Network Support Blog

Bloomberg: Indian IT giants Infosys and Wipro cut college recruitment in October as global demand cools, leaving hundreds of thousands of tech graduates in peril  —  India's giant tech firms are curbing hiring, adding to the youth unemployment problem in the country  —  For years, India's tech graduates … http://www.techmeme.com/231130/p40?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231130p40

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: Apple releases emergency security updates for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS to fix two zero-days that may have been exploited, reaching 20 zero-days patched in 2023  —  Apple released emergency security updates to fix two zero-day vulnerabilities exploited in attacks and impacting iPhone, iPad … http://www.techmeme.com/231130/p39?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231130p39

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Meta expands the keyword search feature of Threads to all markets where the app is available, with support for “all languages”  —  Instagram's Twitter/X rival, Threads, is becoming more competitive with the expansion of its keyword search feature to all markets where the app is available. http://www.techmeme.com/231130/p38?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231130p38

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch: An interview with Amazon CTO Werner Vogels on culturally aware LLMs, developer productivity with generative AI, women's health tech, and more  —  By tradition, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels caps off the AWS re:Invent conference with his last-day keynote.  A more recent tradition is that he also uses … http://www.techmeme.com/231130/p37?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231130p37

Ben Mitchell / The Independent: Facebook, Instagram, Google, Amazon, TikTok, YouTube, Microsoft, and others sign the UK's Online Fraud Charter to fight scams, fake ads, and romance fraud  —  Home Secretary James Cleverly hosted representatives from several leading tech companies to sign the Charter. http://www.techmeme.com/231130/p27?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231130p27

Susan Heavey / Reuters: The Senate Judiciary Committee says the CEOs of Meta, X, TikTok, Snap, and Discord plan to testify on online child sexual exploitation at a January 31 hearing  —  The chief executives of social media companies Meta (META.O), X, TikTok, Snap (SNAP.N) and Discord will testify … http://www.techmeme.com/231129/p39?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231129p39

Ben Schoon / 9to5Google: Mozilla says Firefox extensions compatible with Android will be “openly available” to users on December 14, with over 400 coming at launch  —  Mozilla is opening the floodgates on extensions for Firefox on Android, with hundreds of new add-ons arriving in December. http://www.techmeme.com/231129/p38?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231129p38

Jay Peters / The Verge: Intuit Mailchimp plans to shut down TinyLetter on February 29, 2024, to focus on its core Mailchimp marketing product; Mailchimp acquired TinyLetter in 2011  —  Mailchimp is shutting TinyLetter, a service that I loved that let individuals easily write and publish simple but nice-looking email newsletters. http://www.techmeme.com/231129/p37?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231129p37

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Apple says it's focused with Goldman Sachs on providing “an incredible experience” for customers, after a report that Apple plans to end their partnership  —  Apple is quietly disputing a headline by The Wall Street Journal that claims the tech giant has “pulled the plug” … http://www.techmeme.com/231129/p36?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231129p36

Eric Newcomer / Newcomer: Together AI, which helps pre-train and fine-tune open source foundation models more efficiently, raised a $102.5M Series A led by Kleiner Perkins  —  I spoke with Together AI CEO Vipul Ved Prakash  —  Together AI, a startup that's helping companies pre-train and fine-tune open source foundation models … http://www.techmeme.com/231129/p26?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231129p26

Washington Post: How a post office in the tiny town of Bemidji, Minnesota, was overwhelmed by Amazon packages, which staff were told to prioritize, causing chaos  —  BEMIDJI, Minn. — When Delbert Mikelson's mail started showing up late — and sometimes not showing up at all — he blamed it on the opening of deer season. http://www.techmeme.com/231128/p35?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231128p35

Jon Swartz / MarketWatch: HPE reports Q4 revenue down 7% YoY to $7.4B, Compute revenue down 31% YoY to $2.6B, HPC & AI revenue up 37% YoY to $1.2B, Intelligent Edge revenue up 41% YoY  —  Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. dipped slightly in extended trading Tuesday after the computing giant reported quarterly results … http://www.techmeme.com/231128/p34?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231128p34

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Apple Music Replay, which lets users look back at their music listening habits from the past year, arrives but is still no match for Spotify Wrapped  —  Apple's year-end review and answer to Spotify Wrapped, Apple Music Replay, has arrived, but it's still no match for Spotify's personalized look back at your year in music. http://www.techmeme.com/231128/p33?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231128p33

