After declining Twitter engagement, a writer games the For You algorithm, which he suspected was using invisible subreddits via Topics to organize tweets (Ryan Broderick/Garbage Day)

Ryan Broderick / Garbage Day: After declining Twitter engagement, a writer games the For You algorithm, which he suspected was using invisible subreddits via Topics to organize tweets  —  Read to the end for some really good horse content  —  I Gave Into The New Twitter Algorithm And I Went Way Too Viral

Some marketers worry that Meta’s AI-based Advantage+ ad tool, added after Apple’s ATT to automatically generate multiple ads, forces them to relinquish control (Financial Times)

Financial Times: Some marketers worry that Meta’s AI-based Advantage+ ad tool, added after Apple’s ATT to automatically generate multiple ads, forces them to relinquish control  —  Social network claims successes with tool to counteract Apple’s privacy changes that resulted in billions in lost revenue

Access Now: in 2022, 35 countries instituted internet shutdowns at least 187 times, led by India with 84 disruptions, Russia causing 22 in Ukraine, and more (Niha Masih/Washington Post)

Niha Masih / Washington Post: Access Now: in 2022, 35 countries instituted internet shutdowns at least 187 times, led by India with 84 disruptions, Russia causing 22 in Ukraine, and more  —  More countries shut down the internet in 2022 than ever before, according to a new report by digital rights researchers …

DCG reports 2022 revenue of $719M and a loss of $1.1B as the firm struggled with plunging crypto prices and the restructuring of its lending platform, Genesis (Ian Allison/CoinDesk)

Ian Allison / CoinDesk: DCG reports 2022 revenue of $719M and a loss of $1.1B as the firm struggled with plunging crypto prices and the restructuring of its lending platform, Genesis  —  DCG held cash and cash equivalents of just $262 million at the end of 2022, while investment assets amounted to $670 million.

White House gives federal agencies 30 days to ensure they do not have TikTok installed on government devices and adjust IT contracts with vendors accordingly (David Shepardson/Reuters)

David Shepardson / Reuters: White House gives federal agencies 30 days to ensure they do not have TikTok installed on government devices and adjust IT contracts with vendors accordingly  —  The White House on Monday gave government agencies 30 days to ensure they do not have Chinese-owned app TikTok on federal devices and systems.

Zoom reports Q4 revenue up 4% YoY to $1.12B, vs. $1.1B est., Enterprise revenue up 18% YoY to $636.1M, Enterprise customers up 12% YoY to ~213K; ZM jumps 6%+ (Brody Ford/Bloomberg)

Brody Ford / Bloomberg: Zoom reports Q4 revenue up 4% YoY to $1.12B, vs. $1.1B est., Enterprise revenue up 18% YoY to $636.1M, Enterprise customers up 12% YoY to ~213K; ZM jumps 6%+  —  Zoom Video Communications Inc. gained in late trading after giving an upbeat profit forecast for the current period …

MIT-Takeda Program heads into fourth year with crop of 10 new projects

In 2020, the School of Engineering and Takeda Pharmaceutical Company launched the MIT-Takeda Program, which aims to leverage the experience of both entities to solve problems at the intersection of health care, medicine, and artificial intelligence. Since the program began, teams have devised mechanisms to reduce manufacturing time for certain pharmaceutical products, submitted a patent […]

After a string of high-profile setbacks, the White House and FTC are finding breaking up Big Tech is hard, as Google lawyers up ahead of its court battle (Washington Post)

Washington Post: After a string of high-profile setbacks, the White House and FTC are finding breaking up Big Tech is hard, as Google lawyers up ahead of its court battle  —  Google is hiring teams of former DOJ lawyers to fight antitrust lawsuits as the battle over tech firms’ power shifts to the courts

A look at Dude Perfect on YouTube, as its five founders look to build a theme park; a source says Dude Perfect’s 2022 revenue was ~$25M, up from ~$20M in 2021 (Miles Kruppa/Wall Street Journal)

Miles Kruppa / Wall Street Journal: A look at Dude Perfect on YouTube, as its five founders look to build a theme park; a source says Dude Perfect’s 2022 revenue was ~$25M, up from ~$20M in 2021  —  The five friends found fame making basketball trick shots and now hope fans can try similar antics […]

Google announces new features for Android, ChromeOS, and Wear OS, including Fast Pair support for Chromebooks, Keep shortcuts, and Wear OS accessibility modes (Aisha Malik/TechCrunch)

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch: Google announces new features for Android, ChromeOS, and Wear OS, including Fast Pair support for Chromebooks, Keep shortcuts, and Wear OS accessibility modes  —  Google has announced a slew of new features for Android, Chromebook and Wear OS that are designed to improve connectivity, productivity and accessibility.

Reports: 50+ Twitter staff were laid off over the weekend, including Twitter’s product lead Esther Crawford, and Revue founder Martijn de Kuijper (Emma Roth/The Verge)

Emma Roth / The Verge: Reports: 50+ Twitter staff were laid off over the weekend, including Twitter’s product lead Esther Crawford, and Revue founder Martijn de Kuijper  —  Crawford headed up various projects at Twitter, including the company’s Blue with verification subscription as well as Twitter’s forthcoming payments platform.

