Memo: Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is leaving Microsoft on December 29; Activision's leadership remains and is being integrated into Microsoft Gaming
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is stepping down officially December 29th. Microsoft has not appointed a direct replacement …
Evan Blass leaks an apparent countdown to Galaxy Unpacked on January 17, which says “Galaxy AI is coming”, and a Galaxy S24, S24 Plus, and S24 Ultra spec sheet
If rumors are to be believed, we're less than a month away from the launch of Samsung's latest flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S24 range.
Sources: Apple is ramping up Vision Pro production, aiming for customer-bound units to be ready by the end of January and a retail debut planned for February
- Overseas manufacturing of the headset is running at full speed — Vision Pro debut will vault Apple into new product category
India's lower house of parliament passes the 2023 Telecommunication Bill, despite a lack of clarity on whether online services will fall under the bill's scope
Kamya Pandey / MediaNama :
Microsoft plans to deprecate Windows Mixed Reality and remove the feature in a future Windows update; most Windows VR headsets launched between 2017 and 2021
Windows Mixed Reality will be removed from a future version of Windows — What you need to know
Email: Meta's India policy head, Shivnath Thukral, says the government could choose to apply its proposed telecom law to Meta's OTT services at a “future date”
Meta's India policy head Shivnath Thukral writes in an internal email, 'Govt could have sufficient discretion …
Apple's AI researchers publish papers on using human gaussian splats to generate animated 3D avatars and deploying LLMs on devices with limited memory
Apple, a company practically synonymous with technological innovation, has once again positioned itself at the forefront of the AI revolution.
Privacy campaigners say the UK quietly introduced legislation to let police run facial recognition searches on 50M+ driving license holders without oversight
Exclusive: Privacy campaigners say clause in new criminal justice bill will put all UK drivers on ‘permanent police lineup’
Filing: the US ITC denies Apple's motion to stay the Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 import and sales ban while awaiting an appeal; Biden can veto the ban
Apple has lost its bid to delay an import and sales ban on the Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2. In a filing on Wednesday …
Worldcoin developer Tools for Humanity stops offering its Orb-verification service in India, Brazil, and France, months after a “limited time access” expansion
Worldcoin is no longer offering its Orb-verification service in India, Brazil and France, just months …
France's AMF watchdog gives Coinbase virtual asset service provider approval, as the company pushes deeper into Europe amid a rift with the US SEC
- France's AMF watchdog gave Coinbase virtual asset service provider (VASP) approval, which is effectively a green light for the company to operate crypto services in the country.
A US appeals court finalizes a mandate for the forfeiture of 69,370 BTC and other crypto connected to Silk Road, handed over by Silk Road hacker “Individual X”
- Judgment was first made in August but will now take effect, according to a filing in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Sources: Anthropic is in talks to raise $750M led by Menlo Ventures at a $15B valuation, tripling from spring 2023; its final valuation may top $18B
Anthropic is in talks to raise $750 million in a venture round led by Menlo Ventures that values the two-year-old artificial intelligence startup …
In five experiments, encouraging people to use search engines to evaluate the veracity of fake news posts increased the likelihood of them being rated as true
Data voids in search results can lead down rabbit holes that bolster belief in fake news — Politics
Aston Martin and Porsche preview bespoke interfaces for the next generation of Apple CarPlay, which integrates into all the displays of upcoming vehicle models
here's your first look Joseph Bryans / Display Daily : Apple Unveils Next Gen CarPlay With Porsche and Aston Martin Sebastian Pier / PhoneArena : Want to buy a Porsche in 2024? It will get along with ...
The US FTC proposes more data protections for kids, including making targeted ads for under-13s opt-in and banning using select data for kids push notifications
and where firms are deploying increasingly sophisticated digital tools to surveil children.'” Jules Polonetsky / @julespolonetsky : Just when you thought you could log off for the holiday.... Zephyr T...
