~techmeme | Bookmarks (1045)

NBC News: Sources: US intelligence determined that the Chinese spy balloon that flew across the US in January and February 2023 used a US ISP to communicate with China  —  An American intelligence assessment found that the balloon used a commercially available U.S. network to communicate, primarily for navigation, U.S. officials say.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: GitHub launches GPT-4-powered Copilot Chat in general availability for all users, in the sidebar of Microsoft's IDEs, Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio  —  Earlier this year, GitHub rolled out Copilot Chat, a ChatGPT-like programming-centric chatbot, for organizations subscribed to Copilot for Business.

Usama Jawad / XDA Developers: Microsoft disables Windows App Installer's ms-appinstaller after the URI scheme was used to spread malware; Microsoft disabled and re-enabled the scheme in 2022  —  Microsoft has disabled the ms-appinstaller URI scheme handler by default in the latest version of App Installer due to a rise in cyberattacks.

Amitoj Singh / CoinDesk: Sources: India's decision to seek the blocking of the URLs of nine foreign crypto exchanges followed a request from the Indian crypto and Web3 advocacy body  —  Bharat Web3 Association's (BWA) Chairman wrote the letter to the Indian government on Dec. 16.  - The offshore exchanges have been given …

John Gruber / Daring Fireball: Apple blocking Beeper Mini, not a service unto itself but an unauthorized client for a proprietary platform that costs a lot to run, is not anticompetitive  —  There's a lot to catch up on since last I wrote about Beeper.  Long story short, they've been playing — and no surprise, losing — the cat-and-mouse game with Apple.

Javier Espinoza / Financial Times: Margrethe Vestager says AI Act will “not harm innovation and research, but actually enhance it” as it “creates predictability and legal certainty in the market”  —  Margrethe Vestager argues landmark legislation will give ‘legal certainty’ to tech groups building AI models

Amrita Khalid / The Verge: LG debuts new Gram and Gram Pro laptops ahead of CES 2024; the processors in the Pro lineup include Intel's AI Boost NPU hardware for on-device AI tasks  —  If you're in the market for OLED displays and better graphics, take a look at the 2024 LG Gram Pro lineup.

Geoffrey A. Fowler / Washington Post: Microsoft's AI Image Creator, part of Bing and Paint, can generate realistic, violent images; Microsoft says some use the tech “in ways that were not intended”  —  The AI Image Creator, part of Microsoft's Bing and Windows Paint, makes extremely violent images of Joe Biden, the pope and others.

Bloomberg: A US judge rejects X's bid to block California's AB 587, which seeks to control toxic social media posts by requiring companies to disclose moderation policies  —  - Measure seeks to control toxic posts on social media platforms  — Company alleged state is trying to censor controversial speech

Reuters: A US judge sides with the SEC, ruling that Terraform broke the law by not registering four cryptocurrencies, but dismisses the SEC's security-based swap claims  —  A federal judge on Thursday ruled in favor of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on claims that Terraform Labs …

Martin Young / Cointelegraph: Vitalik Buterin proposes requiring only 8,192 validator signatures per slot, down from 28K per slot, to make Ethereum's proof-of-stake “simpler and lighter”  —  The Ethereum co-founder suggested reducing validator signatures to lighten the load and make predicting future loads more accurate.

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Filing: FirstCry, India's biggest e-commerce platform for mother and baby products, aims to raise $218M in its IPO; source: the startup wants a ~$4B valuation  —  FirstCry, India's biggest e-commerce platform for mother and baby products, is aiming to raise $218 million through the sale …

Mike Masnick / Techdirt: The New York Times' lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft relies on a false belief that copyright can limit the right to read and process data  —  This week the NY Times somehow broke the story of... well, the NY Times suing OpenAI and Microsoft.  I wonder who tipped them off.

Eric Bangeman / Ars Technica: Filing: Google agrees to settle a 2020 class-action lawsuit accusing the company of tracking and tying activity in Chrome's incognito mode to users' profiles  —  2020 lawsuit accused Google of tracking incognito activity, tying it to users' profiles.  —  Google has indicated that it is ready …

Anna Baydakova / The Block: Immunefi: crypto users lost $1.8B in hacks and scams in 2023, down 54% YoY, as single incidents grew 90% YoY to 319; Lazarus remained the most prolific attacker  —  - Crypto users lost $1.8 billion in various hacks and scams in 2023, with Lazarus Group remaining the most prolific attacker.

Zac Bowden / Windows Central: Sources: Microsoft readies a Surface Pro 10 and a Surface Laptop 6 for spring 2024, with Intel and ARM variants, improved designs, and next-gen AI PC marketing  —  Microsoft is making major updates to its Surface Pro and Surface Laptop lines with improved designs, new features, and next-gen silicon.

Ian King / Bloomberg: Nvidia launches the GeForce RTX 4090 D in China, featuring ~10% fewer processing cores than the 4090 sold in other countries, to comply with US export controls  —  Nvidia Corp., the world's most valuable chipmaker, is selling a less-capable version of its best graphics product for video gamers in China …

Danny Nelson / CoinDesk: Binance CEO Richard Teng says the crypto exchange's user base grew 30% to 170M accounts in 2023; Binance Pay, Binance Earn, and Binance's P2P platform all grew  —  The largest cryptocurrency trading venue added 40 million accounts to 170 million.  —  Register Now

The Indian Express: India seeks to block the URLs of nine offshore crypto exchanges, including Binance, Kraken, KuCoin, and Huobi, for not complying with anti-money laundering laws  —  Apart from Binance and Kucoin, the other virtual digital assets service providers (VDA SP) who have been issued notice …

Christopher Yasiejko / Bloomberg: Apple submitted a software workaround that could let the company sell non-infringing Apple Watch versions as soon as January 12, while appealing the US ITC ban  —  The Cupertino, Calif.-based tech giant won a temporary reprieve from a federal appeals court Wednesday, two months …

Financial Times: Insider Intelligence: LinkedIn's annual advertising revenue, which rose 10.1% YoY to ~$4B in 2023, is expected to grow 14.1% YoY in 2024  —  Microsoft-owned professional networking site has increased revenues as big brands boycott rival platform  —  Professional social networking site LinkedIn …

Malathi Nayak / Bloomberg: GM claims in a lawsuit that SF unfairly taxed it $108M over seven years, using the presence of Cruise to tie its tax bill to a portion of GM's global revenue  —  - Company says city unfairly based tax calculations on Cruise  — GM, Cruise operate as separate entities, automaker claims

Lauren Rosenblatt / The Seattle Times: Seattle-based e-commerce website Zulily, valued at ~$7B in 2014, winds down its business; in a lawsuit, Zulily accused Amazon of stifling its business  —  Once an e-commerce star, online retailer Zulily will liquidate its inventory to pay its creditors as it winds down.

Washington Post: Sources: India pressed Apple to come up with alternative explanations for warning Indian journalists and opposition politicians of state-sponsored iPhone hacks  —  NEW DELHI — A day after Apple warned independent Indian journalists and opposition party politicians in October that government hackers …