Wed. 05/29 – Did The Secret Sauce Of Google Search Just Leak?

Twitter is finally sunsetting its legacy verified program. OpenAI rolls out ChatGPT plugins. Do Kwan has been detained and is facing formal charges here in the US. The FTC’s “click to cancel” proposal. And, of course, the weekend longreads suggestions. Sponsors: Headspace.com/RIDE30DAY Links: Twitter to Revoke ‘Legacy’ Verified Badges in April, Leaving Only Paying Subscribers With Blue Check-Marks (Variety) OpenAI is massively expanding ChatGPT’s capabilities to let it browse the web and more (The Verge) Do Kwon Charged With Fraud by US Prosecutors in New York (Bloomberg) The FTC wants to ban those tough-to-cancel gym and cable subscriptions (The Verge) Weekend Longreads Suggestions: Cheating is All You Need (Sourcegraph Blog) The Age of AI has begun (GatesNotes/Bill Gates) The secret history of Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and OpenAI (Semafor) The case for slowing down AI (Vox) Epic’s new motion-capture animation tech has to be seen to be believed (ArsTechnica) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

24 Mars 202318min

Coinbase got a Wells Notice, which is not good. Hindenburg research has a new note out and is making short run on Block, which is not good. Apple might expand its sports streaming and release more things in actual theaters. And the space startup that 3d prints its own rockets. Sponsors: Thuma.co/techmeme for a $25 credit Links: Coinbase warned by SEC of potential securities charges (CNBC) SEC charges Tron founder Justin Sun, celebrities Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul with crypto violations (CNBC) Jack Dorsey’s Block Falls After Hindenburg Says It’s Short the Stock (Bloomberg) Hindenburg takes aim at Dorsey's payments firm Block; shares plunge (Reuters) Apple Considers Bidding for English Football Streaming Rights (Bloomberg) Apple to Spend $1 Billion a Year on Films to Break Into Cinemas (Bloomberg) Canva Launches ‘Magic’ AI Tools For Its Design Software’s 125 Million Users (Forbes) Chatbot Start-Up Character.AI Valued at $1 Billion in New Funding Round (NYTimes) Relativity Space’s first launch fails to reach orbit, but proves its 3D-printing rocket tech works (TechCrunch) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

23 Mars 202317min

Well, we’ve got Google Bard. We’ve got a new Copilot from GitHub. Bing Image Creator is rolling out. Mozilla AI launches. The low hanging fruit that is plugging AI into NPCs to make games more realistic. And at the very end, some actual non AI news! Links: Google opens early access to its ChatGPT rival Bard — here are our first impressions (The Verge) Microsoft’s GitHub to Add OpenAI Chat Functions to Coding Tool (Bloomberg) Microsoft brings OpenAI’s DALL-E image creator to the new Bing (TechCrunch) Mozilla launches a new startup focused on ‘trustworthy’ AI (TechCrunch) Ubisoft’s new AI tool automatically generates dialogue for non-playable game characters (TechCrunch) GPT-4 and professional benchmarks: the wrong answer to the wrong question (AI Snake Oil) Amazon is flooding the zone with new TVs as it crosses 200 million Fire TV devices sold (The Verge) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Mars 202316min

Ahead of a major showdown in Congress this week, TikTok wants the US to know exactly how popular it is. Why ChatGPT was shut down for a while yesterday. Why Google is suspending PinDuoDuo from the play store. The AI powered doctor’s office of the future. And is Andy Jassy the David Moyes of Amazon? If you get that reference, congratulations. Down Round Podcast (Listener Ad!) Links: TikTok says it now has 150m monthly active users in the US (MusicAlly) TikTok bans deepfakes of nonpublic figures and fake endorsements in rule refresh (The Verge) Google flags apps made by popular Chinese e-commerce giant as malware (TechCrunch) OpenAI Shut Down ChatGPT to Fix Bug Exposing User Chat Titles (Bloomberg) Amazon’s post-Bezos experiment hasn’t gone exactly as planned (CNBC) OpenAI-powered app from Microsoft will instantly transcribe patient notes during doctor visits (CNBC) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

