Microsoft says Russia-linked group Midnight Blizzard hacked some employee emails beginning in November 2023; the same group breached SolarWinds as early as 2019
- Nation-state spies previously conducted cyber-espionage on US — Targeted breaches hit Microsoft executives, cyber team
Generative AI and how to regulate the tech dominated the discussions at the 2024 World Economic Forum; the UN Secretary-General said AI poses risks to societies
Finding common language with China will be difficult, European Commission official says — One of the many signs in Davos …
Nightshade, a free tool letting artists “poison” AI models that attempt to train on their artwork without permission, is now available to download on Mac and PC
It's here: months after it was first announced, Nightshade, a new, free software tool allowing artists to “poison” …
BreachForums admin Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, aka “Pompompurin”, is sentenced to 20 years of supervised release for his role in running the cybercrime forum
Conor Brian Fitzpatrick was sentenced to 20 years of supervised release today in the Eastern District of Virginia …
A September 2023 survey of 3,000+ game developers: 84% were somewhat or very concerned about the ethics of using generative AI and 35% were impacted by layoffs
Game developers are overwhelmingly concerned about the ethics of using AI. The organizers of the Game Developers Conference …
A look at Nvidia and Convai's AI-powered video game NPCs, which are effectively generative AI chatbots that interact with the players
What if you could just... speak... to video game characters? Ask your own questions, with your own voice, instead of picking from preset phrases?
As the Mac turns 40, a look at its evolution and interviews with Alan Dye and other Apple executives about its future, its influence on the Vision Pro, and more
The pioneering PC revolutionized how people interact with computers. As the Mac enters its fifth decade, Apple says it will continue to evolve.
Four reasons for the less-than-expected developer enthusiasm for Apple's Vision Pro, including an uncertain ROI and anger at Apple for its App Store policies
Apple's new Vision Pro will lack some key apps when it debuts, renewing concerns about an already-tense relationship with certain developers.
After two failed attempts, a bipartisan effort is being made to remedy the issues caused by US tax law Section 174, which forces amortization of software labor
Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios :
In an unpublished manuscript, David Bunnell, co-founder of PC Magazine, PC World, and Macworld, details the origins of the enduring media brands in the 1980s
In an unpublished manuscript, the cofounder of three enduring media brands looks back. … “But Flying Upside Down is more than that. X: @harrymccracken . LinkedIn: Harry McCracken See also Mediagazer X...
OpenAI bans the developer of a chatbot mimicking presidential hopeful Dean Phillips, the company's first action against use of its tech in political campaigns
It's the ChatGPT maker's first known action against the use of its technology in a political campaign
Sources: Canva generated $2B+ in annualized revenue in 2023 and is nearing a $1.5B+ share sale at a ~$26B valuation, roughly the same as in its previous round
- Sale of existing shares would maintain $26 billion valuation — Australian firm saw over $2 billion annualized revenue in 2023
An interview with crypto skeptic James Block, whose damning critique of Signature Bank on his newsletter, Dirty Bubble Media, became the best short call of 2023
- Doctor whose hobby is debunking crypto made top bearish call — Report on Signature Bank appeared two months before collapse X: @mcelarier X: Michelle Celarier / @mcelarier : Congrats to @MikeBurger...
Apple and Google reducing their app store fees by just 3%-4% for external payment methods simply makes alternative options non-viable for app developers
Eric Benjamin Seufert / Mobile Dev Memo :
Indian smartphone shipments in Q4 2023 grew 20% YoY to 38.9M units, after five quarters of declines; total shipments for 2023 declined 2% YoY to 148.6M units
Dave Mills, who created the Network Time Protocol in 1985 to synchronize time across different computer systems and networks, died at age 85 on January 17
https://arstechnica.com/... Zeb Palmer / @zebpalmer@syringa.social : I've spent a surprisingly significant percentage of my career trying to get thousands of servers scattered around the globe to all ...
Kaspi.kz, which runs two super apps in Kazakhstan, raised $1B+ in its US IPO, with the stock rising 4.3% on its debut, giving the company a market cap of ~$18B
Amy Or / Bloomberg :
Sources: Elon Musk's xAI secured $500M in commitments out of $1B and is aiming for a $15B to $20B valuation; source: X investors are invited to invest in xAI
Bloomberg :
Stability AI releases Stable LM 2 1.6B, which the company says outperforms other small AI language models on most benchmarks, including Microsoft's Phi-2
Sean Michael Kerner / VentureBeat :
Cybersecurity startups raised $8.2B in 692 deals in 2023, down from $16.3B in 941 deals in 2022 and the lowest total since 2018; Q4 funding was just $1.3B
Chris Metinko / Crunchbase News :
Flexport raised $260M from Shopify, one of its biggest shareholders; Shopify sold its money-losing logistics unit to Flexport in exchange for equity in May 2023
Report Threads: Ran Reichman / @ranreichman : I don't understand this on two accounts: 1. Flexport CEO said they have a fortress balance sheet quite recently. 2. Why does Shopify need this? X: Austi...
How urban planners in Barcelona and others are using supercomputers and AI to create digital twins of their cities to address issues like traffic congestion
Joy Lo Dico / Financial Times :
How AI has been helping criminals who use deepfakes and voice cloning for financial scams, forcing banks and fintechs to invest in AI to counter fraud
Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan / Financial Times : X: @svr13 . LinkedIn: Anne-Marie Edmonds X: Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan / @svr13 : Amid all the guff of AGI, the experience of Paddric - who was ta...
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