Journals

Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer: LastPass warns users about a fake copy of its app on Apple’s App Store, with a similar name and logo, likely used as a phishing app to steal users’ credentials  —  LastPass is warning that a… Read More »LastPass warns users about a fake copy of its app on Apple’s App Store, with a similar name and logo, likely used as a phishing app to steal users’ credentials (Bill Toulas/BleepingComputer)

The Information: Sources: Flexport lost at least $2M/month in 2023 on its air freight deal with Apple, started in late 2022 to ship products from some Asian factories to the US  —  For Flexport, a logistics company billing itself as… Read More »Sources: Flexport lost at least $2M/month in 2023 on its air freight deal with Apple, started in late 2022 to ship products from some Asian factories to the US (The Information)

Brian Fung / CNN: The FCC outlaws scam robocalls featuring fake, AI-created voices, giving state AGs more legal tools to pursue illegal robocallers that use such voices  —  The Federal Communications Commission said Thursday it is immediately outlawing scam robocalls… Read More »The FCC outlaws scam robocalls featuring fake, AI-created voices, giving state AGs more legal tools to pursue illegal robocallers that use such voices (Brian Fung/CNN)

Aisha S Gani / Bloomberg: Plaid names Jen Taylor as its first president as it readies itself for an IPO; Taylor was most recently chief product officer at Cloudflare  —  – Firm names Cloudflare’s product head Jen Taylor as president … Read More »Plaid names Jen Taylor as its first president as it readies itself for an IPO; Taylor was most recently chief product officer at Cloudflare (Aisha S Gani/Bloomberg)

Jessica Conditt / Engadget: Filing: the FTC seeks a pause in Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition, arguing layoffs in Microsoft’s gaming division contradict Microsoft’s prior claims  —  The FTC isn’t done questioning gaming’s biggest acquisition.  —  One week after Microsoft laid… Read More »Filing: the FTC seeks a pause in Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition, arguing layoffs in Microsoft’s gaming division contradict Microsoft’s prior claims (Jessica Conditt/Engadget)

Diane Brady / Fortune: Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker steps down to focus on AI and internet safety as chair of the nonprofit; Mozilla board member Laura Chambers will be interim CEO  —  Mozilla has named a new CEO effective immediately. … Read More »Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker steps down to focus on AI and internet safety as chair of the nonprofit; Mozilla board member Laura Chambers will be interim CEO (Diane Brady/Fortune)

Min Jeong Lee / Bloomberg: Filings: SoftBank’s stake in Paytm was ~5% in January vs. ~18.5% around Paytm’s 2021 IPO; SoftBank says it sold most of its stake due to regulatory scrutiny  —  The Tokyo-based tech investor saw uncertainty growing… Read More »Filings: SoftBank’s stake in Paytm was ~5% in January vs. ~18.5% around Paytm’s 2021 IPO; SoftBank says it sold most of its stake due to regulatory scrutiny (Min Jeong Lee/Bloomberg)

New York Times: US House investigation: GGV, GSR, Qualcomm Ventures, Sequoia, and Walden invested $1B+ in China’s chip industry across 150+ deals between 2001 and August 2023  —  A Congressional investigation determined that U.S. funding helped fuel the growth of… Read More »US House investigation: GGV, GSR, Qualcomm Ventures, Sequoia, and Walden invested $1B+ in China’s chip industry across 150+ deals between 2001 and August 2023 (New York Times)

Ethan Mollick / One Useful Thing: Google Gemini Advanced hands-on: clearly a GPT-4 class model, but doesn’t obviously blow away GPT-4 in benchmarks; Gemini is better than GPT-4 at explanations  —  And then there were two.  —  Right around the… Read More »Google Gemini Advanced hands-on: clearly a GPT-4 class model, but doesn’t obviously blow away GPT-4 in benchmarks; Gemini is better than GPT-4 at explanations (Ethan Mollick/One Useful Thing)

Tiffany Hsu / New York Times: Google joins the C2PA steering committee to develop a standard to label AI content via metadata alongside Adobe, the BBC, Microsoft, Sony, and others  —  The tech company’s plan is similar to one announced… Read More »Google joins the C2PA steering committee to develop a standard to label AI content via metadata alongside Adobe, the BBC, Microsoft, Sony, and others (Tiffany Hsu/New York Times)