Drew Harwell / Washington Post: In a now-deleted Nov. 28 tweet and on Nov. 20, Elon Musk boosted the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory that led a man to fire an AR-15 in a DC eatery in 2016  —  The far-right theory motivated a gunman to fire multiple rounds inside the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in 2016. http://www.techmeme.com/231128/p32?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231128p32

Reuters: Adobe: US Cyber Monday sales rose 9.6% YoY to a record $12.4B, driven by deep discounts that peaked at 31% in electronics and 23% for apparel  —  Deep discounts on everything from beauty products and toys to electronics have enticed U.S. shoppers to splurge on Christmas purchases and ring … http://www.techmeme.com/231128/p22?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231128p22

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: London-based PhysicsX, which uses AI for engineering simulations in automotive, aerospace, and other industries, raised a $32M Series A led by General Catalyst  —  A lot of the buzz these days in artificial intelligence is around generative AI and how AI is being used to accelerate software and products for consumers. http://www.techmeme.com/231127/p15?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231127p15

Cissy Zhou / Nikkei Asia: Sources: ByteDance plans to cut ~1,000 jobs and discontinue all but a few games that have yet to launch, backing away from its aggressive investments since 2016  —  Layoffs come as China company intensifies efforts in generative AI  —  ByteDance, operator of short-video app TikTok, has invested aggressively in gaming since 2016. http://www.techmeme.com/231127/p14?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231127p14

Chloe Cornish / Financial Times: As Elon Musk visits Israel, an official says Musk “reach[ed] a principle understanding” that Starlink “can only be operated in Israel” with government approval  —  Entrepreneur meets country's leaders amid furore over alleged antisemitism on his social platform X http://www.techmeme.com/231127/p13?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231127p13

Bloomberg: Salesforce plans to sell most of its big apps on AWS' marketplace, letting customers use credits, after years of Amazon nudging customers to use the marketplace  —  - Salesforce is working to expand ‘self-service’ purchases  — Amazon takes a cut of revenue made through the marketplace http://www.techmeme.com/231127/p12?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231127p12

Stephen Witt / New Yorker: A profile of Jensen Huang, the Taiwan-born, US-educated Nvidia founder, who started the company in 1993, and a look at Nvidia's rise, built on GPUs and CUDA  —  The company's C.E.O. bet it all on a new kind of chip.  Now that Nvidia is one of the biggest companies in the world, what will he do next? http://www.techmeme.com/231127/p11?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231127p11

David Gilbert / Wired: Google's Jigsaw and Tech Against Terrorism launch Altitude, a free tool for smaller platforms to detect terrorist content on their networks and remove it  —  Small platforms without resources to handle takedown requests have been weaponized by terrorist groups that share their content online. http://www.techmeme.com/231111/p7?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231111p7

Andi Yu / ABC: DP World Australia, the country's second largest port operator, shuts down after a cyber attack, impacting the movement of goods in and out of the country  —  Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article … Australia's second largest port operator has shut … http://www.techmeme.com/231111/p6?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231111p6

Steph Batalis / Foreign Policy: Chatbots can lower the information barrier to help malicious actors build a bioweapon, making guardrails during chatbot development a good step for biosecurity  —  Artificial intelligence can help users engineer pathogens—but that's not the real danger.  —  Human extinction, mass unemployment … http://www.techmeme.com/231111/p5?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231111p5

Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica: Humane's Ai Pin seems like a bizarre cross between Google Glass and a pager, the lack of apps feels extremely limiting, and the $699 price is hard to understand  —  The Humane AI pin has no screen, no apps, and a creepy in-your-face camera.  —  Not since Magic Leap has a “next-generation” … http://www.techmeme.com/231111/p4?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231111p4

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: Report: Apple product and search result pages on Amazon have few, if any, rival ads, after Apple asked for preferential treatment, leading to their 2018 deal  —  Apple and Amazon are once again facing scrutiny for their 2018 agreement that saw Apple finally establish an official Amazon storefront. http://www.techmeme.com/231110/p20?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231110p20

Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times: The UK's NHS is using the National Liver Offering Scheme, a predictive scoring algorithm found to have a fatal error, to help decide who gets a liver transplant  —  Sarah Meredith was in urgent need of a liver when she found out an algorithm would be making the life-or-death decision http://www.techmeme.com/231110/p10?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231110p10

David Attlee / Cointelegraph: 47 countries including all 38 OECD member states issue a joint pledge to “swiftly transpose” OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework into their domestic laws  —  The Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework is the new international standard for the automatic exchange of information between tax authorities. http://www.techmeme.com/231110/p7?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231110p7

Cheng Leng / Financial Times: Chinese foreign ministry says ICBC is trying to minimize losses after the ransomware attack; a source says the attack is “limited in impact and almost resolved”  —  Hack at Chinese bank's arm disrupted market for US Treasuries on Thursday  —  The Industrial and Commercial Bank … http://www.techmeme.com/231110/p6?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231110p6

Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer: Microsoft: MOVEit hackers are exploiting a zero-day flaw in IT support tool SysAid in “limited” attacks to access corporate servers and deploy Clop ransomware  —  Threat actors are exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in the service management software SysAid to gain access … http://www.techmeme.com/231110/p5?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231110p5

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: Helsinki-based Noice, a game livestreaming service that lets viewers participate in the gameplay experience, raised a $21M Series A  —  Noice has raised $21 million to revolutionize social gaming with a combination of livestreaming and multiplayer gaming in one platform. http://www.techmeme.com/231109/p45?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231109p45

Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg: Since becoming Twitch CEO in March 2023, Dan Clancy has been traveling the US in a van, meeting prominent streamers and listening to their ideas and concerns  —  Dan Clancy aims to boost Amazon's $45 billion livestreaming site by improving customer service for top performers http://www.techmeme.com/231109/p20?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231109p20

Melanie Dawes / Financial Times: Ofcom's CEO discusses its new powers to police tech companies: kids are a priority, companies need to detect and remove CSAM, and working in harmony with the EU  —  Where the laws have different scope, it's important that implementing them does not create conflicts for companies http://www.techmeme.com/231109/p10?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231109p10

Kate Irwin / Decrypt: Game developers, voice actors, writers, and others criticize Inworld AI and Xbox partnering to create AI game development tools, after layoffs in the industry  —  Microsoft is making more AI tools, but game industry talent are very concerned that the Xbox AI push will lead to more job losses. http://www.techmeme.com/231109/p6?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231109p6

Sam Nussey / Reuters: Sony reports Q2 revenue up 8% YoY to ~$18.5B, operating profit down 29% YoY to ~$1.74B, chips division profit down 38%, and 4.9M PS5 sales, vs. 3.3M in Q2 2022  —  Sony's (6758.T) operating profit fell 29% in the July-September quarter as the company was hit by a weaker performance at its image sensor and financial divisions. http://www.techmeme.com/231109/p5?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231109p5

Andy Chalk / PC Gamer: Activision Blizzard is transitioning away from the Overwatch League to evolve the esports competition in a “new direction”; exiting teams may get a $6M payout  —  Competitive Overwatch may return, but not in its current form.  —  Earlier this year, Activision Blizzard expressed doubt … http://www.techmeme.com/231108/p50?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231108p50

Rob Golum / Bloomberg: Roblox reports Q3 bookings up 20% YoY to $839.5M, beating $822M est., $81.1M EBITDA, revenue up 38% YoY to $713.2M, and DAUs up 20% YoY to 70.2M; RBLX jumps 13%  —  Roblox Corp., the video-game platform popular among teenagers, surged after posting third-quarter bookings and revenue that far exceeded Wall Street's projections. http://www.techmeme.com/231108/p22?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231108p22

RT Watson / The Block: Binance releases a self-custody crypto wallet within its app, letting users “swap thousands of tokens across” more than 30 networks  —  - The world's largest cryptocurrency exchange launches a self-custody wallet that works within the Binance app.  — The announcement was made during its conference in Turkey. http://www.techmeme.com/231108/p12?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231108p12

Jacob Judah / MIT Technology Review: How .tk, the ccTLD for New Zealand's Tokelau territory that until recently had more users than any other ccTLD, became a domain of choice for cybercriminals  —  Tokelau, a necklace of three isolated atolls strung out across the Pacific, is so remote that it was the last place on Earth to be connected to the telephone—only in 1997. http://www.techmeme.com/231108/p8?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231108p8

