Journals

Drew Harwell / Washington Post: TikTok quietly removed view counts for hashtags in January, after researchers used them to show the disparity in views of pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian videos  —  The change came after researchers cited TikTok’s video-view counts to… Read More »TikTok quietly removed view counts for hashtags in January, after researchers used them to show the disparity in views of pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian videos (Drew Harwell/Washington Post)

Jem Aswad / Variety: Spotify paid out $9B to music rights holders in 2023, a “figure that has tripled over the past six years”, and more than $48B since its founding  —  Spotify paid the music industry some $9 billion… Read More »Spotify paid out $9B to music rights holders in 2023, a “figure that has tripled over the past six years”, and more than $48B since its founding (Jem Aswad/Variety)

Lauren Goode / Wired: An interview with Sundar Pichai on the evolving web, training Gemini to be a multimodal AI, future paid and ad-supported generative AI, hallucinations, and more  —  Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai still loves the web.  He wakes… Read More »An interview with Sundar Pichai on the evolving web, training Gemini to be a multimodal AI, future paid and ad-supported generative AI, hallucinations, and more (Lauren Goode/Wired)

Abner Li / 9to5Google: Google adds a $20 per month AI Premium plan to Google One, offering Gemini Advanced with the Ultra 1.0 model, and rebrands Duet AI as Gemini for Workspace  —  Sundar Pichai announced last week that Google… Read More »Google adds a $20 per month AI Premium plan to Google One, offering Gemini Advanced with the Ultra 1.0 model, and rebrands Duet AI as Gemini for Workspace (Abner Li/9to5Google)

David Pierce / The Verge: Google releases Gemini Ultra 1.0, the largest and most capable version of its LLMs, and renames Bard to Gemini, which now has a dedicated Android app  —  Google is famous for having a million similar… Read More »Google releases Gemini Ultra 1.0, the largest and most capable version of its LLMs, and renames Bard to Gemini, which now has a dedicated Android app (David Pierce/The Verge)

Reed Albergotti / Semafor: Q&A with Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine on Medium expecting to turn a profit in 2024, distribution, training LLMs, AI-generated content, media layoffs, and more  —  The Scene  —  Amid turmoil in the media industry, online publishing… Read More »Q&A with Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine on Medium expecting to turn a profit in 2024, distribution, training LLMs, AI-generated content, media layoffs, and more (Reed Albergotti/Semafor)

Adnan Aamir / Nikkei Asia: Pakistan suspended mobile services across the country as voters went to the polls on February 8; the Interior Ministry cited a deteriorating security situation  —  Outages in name of security fuel suspicion over polls’ legitimacy … Read More »Pakistan suspended mobile services across the country as voters went to the polls on February 8; the Interior Ministry cited a deteriorating security situation (Adnan Aamir/Nikkei Asia)

David Shepardson / Reuters: The US says OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Meta, Google, Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, Palantir, and over 200 others are joining the new AI Safety Institute Consortium  —  The Biden administration on Thursday said leading artificial intelligence companies are… Read More »The US says OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Meta, Google, Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, Palantir, and over 200 others are joining the new AI Safety Institute Consortium (David Shepardson/Reuters)

Paul Sawers / TechCrunch: German startup Daedalus, which uses AI to help manufacture precision parts in its Karlsruhe factory, raised a $21M Series A led by Nokia-funded NGP Capital  —  A fledgling startup founded by one of OpenAI’s first engineering… Read More »German startup Daedalus, which uses AI to help manufacture precision parts in its Karlsruhe factory, raised a $21M Series A led by Nokia-funded NGP Capital (Paul Sawers/TechCrunch)

Clothilde Goujard / Politico: TikTok joins Meta in challenging the EU’s DSA in the General Court, arguing the levy is unfair as some firms pay nothing; Meta must pay €11M of the €45M total  —  Social media giants Meta and… Read More »TikTok joins Meta in challenging the EU’s DSA in the General Court, arguing the levy is unfair as some firms pay nothing; Meta must pay €11M of the €45M total (Clothilde Goujard/Politico)