Tech Meme

Yu Nakamura / Nikkei Asia: Analysis: total sales of 19 major IT companies in Taiwan, including Foxconn and TSMC, were down 19.8% YoY to ~$35B in June, the largest drop since at least 2013  —  Industry’s sales fall 20% in June on weak global demand for electronic devices  —  Demand for Apple and other electronic devices … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Kyle Chayka / New Yorker: A writer details using AI startup Writer’s LLM to generate text in his writing style and says most “insights” that the tool produced felt hollow or approximated  —  A new wave of artificial-intelligence startups is trying to “scale language” by automating the work of writing. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Reuters: The UK CMA opens an in-depth investigation into Adobe’s $20B Figma deal after Adobe would not offer any remedies to CMA concerns, setting a December 27 deadline  —  Britain’s antitrust regulator on Thursday announced an in-depth probe of Adobe’s (ADBE.O) $20 billion bid for cloud-based designer platform Figma … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Stability AI releases Stable Doodle, a sketch-to-image tool on ClipDrop that uses the Stable Diffusion model to generate “visually pleasing” artistic renditions  —  Stability AI, the startup behind the image-generating model Stable Diffusion, is launching a new service that turns sketches into images. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Jamie Crawley / CoinDesk: Telegram merchants can now accept crypto payments via TON-based Wallet in tether, bitcoin, and toncoin, expanding on support for transfers between users  —  Wallet, which is built on the TON blockchain, is allowing merchants to integrate cryptocurrency into the bots they use to accept payments in the messaging app. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Maxwell Strachan / VICE: Some VCs reflect on the industry slowdown; QED Investors co-founder Frank Rotman estimates that up to 80% of VC firms are in strategically challenged positions  —  The venture industry needs to shrink to adjust to the new normal, and even the VCs themselves know it. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post: Document: the FTC sends OpenAI a 20-page demand for records on the risks of its AI models and a March 2023 security incident over payment-related information  —  The agency’s demand for OpenAI’s documents about AI risks mark the company’s greatest U.S. regulatory threat to date Lees verder op Tech Meme

Bloomberg: Huawei reports $560M in revenue from patent licensing deals in 2023, its first disclosure of such income, and spent 25% of its 2022 sales on R&D, or ~$22.5B  —  Huawei Technologies Co. made $560 million in revenue from its patent licensing deals last year, disclosing for the first time its annual income … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Juli Clover / MacRumors: Apple updates macOS Sonoma to bring iCloud Keychain passwords to non-Safari browsers for the first time, expanding on a Chrome extension  —  The macOS Sonoma update that is in testing allows Mac owners who opt to use Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or another browser to use Apple’s Password Manager for filling passwords. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Clive Cookson / Financial Times: UNESCO calls for regulation of AI-based neurotechnology; research shows private investments in Neuralink and others reached $7.3B in 2020, up ~20x since 2010  —  Manipulation of brain signals advancing so fast it threatens human rights, warns UN body  —  Neurotechnology is advancing so fast … Lees verder op Tech Meme