At the UK's AI Safety Summit, the UK releases the Bletchley Declaration, signed by 29 countries, and the US Commerce Secretary announces an AI Safety Institute
The world is locked in a race, and competition, over dominance in AI, but today, a few of them appeared to come together …
Ahead of the UK's AI Safety Summit, attended by Elon Musk, VP Harris, and others, the UK highlighted doomsday scenarios while the US focused on tangible issues
Washington Post :
On his final day of testimony, SBF denied knowing that billions of dollars in customer money had been misappropriated until shortly before FTX collapsed
The founder of the FTX crypto exchange was grilled by a federal prosecutor for a second day, just before both sides rested their case in the criminal fraud trial.
What Biden's EO means for AI openness, and why a compute threshold is unlikely to effectively anticipate individual models' riskiness, but may work in aggregate
Good news on paper, but the devil is in the details — The Biden-Harris administration has issued an executive order on artificial intelligence.
Ahead of the UK's AI summit, Chinese scientists warned of AI's “existential risk to humanity”; the UK announces that South Korea will host the next AI Summit
Attendees of Bletchley Park gathering convened by UK premier Rishi Sunak warn of ‘existential risk to humanity’
Sources: Sony's Bungie cut ~100 jobs out of ~1,200 after executives said revenue was 45% below projections for the year, citing a drop in Destiny 2's popularity
- Sales at studio were running 45% below projections for year — Layoffs are part of a bigger revamp at Sony PlayStation unit
DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis pushes back on claims by Meta's Yann LeCun that he, Sam Altman, and Dario Amodei are fearmongering to achieve AI regulatory capture
Ng states that the idea that artificial intelligence could lead to the extinction of humanity is a lie being spread by big tech in the hope of triggering heavy regulation that would shut down competit...
YouTube “launched a global effort” to encourage ad blocker users to allow ads or try YouTube Premium, after a “small experiment globally” started in June 2023
YouTube is broadening its efforts to crack down on ad blockers. The platform has “launched a global effort” …
A look at Apple's ambition to revolutionize health care: some breakthroughs marred by philosophical disagreements, a culture of conservatism, and tech realities
The company is working on big things, but employees disagree over whether they should be serving people who are healthy or sick.
Check Point details Iran's monthslong hacking espionage campaign targeting the country's rivals, like Israel, underscoring Iran's improved hacking capabilities
A monthslong hacking campaign targeted the governments of regional rivals, including Israel, and marked a turn, a new report says …
Sources: Apple plans several new health features for 2024's Apple Watch, like an elevated blood pressure sensor, and a paid health service, possibly using AI
- AirPods will get hearing-aid capability and hearing tests — AI health coach in the works, as are Vision Pro health tools
US v. Google offers a rare look at Google's top 20 queries by revenue for a week in September 2018: iPhone, insurance, cheap flights, online colleges, and more
Not all Google searches make Google money. Google often says that it only shows ads on about 20 percent of queries, the ones it calls “commercial queries.”
US v. Google: Google declared a “Code Yellow” emergency in February 2019 for seven weeks, reassigning engineers to figure out why user search queries had slowed
- Search executive said team was ‘getting too involved with ads’ — Company declared emergency in 2019 over slow query growth
After three hours of oral arguments, SCOTUS came to no consensus on whether public officials can block social media critics, part of two First Amendment cases
The Supreme Court will decide several cases this term that impact the future of free speech on social media platforms
LinkedIn announces a GPT-4-powered AI chatbot that the company calls a “job seeker coach”, available to Premium users, and says the platform now has 1B+ members
- LinkedIn said it surpassed 1 billion members and debuted an AI chatbot billed as a “job seeker coach” and other generative AI tools for Premium members.
Despite broad support by the US public and lawmakers for child internet laws, Congress has done nothing, even after holding 39 hearings on the topic since 2017
Americans are broadly united in support of laws to make the internet safer for kids. So why doesn't Congress act? Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to . X: @justinhendrix , @superwuster , @evan_greer , @vi...
Accepting regulation locks in incumbents, OpenAI and other early winners, which signed the Center for AI Safety's letter, seem most invested in creating alarm
technology, broadly speaking — is the only way to grow the pie, and to solve the problems we face (...). To attack the solution is denialism at best, outright sabotage at worst.” https://stratechery.c...
Apple says “all presenters, locations, and drone footage” in the pre-recorded “Scary Fast” event video were shot on an iPhone 15 Pro Max
Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac :
A look back at testimony from Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, and Nishad Singh and SBF's counterclaims, as the jury prepares to deliberate which version to believe
Joshua Oliver / Financial Times :
Google and Match Group reach a settlement in their app store antitrust case: Google plans to let Match implement third-party billing options by March 31, 2024
Google and Match announced today they've reached a settlement in the antitrust battle Match waged against the tech giant …
Apple loses a bid to block a mass UK lawsuit over allegedly hiding battery issues in iPhones and “throttling” them via updates; Apple calls the suit “baseless”
Apple Inc (AAPL.O) on Wednesday lost a bid to block a mass London lawsuit accusing it of hiding defective batteries …
Shareholder letter: Netflix says its ad tier has 15M+ MAUs globally, accounting for ~30% of new sign-ups where it's available, and plans new ad formats for 2024
Netflix is ready to use “The Crown,” “Squid Game” and other signature series to take ad dollars from rival streamers.
