thanks partly to strong demand from downstream sectors, such as new energy vehicles and smartphones

Nikkei Asia: SK Hynix partners with TSMC to develop next-gen HBM4 chips, which are critical for AI and slated for mass production in 2026, and advanced chip packaging tech  —  Asian chipmakers aim to supply next-generation high-bandwidth memory for Nvidia  —  SEOUL/TAIPEI — SK Hynix …

James Reddick / The Record: Sophos researchers find “crude”, cheap ransomware tools being sold on the dark web, enabling inexperienced freelancers to easily launch attacks  —  Cheap ransomware is being sold for one-time use on dark web forums, allowing inexperienced freelancers to get into cybercrime without any interaction with affiliates.

Wall Street Journal: Internal draft: UK's ICO says Google's Privacy Sandbox falls short and leaves gaps that can be exploited to undermine privacy of users who should be anonymous  —  The Information Commissioner's Office said in a draft report that Google's proposed replacements for cookies have gaps that advertisers can exploit.

Raffaele Huang / Wall Street Journal: Apple removes WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China, saying it was ordered to do so by China's cyberspace officials citing national security concerns  —  China's cyberspace officials cite national-security concerns for targeting the Meta apps, Apple says