Source: Esther Crawford, who has become one of the most influential leaders at Twitter after Musk’s takeover, is out as chief executive of Twitter Payments (Zoë Schiffer/@zoeschiffer)

Zoë Schiffer / @zoeschiffer: Source: Esther Crawford, who has become one of the most influential leaders at Twitter after Musk’s takeover, is out as chief executive of Twitter Payments  —  Just got confirmation that Esther Crawford, chief executive of Twitter Payments, is out.

Inside Apple Exploratory Design Group, which works on a glucose monitor, other advanced tech, and was behind some of the chip and battery tech in iPhones, Macs (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Inside Apple Exploratory Design Group, which works on a glucose monitor, other advanced tech, and was behind some of the chip and battery tech in iPhones, Macs  —  Apple has a secret team working to bring noninvasive glucose monitoring to its smartwatch, but that’s not all it’s pursuing.

Editors at some literary magazines say they are getting overwhelmed by AI-generated submissions, potentially crowding out genuine submissions from newer writers (Mia Sato/The Verge)

Mia Sato / The Verge: Editors at some literary magazines say they are getting overwhelmed by AI-generated submissions, potentially crowding out genuine submissions from newer writers  —  A short story titled “The Last Hope” first hit Sheila Williams’ desk in early January.

How the potential of voice as a platform was wasted: closed ecosystems, overly ambitious claims, distorted monopolistic incentives, and too much capital (Ranjan Roy/Margins)

Ranjan Roy / Margins: How the potential of voice as a platform was wasted: closed ecosystems, overly ambitious claims, distorted monopolistic incentives, and too much capital  —  Sometimes innovation just ain’t enough … I have four Echo devices in my household.  For years, we used them to control the lights in our apartment …

The recovery of ~120,000 stolen ether by Jump and Oasis demonstrates the centralization of DeFi enabled by multisig-controlled upgradable smart contracts (Molly White)

Molly White: The recovery of ~120,000 stolen ether by Jump and Oasis demonstrates the centralization of DeFi enabled by multisig-controlled upgradable smart contracts  —  Wormhole, Jump Crypto, and Oasis demonstrate the centralization threat introduced by multisig-controlled upgradable smart contracts.

Report: 69,190 semiconductor patents were filed globally in 2022, up 9% YoY; Chinese companies accounted for 55%, US companies 26%, and UK companies 0.26% (Anton Shilov/Tom’s Hardware)

Anton Shilov / Tom’s Hardware: Report: 69,190 semiconductor patents were filed globally in 2022, up 9% YoY; Chinese companies accounted for 55%, US companies 26%, and UK companies 0.26%  —  The U.K. only accounted for 0.26% of the global total.  —  China is neither the world’s largest developer of chips nor the world’s largest maker […]

Sources: Sequoia resigned from Citizen’s board after the startup offered a “pay to play” deal obliging existing investors to participate in a new funding round (Tabby Kinder/Financial Times)

Tabby Kinder / Financial Times: Sources: Sequoia resigned from Citizen’s board after the startup offered a “pay to play” deal obliging existing investors to participate in a new funding round  —  Investor abandons start-up over fundraising that has massively diluted its shareholding, as Silicon Valley VCs re-evaluate deals

Experts: the proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles is driving militaries in Ukraine and beyond to hand over more control to AI, creating a slippery slope (Morgan Meaker/Wired)

Morgan Meaker / Wired: Experts: the proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles is driving militaries in Ukraine and beyond to hand over more control to AI, creating a slippery slope  —  Drones that can find their own targets already exist, making machine-versus-machine conflict just a software update away.

Crypto analytics firm Inca Digital: Huobi and KuCoin still allow traders to transact with debit cards issued by sanctioned Russian banks on their P2P platforms (Politico)

Politico: Crypto analytics firm Inca Digital: Huobi and KuCoin still allow traders to transact with debit cards issued by sanctioned Russian banks on their P2P platforms  —  Two of the world’s largest crypto exchanges failed to take steps to prevent sanctioned Russian banks from using their platforms …

A look at the Nvidia A100, a ~$10K GPU that has become a critical tool for generative AI; Nvidia has an estimated 95% market share of machine learning GPUs (Kif Leswing/CNBC)

Kif Leswing / CNBC: A look at the Nvidia A100, a ~$10K GPU that has become a critical tool for generative AI; Nvidia has an estimated 95% market share of machine learning GPUs  —  – Companies like Microsoft and Google are fighting to integrate cutting-edge AI into their search engines, as billion-dollar competitors …

A major outage has taken down Dish Network’s websites, apps, and customer support systems; remote employees have been cut off from accessing their work systems (Mitchell Clark/The Verge)

Mitchell Clark / The Verge: A major outage has taken down Dish Network’s websites, apps, and customer support systems; remote employees have been cut off from accessing their work systems  —  Since Thursday morning, Dish Network has been experiencing a major outage that’s taken down the company’s main websites, apps …