Sources: India authorizes 110 companies, including Apple, Dell, HP, Samsung, Xiaomi, and Lenovo, to import laptops, tablets, and PCs under its tech import rules
Apple (AAPL.O), Dell (DELL.N), HP (HPE.N), Samsung (005930.KS) and Lenovo (0992.HK) are among 110 firms authorised by India to import laptops …
Sources: WeWork, once valued at $47B, plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as early as next week; WE drops 50%+
Wall Street Journal :
Apple shipped 2.5M iPhones in India in Q3, its highest quarterly shipments; Samsung remained top with a 17.2% share, followed by Xiaomi (16.6%) and Vivo (15.9%)
- With a 17.2% share, Samsung remained the market leader for the fourth consecutive quarter.
Google, Temasek, and Bain research: online spending in Southeast Asia will rise ~11% in 2023 to $218B, slowing from 20% in 2022 and its lowest rate since 2017
- Region's digital economy cools as consumers curb spending — Researchers cut near-term e-commerce growth estimate by 13%
HSBC launches a blockchain platform to tokenize ownership of gold held in its London vault; HSBC is one of the world's largest custodians of precious metals
- System creates tokens representing gold in bank's vault — Blockchain allows investors to more easily track gold they own
Microsoft releases a Windows 11 2023 Update that replaces Chat with Microsoft Teams (Free); big features like Copilot and AI-powered Paint arrived in September
Tom Warren / The Verge :
Match Group reports Q3 revenue up 9% YoY to $882M, vs. $880.6M est., paying users down 5% YoY to 15.7M, and forecasts Q4 revenue below est.; MTCH drops 15%+
Total Revenue grew 9% over the prior year quarter to $882 million. X: Brett / @ccm_brett : - Tinder hits 10% rev growth - Hinge growing 44% - Margins expanding - Shrinking share count - Trading at tob...
Tesla wins its first US trial over allegations that Autopilot led to a death, in a jury trial in a California court, but faces more lawsuits and investigations
A California jury was tasked with determining whether … Forums: r/teslainvestorsclub : Tesla wins first US Autopilot trial involving fatal crash Ars OpenForum : Tesla Autopilot not responsible for 201...
Infoblox discovers a threat actor that has provided link shortening services to cybercriminals for over four years, registering ~75K domains since April 2022
Ionut Ilascu / BleepingComputer :
DeepMind says its latest AlphaFold model can generate predictions for nearly all molecules in the Protein Data Bank and for ligands, nucleic acids, and more
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch :
AMD reports Q3 revenue up 4% YoY to $5.8B, vs. $5.7B est., net income up 353% YoY to $299M, Data Center revenue of $1.6B, and Q4 sales forecast below estimates
Chavi Mehta / Reuters :
The Guardian says its reputation was damaged after Microsoft Start placed an AI-generated poll about a woman's death next to the outlet's article about her
Google updates Chrome on iOS, but not Chrome on Android, with the option to let users move the address bar to the bottom of the screen, like Safari
Riyadh-based BNPL startup Tabby raised a $200M Series D at a $1.5B valuation, taking its total funding to $950M+; the CEO says Tabby is profitable in the Gulf
Tage Kene-Okafor / TechCrunch :
Colorado-based FusionAuth, which offers authentication and user management tools, raised $65M led by Updata, its first outside funding in its five-year history
Today we are announcing a $65 Million growth equity investment from Updata Partners. … Mark van Oppen : Thrilled to share that FusionAuth has closed a $65 Million growth equity deal with Updata Partne...
Despite several video games with record sales in 2023 and strong overall sales, the industry is still facing layoffs, fewer job openings, and studio closures
Google completes its switch to mobile-first indexing of Search, a process the company began in November 2016, and plans to reduce its legacy desktop crawler use
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land :
Health care automation startup Olive, which was valued at $4B in July 2021, plans to shut down and has sold parts of its business to Waystar and Humata Health
Doc: a Dutch regulator ruled in July that Apple's fees on some app subscriptions violate EU antitrust laws, after Apple offered to drop its cut from 30% to 27%
Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg :
Ahead of India's 2024 elections, some politicians are using voice cloning tools to send personalized messages and AI songs featuring Modi are gaining traction
my latest for @restofworld https://restofworld.org/... Sagar Vishnoi / @sagarvishnoi : Got quoted in @restofworld on how AI is changing Indian politics. Over last few weeks, Modi's digitally rendered ...
Finland-based Wirepas, which is building mesh IoT tech, raised $22M led by Highland Europe, a source says at a $100M to $200M valuation, and claims ~160 clients
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch : LinkedIn: Cory Vanderpool LinkedIn: Cory Vanderpool : Exciting time here at Wirepas as we embrace integral support to accelerate our mission of bringing ultra reliable wi...
Data: African startups raised only $1.3B in the first nine months of 2023, below the $3.3B and $2.9B raised over the same period in 2022 and 2021, respectively
Sultan Quadri / Rest of World : LinkedIn: Sultan Quadri LinkedIn: Sultan Quadri : Venture capital funding in the African startup ecosystem has steadily declined in 2023, causing entrepreneurs and loc...
Chinese lidar maker Hesai, which had a $192M US IPO in February 2023 and whose stock is down 55%+, pushes back against US national security and privacy concerns
Heather Somerville / Wall Street Journal : LinkedIn: Elisha Tropper LinkedIn: Elisha Tropper : Chinese company Hesai is upset that its stock is down more than 50% over concerns that its dominance in ...
Intel, TSMC, and Samsung executives say the global chip industry is bottoming out; IBS projects chip market revenue to fall ~12% in 2023 and grow 11%+ in 2024
Wall Street Journal :
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26
Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control
Picture this: It's Monday morning. You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data
Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.