Hey, pals, welcome to Week in Review (WiR), Ztoog’s roundup of the week in tech information. Life getting in the best way of your day by day Ztoog behavior? Not to fear. WiR will get you caught up very quickly.
This week, WiR covers the bettering high quality of AI porn mills and the moral dilemmas they increase; Twitter rebranding to “X”; and hackers infecting Call of Duty with self-spreading malware. Elsewhere, we dive right into a North Korean hacking group, foreign Chinese visitors’ newfound capability to go cashless, and the rollout of Sam Altman’s Worldcoin eyeball-scanning crypto mission.
As at all times, it’s quite a bit to get to, so let’s not delay. But first, a reminder that if you haven’t already, enroll right here to get WiR in your inbox each Saturday.
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Twitter rebrands to “X”: This week, Twitter eliminated its iconic chicken emblem and adopted “X” as its new official branding. The transfer, which Elon Musk introduced over the weekend, is a harbinger of the platform’s shift — maybe extra aspirational than concrete — to deemphasize textual content tweets in favor of audio, video, messaging and cost and banking.
Now it’s my X: Twitter’s rebranding to X hasn’t been faring exceptionally nicely. In addition to a haphazard rollout that saw components of the location referencing “X” whereas others nonetheless implored you to “search Twitter” or push a blue button to “Tweet,” the corporate didn’t even make an try to safe the @x Twitter handle, owned by Gene X Hwang of the company images and videography studio Orange Photography. Twitter later wrested management of the deal with with out notifying or compensating Hwang.
Hackers infect Call of Duty: Hackers are infecting gamers of an previous Call of Duty recreation, Modern Warfare 2, with a worm that spreads routinely in on-line lobbies. As Lorenzo writes, Modern Warfare 2 was launched fairly a bit in the past — 2009 — however nonetheless has a small neighborhood of gamers. Call of Duty writer Activision stated in a tweet that it will convey the Steam model of the sport offline because it “investigates report of [the] issue.”
Foreign visitors to China go cashless: This week, China’s two dominant cellular cost options, WeChat Pay and Alipay, introduced that foreign customers can now pay at Chinese retailers by linking their foreign bank cards, together with Visa, Mastercard and Discover. Previously, utilizing WeChat Pay and Alipay in China required an area checking account, making it difficult for short-term visitors to use these cost strategies.
Worldcoin launches its eyeball-scanning mission: Worldcoin, Sam Altman’s audacious eyeball-scanning crypto startup, has begun the worldwide rollout of its companies to assist construct a dependable resolution for distinguishing people from AI on-line. People can obtain World App, the startup’s protocol-compatible pockets software program, and go to an Orb, Worldcoin’s helmet-shaped eyeball-scanning verification system, to obtain a novel “World ID.”
North Korean hackers expose themselves: Security researchers say they’ve excessive confidence that North Korean hackers had been behind a current intrusion at enterprise software program firm JumpCloud as a result of of a mistake the hackers made. Mandiant, which is aiding one of JumpCloud’s affected clients, attributed the breach to hackers working for North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau, or RGB, a hacking unit that targets cryptocurrency firms and steals passwords from executives and safety groups.
Waymo places the brakes on vehicles: Waymo is tapping the brakes on self-driving vehicles and shifting most of its capital, sources and expertise to one industrial wager: ride-hailing. Kirsten writes that the transfer, which was introduced Wednesday in an organization weblog submit, comes six years after Waymo first examined its autonomous car system in Class 8 vehicles. The firm emphasised the choice was pushed by the industrial alternatives in making use of its autonomous car expertise to ride-hailing.
SEC probes Bolt ex-CEO: Ryan Breslow, co-founder of the e-commerce software program outfit Bolt, was subpoenaed together with the corporate final 12 months by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Christine reported this week. A letter authored in April by a lawyer representing Bolt traders stated the SEC was investigating whether or not federal securities legal guidelines had been violated in reference to statements made when Bolt was elevating cash in 2021.
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On Equity this week, the crew dug by way of the headlines of the previous few days, beginning with AngelList’s acquisition of Nova, Waymo steering towards robotaxis and the most recent on rates of interest from the Fed. They additionally touched on earnings for Big Tech and how extra restricted companion capital can funnel into numerous enterprise funds.
Found featured a dialog with Mandy Price, the co-founder and CEO at Kanarys, a software-as-a-service startup that helps firms deal with their variety and inclusion issues with information. Mandy talked about why she began the corporate after a decade-long profession as a lawyer and why she didn’t need Kanarys to simply be targeted on hiring metrics, as many different variety, fairness and inclusion platforms are.
And on Chain Reaction, Deana Burke and Natasha Hoskins, the co-founders of Boys Club, spoke about their social decentralized autonomous group for the “crypto curious.” Originally designed to get ladies and nonbinary folks into the web3 world, Boys Club now goals to be an open house for anybody wanting to get into the house.
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TC+ subscribers get entry to in-depth commentary, evaluation and surveys — which you already know should you’re already a subscriber. If you’re not, contemplate signing up. Here are a number of highlights from this week:
Why SAFE rounds are secure: SAFEs, easy agreements for future fairness, have lengthy been touted as a founder-friendly construction for signing enterprise offers. But is it actually honest to name them that? Rebecca investigates.
Positivity within the face of toxicity: Dominic writes about how prioritizing constructive firm tradition is simply as essential — or at the very least, ought to be as essential — as investor returns.
Playing the lengthy AI recreation: Microsoft’s and Alphabet’s outcomes point out the AI recreation is extra of a long-term technique, Alex writes.
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