Stanford researchers: LAION-5B, a dataset of 5B+ images used by Stability AI and others, contains 1,008+ instances of CSAM, possibly helping AI to generate CSAM
most prominently, Stable Diffusion 1.5—to see to what degree CSAM itself might be present in the training data. https://purl.stanford.edu/... Alex Stamos / @alex.stamos : Lots of people have worried a...
How excess heat from Meta's hyperscale data center in Odense, opened in 2020, helps heat roughly 11,000 homes in the Danish city
Big Tech data centers are not only being used to power the internet but also to heat people's homes. But who's really winning when Facebook keeps you warm at night?
A look at the first annual VTuber Awards, a five-hour, live awards show for virtual YouTubers, hosted from an enclosed green box in WePlay's Los Angeles studio
And an Internet Star X: @origamisdh : @momoiro_akane Vtubers are both nominated and voted for by the community. Award shows are generally pretty bad when in comes to giving fans what they actually wan...
Micron reports Q1 revenue up 16% YoY to $4.73B, vs. $4.54B est., and forecasts Q2 revenue above est., as strong data center demand makes up for device demand
Ian King / Bloomberg :
After analyzing 7.14M miles driven, Waymo claims its autonomous driving system had an 85% reduction in injury-causing crash rates compared to human benchmarks
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge :
Pharmacy chain Rite Aid must stop using facial recognition for five years as part of a settlement with the US FTC, which says the tech falsely flagged customers
Samsung plans to invest ~$280M over five years in a chip packaging research facility in Yokohama, Japan, which the government plans to subsidize by up to ~$140M
Scammers are impersonating Binance, zkSync, and other crypto accounts on X by sharing fake URLs to push scams, fake giveaways, and more to steal crypto and NFTs
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer :
Miami-based Bird files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, listing $100M to $500M in liabilities; the NYSE began delisting the e-scooter rental company in September 2023
NYC-based Vestwell, a SaaS workplace savings and investment management platform, raised a $125M Series D led by Lightspeed, sources say at a ~$1B valuation
Bloomberg :
The US plans to launch a review of the US semiconductor supply chain in January to assess national security concerns about sourcing of legacy chips from China
David Shepardson / Reuters :
The EU designates Pornhub, XVideos, and Stripchat as Very Large Online Platforms under the DSA, facing stricter rules to verify ages and stop illegal content
Q&A with Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth on generative AI reshaping Meta, facial recognition, regulations, open source, Llama, AGI, recruiting, Mistral AI, and more
but this is not remotely an apocalypse. @maxamaxim : his take is correct-ish, the hype/marketing around certain tech as agi doesn't always match up with reality it's not to say that there aren't dange...
Most big brands haven't created AI-specific roles, despite many marketers believing AI will change their jobs; Coca-Cola promoted two executives to new AI roles
Patrick Coffee / Wall Street Journal : X: @patrickcoffee X: Patrick Coffee / @patrickcoffee : New from me: Gen AI is already changing everything, so big consumer brands will create new roles or hire ...
Researchers say AI robot CyberRunner outmaneuvers humans in the game Labyrinth, one of the first instances of AI beating humans at direct physical applications
Sources: Stripe grew net revenue to ~$1B in Q3 2023, operating income to $150M+ in Q3 and nearly $200M from January to September 2023, vs. losing ~$75M in 2022
Cory Weinberg / The Information :
The US NIST seeks public input by February 2, 2024, for setting guidelines to ensure the safety of generative AI systems, as directed by President Biden's AI EO
Simple searches show that Etsy, despite its anti-porn policy, lists AI-generated porn for sale; Etsy removed deepfake porn of 55+ celebs after being notified
a company worth nearly $10B — is still full of a ton of AI-generated porn. My latest for @forbes. https://www.forbes.com/...
Interviews with 20 current and former Meta and Google staff say FTC consent decrees blocked some user data harvesting, but they are now outdated and inadequate
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.