21 Mars 202317min

New bots to make video from text prompts. Fending off the bots from biting your style. Falling in love with the bots. In the streaming wars, the ad supported experiments are working, and pricing power is a thing. And the startup that says it’s about to introduce humanoid bots. Real, definitional robots. Sponsors: Dot Tech Domains: Go.tech/tm Links: Generative AI’s Next Frontier Is Video (Bloomberg) Glaze protects art from prying AIs (TechCrunch) AI love: What happens when your chatbot stops loving you back (Reuters) Netflix’s Ad Tier Hits 1 Million Users. Is That Good or Bad? (Bloomberg) Disney+ Users Paid Up When the Price Rose (WSJ) Humanoid robots are coming (Axios) Figure Promises First General-Purpose Humanoid Robot (IEEE Spectrum) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

20 Mars 202317min

Amazon Kindle gets out of the magazine business. An ironically named PE firm is buying Porn Hub. Midjourney v5 is really mind blowing. And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions. Sponsors: RelationshipHero.com/techmeme Links: Amazon will discontinue newspaper and magazine subscriptions in September (GoodEReader) SVB Financial files for Ch. 11 bankruptcy protection, says it has $2.2B in liquidity (TechCrunch) Pornhub owner sold to Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital (Financial Times) AI-imager Midjourney v5 stuns with photorealistic images—and 5-fingered hands (ArsTechnica) Weekend Longreads Suggestions: The Guardians (Meteor) The Future Smartphone: More Folds, Less Phone, a Whole Lot of AI (Wired) LinkedIn turns 20: An oral history of an unlikely champion (Fast Company) ‘It changed the world’: 50 years on, the story of Pong's Bay Area origins (SFGate) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

17 Mars 202317min

For the first time ever, I had to delay producing this show so I could watch and cover and AI product announcement. Let me tell you about how Microsoft is bringing GPT-4, to basically all their most famous apps with Copilot. Looks like the potential for a TikTok ban is getting really real. And why folks are suddenly turning on OpenAI. Sponsors: Overtired Podcast Links: Introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot — your copilot for work (Microsoft) Microsoft 365 gets a host of new AI-powered features (TechCrunch) U.S. Threatens Ban if TikTok’s Chinese Owners Don’t Sell Stakes (WSJ) OpenAI co-founder on company’s past approach to openly sharing research: ‘We were wrong’ (TheVerge) Payments giant Stripe raises $6.5 billion at a $50 billion valuation (Axios) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

16 Mars 202317min

GPT-4 is unveiled and it’s multimodal, and man, is everybody rushing to make use of this stuff. Alleged renders of Google's Pixel 8 Pro appear to show a mysterious new sensor. The state of the music industry in the streaming era. And Deadpool sells his phone company to another phone company. Links: OpenAI unveils GPT-4 with multimodal input and more creative and complex capabilities (Windows Central) 10 Ways GPT-4 Is Impressive but Still Flawed (NYTimes) With Evals, OpenAI hopes to crowdsource AI model testing (TechCrunch) Duolingo launches new subscription tier with access to AI tutor powered by GPT-4 (TechCrunch) GPT-4’s new capabilities power a ‘virtual volunteer’ for the visually impaired (TechCrunch) TikTok Considers Splitting From ByteDance If Deal With US Fails (Bloomberg) Google Pixel 8 Pro adds a mysterious new sensor, flat display in first leaked renders (9to5Google) Apple Music boosts streaming music revenue to record $13.3 billion in 2022; vinyl outpaces CDs for first since 1987 (9to5Mac) Ryan Reynolds-Backed Mint Is Bought by T-Mobile for $1.35 Billion (Bloomberg) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

15 Mars 202318min