Tech News
Tech News and Analysis from around the web
Associated Press:
FIFA report: 50%+ of soccer players in two 2021 tournaments received social media abuse, a third of which was racist; some players and clubs demand change — Missing penalties in a major international soccer final was bad enough for three Black players on England's national team.
Sarah McBride / Bloomberg:
Enterprise software startup Instabase raised $45M led by Tribe Capital at a $2B valuation, after raising $105M at a $1.05B valuation in October 2019 — Business services startup Instabase Inc. has raised a new round of funding that doubles its valuation to $2 billion, a deal buoyed …
Scharon Harding / Ars Technica:
Counterfeit tech scams run amok on Walmart and eBay because the platforms, despite their resources, have failed to properly vet sellers and products — If I can spot a fake SSD, why can't Walmart? — Online retailers that host third-party sellers, like Amazon and Walmart, have extensive, competitively priced electronics selections.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple Vision Pro will take at least five years to supplant the iPhone, reflected by Tim Cook not wearing one; the spatial computing UI is what's most impressive — Hey everyone, it's Mark. Apple introduced the Vision Pro on Monday at WWDC, looking to an era beyond the iPhone, iPad and Mac.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Curri, a last-mile logistics service for the construction industry, raised a $42M Series B, taking its funding to $48.2M, and launches an API to book vehicles — In 2018, Matt Lafferty and Brian Gonzalez co-founded Curri, a tech platform focused on last-mile logistics for the construction industry.
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Apple Vision Pro is incredibly compelling as a product and for its potential use cases; what the device says about society, though, is a bit more pessimistic — It really is one of the best product names in Apple history: Vision is a description of a product, it is an aspiration for a use case …
A friend asked if I was going to get "one of these headsets"? My answer, for the record: "Not even slightly interested, but I suppose that could change." One of the reasons I'm skeptical is that I have imperfect vision. I seriously doubt if a headset would work for me, given that my left eye is pretty bad, and my right eye is normal. Pretty sure they're for people with good balanced vision. I haven't heard that question asked or answered, for any of the headsets. Another concern is how heavy it is. As you get older you learn that stress on your body accumulates over time. For example, I can't use a full-size iPad. I used one for years, but it wore out my left arm so now it's too painful, but I can use an iPad Mini, without problems (so far). If you're putting some kind of new weight on a human head, what will that do to your neck over time? Your back? These kinds of problems tend to cascade. And I can't help but wonder if there isn't another way to achieve what they're doing without putting extra stress on our necks? Honestly I'd prefer to have a Mac that ran Frontier, that would really excite me. 😄
Austin Weinstein / Bloomberg:
The SEC sues Coinbase, alleging the exchange operated as an unregistered broker since at least 2019 and broke the rules by offering “staking”; COIN drops 15%+ — The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Coinbase Global Inc. in federal court in New York on Tuesday, alleging the crypto firm for years broke its rules.
Tom Wilson / Reuters:
Nansen: investors pulled ~$780M from Binance and $13M from its US affiliate in the past 24 hours, following the SEC's lawsuit — Investors have pulled around $780 million from crypto exchange Binance in the last 24 hours, data firm Nansen said on Tuesday, a day after the world's biggest crypto exchange …
Kathrin Hille / Financial Times:
At TSMC's annual meeting, geopolitics took center stage for the first time, as CEO Mark Liu defended the US expansion, saying the plans were “not all downside” — Shareholders question strategy but chair says new foundries outside Taiwan can help it maintain global leadership
Priya Anand / Bloomberg:
Reddit defends its usage-based API pricing, arguing the company “needs to be fairly paid to continue supporting high-usage third-party apps” — A number of Reddit forums plan to go dark for two days later this month to protest the company's decision to increase prices for third-party app developers.
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Sequoia plans to split into three firms, Sequoia in the US and Europe, HongShan in China, and Peak XV in India and Southeast Asia, “no later than” March 2024 — Venture capital's biggest global brand is breaking up, with Sequoia's China and India and Southeast Asia funds relaunching …
Justin Ling / Wired:
Internal 4chan emails, chat logs, and moderation decisions reveal how the site's team of moderators, called “janitors”, allowed racism and violence to take over — Internal company documents reveal how the imageboard's chaotic moderation allowed racism and violence to take over.
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Apple avoided mentioning AI at WWDC, instead referring to machine learning and transformers while describing features; M2 Ultra was touted for training models — Apple prefers using “machine learning,” or just having AI work in the background. — Amid notable new products …
Ian King / Bloomberg:
Filing: Intel plans to sell 35M+ shares in Mobileye, raising around $1.48B for its spending plans; after the sale, Intel will retain an ~88% stake in Mobileye — Intel Corp., the largest US chipmaker by revenue, will sell part of its holdings in Mobileye Global Inc., raising about $1.48 billion for its ambitious spending plans.
Ryan Smith / AnandTech:
Intel details PowerVia, a backside power delivery technology promising performance and manufacturing benefits, set to be introduced in its chips in 2024 — At next week's annual VLSI Symposium, Intel will be presenting a trio of highly-anticipated papers about their progress …
It's been a while since I asked about writing into AI chatbots -- ie writing something designed to be queried via something like ChatGPT, or ideally, ChatGPT itself. A few bullet points follow.
- I already have a writing tool that I use for everything.
- I figure by now a service probably exists that can ingest RSS or (ideally) OPML -- and have it be processed and kept updated as things change.
- I have a sizable documentation project coming up, and I'd like to, if possible, start off with the new medium. I think we can make docs that work much better.
- Of course I asked ChatGPT itself but it was no help. They said to use their API. I want to use something that uses their API. I can't spare the time to become a developer at this time.
- If you know of such a service, or would like to make one -- send me an email or (better) post a comment here.