Good morning! This is your daily ☕️ Techpresso.
In today's Techpresso:
💥 Google faces major search algorithm leak
👀 Former OpenAI board member explains why they fired Sam Altman
🔄 Anthropic recruits ex-OpenAI safety chief to lead new 'Superalignment' team
💰 PayPal is planning an ad network built off your purchase history
🌐 Internet Archive is fighting a major battle against DDoS attacks
🎁 + 8 other news you might like
🔮 + 8 handpicked research papers and tools
💥 Google faces major search algorithm leakLINK
A leak involving 2,500 pages of internal documentation from Google has surfaced, offering a detailed and unprecedented look into the inner workings of its search algorithm, which is one of the most influential systems on the internet. The leaked documents suggest discrepancies between Google's public statements and its internal practices, specifically highlighting the use of Chrome data and the importance of author bylines in search rankings, contrary to what Google has previously disclosed. Despite multiple requests for comment, Google has not confirmed the authenticity of the leaked documents, which has led to increased scrutiny and calls for greater transparency.
👀 Former OpenAI board member explains why they fired Sam AltmanLINK
Former board member Helen Toner revealed on a podcast that the board lost trust in Altman due to his secret ownership of the OpenAI Startup Fund, providing inaccurate safety information, and personal retaliation against her. Toner explained that after two executives reported a toxic atmosphere and psychological abuse by Altman, the board decided to act, citing the launch of ChatGPT without prior board knowledge, learning about it only through Twitter, as an example of their lack of oversight. She believes pressure to reinstate Altman stemmed from limited options presented to employees, fear of retaliation, and Altman’s troubled history with previous jobs.
🔄 Anthropic recruits ex-OpenAI safety chief to lead new 'Superalignment' teamLINK
Jan Leike, a prominent AI researcher who recently resigned from OpenAI, has joined Anthropic to lead a new 'superalignment' team focused on AI safety and security. Leike's team will work on scalable oversight, weak-to-strong generalization, and automated alignment research, reporting directly to Chief Science Officer Jared Kaplan. Anthropic aims to distinguish itself as more safety-focused than OpenAI, with Leike's new team echoing the mission of OpenAI's dissolved Superalignment team.
💰 PayPal is planning an ad network built off your purchase historyLINK
PayPal plans to create an ad network using data from billions of customer transactions to target ads more effectively.
The new ad initiative, led by Mark Grether, aims to help businesses sell more by using PayPal's detailed knowledge of users' purchasing histories.
AI technology will play a crucial role in the ad network, using transaction data to offer personalized discounts and promotions, with a trial currently happening at eBay.
🌐 Internet Archive is fighting a major battle against DDoS attacksLINK
The Internet Archive has been experiencing a significant DDoS attack since Sunday, May 26, causing inconsistent access to its Wayback Machine, which stores over 866 billion web pages.
The attack involves tens of thousands of fake requests per second, but despite this, the organization's digital collections remain secure; staff are working to strengthen defenses.
In addition to the DDoS attack, the Internet Archive is also dealing with legal challenges over alleged copyright infringement from US book publishing and recording industries, as well as complaints from Sony and Universal Music.
Other news you might like
PwC agrees deal to become OpenAI's first reseller and largest enterprise user.LINK
WeWork founder Adam Neumann abandons bid to regain control of the company.LINK
Crypto exchange Gemini returns $2.2 billion to users after pausing withdrawals 18 months ago.LINK
Samsung's largest union calls its first-ever strike.LINK
Ex-FTX executive gets over seven years for making illegal political donations.LINK
Apple’s first OLED MacBook Pro might not launch until the foldable MacBook is ready.LINK
Mark Zuckerberg is Popular Again Thanks to Meta’s Open-Source AI.LINK
How Uber is preparing for the Paris Olympics rush.LINK
Latest research and tools
Tinygrad 0.9.0: a lightweight deep learning library that has improved usability with significant updates including the integration of ANE (Apple Neural Engine) support, experimental backends to eliminate dependencies on ROCm or CUDA, and enhancements in kernel fusion and scheduler for efficient computing.LINK
ChatTTS: a text-to-speech model optimized for dialogue scenarios, supporting both English and Chinese, with the open-source version trained on 40,000 hours of data available on HuggingFace.LINK
Simple Speech-to-Text program on CH32V003 microcontroller: a program that interprets spoken digits 'zero' to 'nine' using an analog microphone, achieving approximately 90% accuracy, and logs them via a serial connection, relying on integer math and optimized audio processing routines due to hardware constraints.LINK
Termux with QEMU and Alpine Linux: enables the creation of a virtual machine on a non-rooted Android 11 smartphone, utilizing a file as a disk for the VM, where the QEMU Linux server runs and is accessible only at 127.0.0.1.LINK
Slipshow: a presentation tool that offers an innovative approach by using slips—extendable slide equivalents for technical presentations, allowing for dynamic content display, annotations, and animations while compiling markdown extensions to standalone HTML files.LINK
Savvy: a tool designed for the creation, sharing, and execution of runbooks directly from the terminal, featuring AI generation and manual input options without the need for account signup or credit card details.LINK
Webview: a tiny cross-platform webview library for C/C++ that creates a common HTML5 UI abstraction layer for the most widely used platforms, supporting two-way JavaScript bindings.LINK
Specular Polynomials: specular polynomials can be utilized to model the reflection of light for computer graphics applications.LINK
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