Sam Byford / Multicore: Opinion: Leica helped Xiaomi create a flagship that takes better photos than iPhone, and their partnership makes sense despite Xiaomi copying some iOS elements  —  It's past time to start taking Chinese phones seriously, whether you've used one or not  —  Xiaomi launched its new 14 Pro flagship phone … http://www.techmeme.com/231108/p7?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231108p7

Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg: Coupang reports Q3 net revenue up 21% YoY to $6.2B, vs. $5.9B est., net income of $91.3M, vs. $119M est., and active customers up 14% YoY to a record 20.4M+  —  - Despite disappointing profit, revenue beats projections  — Korea's top online mall is stepping up investments in Taiwan http://www.techmeme.com/231107/p49?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231107p49

Min Jeong Lee / Bloomberg: WeWork's bankruptcy caps a years-long saga for Masayoshi Son, who overrode lieutenants' objections to hand Adam Neumann billions, losing SoftBank over $11.5B  —  - Co-working space's bankruptcy highlights billionaire's hubris  — Few checks on SoftBank CEO as he prepares to go on offensive http://www.techmeme.com/231107/p17?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231107p17

Bloomberg: Sources: Shein aims for an $80B to $90B valuation in its US IPO, far exceeding its $50B to $60B valuation in private trades; Shein was valued at $100B in 2022  —  - Timing of Shein's IPO remains uncertain given volatile market  — Valuation dropped to $50 billion in recent private trades http://www.techmeme.com/231107/p7?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231107p7

Jay Peters / The Verge: Sony says it's terminating X integration for PS5 and PS4 starting November 13, 2023, meaning users won't be able to post and view content on X from the consoles  —  Sony is terminating its X (formerly Twitter) integrations for PS5 and PS4, meaning you soon won't be able to post screenshots and clips to X from those consoles. http://www.techmeme.com/231106/p37?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231106p37

Katie Paul / Reuters: Meta says it is barring political advertisers from using its new generative AI advertising products  —  Facebook owner Meta (META.O) is barring political advertisers from using its new generative AI advertising products, a company spokesperson said on Monday, cutting off campaigns' access … http://www.techmeme.com/231106/p36?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231106p36

Wall Street Journal: Sources: Intel is the leading candidate to potentially receive billions under the US Chips Act to build secure facilities producing chips for the US military  —  Company has emerged as a potential top winner of Chips Act funding  —  Intel is the leading candidate to potentially receive billions … http://www.techmeme.com/231106/p35?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231106p35

Erica Pandey / Axios: A survey of 978 US students: 79% say they don't use any dating apps even as much as once per month; 12% say they use Tinder monthly, the most of any dating app  —  Young people aren't on dating apps.  — That's according to a new Axios/Generation Lab survey of college and graduate students nationwide. http://www.techmeme.com/231106/p13?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231106p13

Brian Heater / TechCrunch: Q&A with Google DeepMind Head of Robotics Vincent Vanhoucke on the robotics team's history, general purpose robots, generative AI's role in robotics, and more  —  [A version of this piece first appeared in TechCrunch's robotics newsletter, Actuator.  Subscribe here.] http://www.techmeme.com/231106/p1?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231106p1

Bloomberg: Chinese startup 01.AI, launched in March 2023 by computer scientist Kai-Fu Lee, reaches a $1B+ valuation and releases its AI model Yi-34B in Chinese and English  —  - 01.AI's model outperforms Meta's Llama 2 on certain metrics  — Startup to offer open-source model; proprietary options later http://www.techmeme.com/231105/p10?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231105p10

David Gilbert / Wired: A look at CulturePulse, which is building an AI model to create a virtual version of Israel and Palestinian territories and has signed a nine-month UN contract  —  CulturePulse's AI model promises to create a realistic virtual simulation of Israel and the Palestinian territories. http://www.techmeme.com/231105/p9?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231105p9

Maria Heeter / The Information: Sources: Palo Alto Networks is close to acquiring Tel Aviv-based startup Talon Cyber Security for $600M to $700M, and may announce the deal as soon as Monday  —  Palo Alto Networks is close to acquiring Israeli startup Talon Cyber Security in a deal that could value it at $600 million to $700 million … http://www.techmeme.com/231105/p8?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a231105p8