Tech Meme

Vauhini Vara / Wired: How the founders of Buy Nothing, a project that grew via Facebook Groups of neighbors exchanging free stuff, built their own app and nearly killed the community  —  How an idealistic community for exchanging free stuff tried to break away from Facebook and ended up breaking apart. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Ron Miller / TechCrunch: London-based Metomic, which uses AI to detect data leaks in SaaS apps like Slack, Jira, and Notion, raised a $20M Series A led by Evolution Equity Partners  —  As more companies shift to work-from-home or hybrid environments, it becomes increasingly important to make sure that employees … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Chris Metinko / Crunchbase News: Lincoln, Nebraska-based Spreetail, which offers logistics, customer support, and content services to e-commerce companies, raised $208M led by McCarthy Capital  —  Nebraska is not known for large funding announcements, but that did not hinder Spreetail from securing some serious funding. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Joseph Cox / VICE: A reporter says he used an AI-generated voice replica to bypass the voice verification system of the UK’s Lloyds Bank and then accessed an account’s information  —  Banks in the U.S. and Europe tout voice ID as a secure way to log into your account.  I proved it’s possible to trick such systems with free or cheap AI-generated voices. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Bloomberg: Source: the US DOJ is preparing to file an antitrust lawsuit to block Adobe’s $20B Figma acquisition as soon as March; Adobe expects to close the deal in 2023  —  The Justice Department is preparing an antitrust lawsuit seeking to block Adobe Inc.’s $20 billion acquisition of startup Figma Inc., people familiar with the matter said. Lees verder op Tech Meme

MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC: Block reports Q4 revenue up 14% YoY to $4.65B, vs. $4.61B est., Square gross profit up 22% YoY to $801M, and Cash App gross profit up 64% YoY to $848M  —  – Block stock rose slightly in extended trading after the payments company reported fourth-quarter revenue and gross profit that beat Wall Street’s expectations. Lees verder op Tech Meme

RT Watson / The Block: Document: Vancouver-based NFT startup Dapper Labs, which raised $600M+, cuts 20% of its staff, after laying off ~134, or ~22% of its workforce, in November 2022  —  – Dapper Labs lays off another 20% of staff.  — CEO says company is restructuring and has a “strong cash position.” Lees verder op Tech Meme

Bloomberg: Financial institutions like BofA, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan Chase are restricting internal use of tools like ChatGPT  —  Wall Street is clamping down on ChatGPT as a slew of global investment banks impose restrictions on the fast-growing technology … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Meta AI: Meta releases a new foundational LLM called Large Language Model Meta AI, or LLaMA, available in sizes ranging from 7B to 65B parameters, to help AI researchers  —  As part of Meta’s commitment to open science, today we are publicly releasing LLaMA (Large Language Model Meta AI) … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Stephen Chen / South China Morning Post: Chinese military researchers say they are planning a network of 12,992 low Earth orbit satellites, likely to be deployed before Starlink’s completion in 2027  —  Researchers say China plans to build a huge satellite network in near-Earth orbit to provide internet services to users around the world – and to stifle Elon Musk’s Starlink . Lees verder op Tech Meme