Tech Meme

Bloomberg: A look at LAION, a free AI training dataset with 5B+ images used in Stable Diffusion and Google’s Imagen, created by high school teacher Christoph Schuhmann  —  In front of a suburban house on the outskirts of the northern Germany city of Hamburg, a single word — “LAION” — is scrawled in pencil across a mailbox. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Hannah Murphy / Financial Times: A look at “the flattening”: tech companies laying off middle managers to improve efficiency and cut costs after hiring them in droves during the pandemic boom  —  Moves to carve out a layer of staff aim to speed up decisions but could leave a talent gap Lees verder op Tech Meme

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Snapchat sees a spike in 1-star reviews as users pan the “My AI” chatbot feature, powered by OpenAI GPT tech, that launched to users globally on April 19  —  The user reviews for Snapchat’s “My AI” feature are in — and they’re not good.  Launched last week to global users … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Margi Murphy / Bloomberg: A look at Alethea, Graphika, and other startups that raised $300M+ between 2018-2022 to fight disinformation for companies and governments, charging $100K+/year  —  Shawn Eib was on the case as soon as customers started pulling billions of dollars from Silicon Valley Bank. Lees verder op Tech Meme

John D. McKinnon / Wall Street Journal: A poll of 1,500 US voters finds 46% support a nationwide TikTok ban and 35% oppose it; 62% of Republicans are in favor, compared to 33% of Democrats  —  Majority of GOP voters support banning Chinese-owned app, compared with 33% of Democrats  —  WASHINGTON—Nearly half of U.S. voters support banning … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Martine Paris / Forbes: Pop star Grimes tells fans to create AI-generated music with her voice, saying she will split 50% royalties, the same as “with any artist I collab with”  —  In the wake of the AI-generated hit Heart on My Sleeve going viral with deepfakes of multi-platinum artists Drake and The Weeknd … Lees verder op Tech Meme

John Kruzel / Reuters: SCOTUS agrees to hear two First Amendment cases related to government officials blocking critics on social media, after a similar Trump-related case in 2021  —  The U.S. Supreme Court, exploring free speech rights in the social media era, on Monday agreed to consider whether the Constitution’s … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Bloomberg: Research in 2021: around 60% of undersea internet cable faults were caused by fishing equipment or anchors; repairs can often cost $250K to $3M per incident  —  On the evening of Oct. 14, the managing director of Shefa, a Faroese Telecom subsidiary, received a call from one of his technicians … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Reuters: The trial of Nathaniel Chastain, an ex-OpenSea product manager accused of insider trading in NFTs, begins this week, one of the first cases for digital assets  —  U.S. prosecutors will square off this week against a former employee of OpenSea, the world’s largest marketplace for non-fungible tokens … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg: Analysts, investors, and founders expect a hard year for tech startups, including more down rounds; PitchBook says 400+ unicorns haven’t raised funds since 2021  —  The startup world has had a tough year — plagued by mass layoffs, plummeting venture capital investment and the chaotic collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Lees verder op Tech Meme