🧑‍💼 Alibaba Leadership Restructuring, 📉 Facebook Tanks News Traffic, 🥷 Reddit Hackers

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Here are the top headlines for today:

• Facebook Algorithm Shift Tanks News Traffic

• Alibaba Announces Major Leadership Change 

• Reddit Hackers Demand $4.5M Ransom

• Microsoft's Orca Outperforms AI Models

• Adobe's Figma Acquisition Faces EU Probe

• and more…

🌐 Big Tech

Facebook Algorithm Shift Tanks News Traffic (7-minute read)

Facebook's recent algorithm change has led to a significant drop in traffic for news and media websites. The shift, which started in February and worsened in the following months, has seen a 50% decrease in traffic from Facebook since last summer. The change is part of Facebook's strategy to deprioritize news and prioritize video content, leading to less clickthrough traffic.

Insight: This change has a company-wide impact, particularly for news and media outlets that rely heavily on Facebook for traffic. It underscores the precarious nature of depending on third-party platforms, where algorithmic changes can drastically affect performance and revenues.

Alibaba Announces Major Leadership Change (6-minute read)

Alibaba is undergoing a significant leadership reshuffle, with Joseph Tsai set to replace Daniel Zhang as chairman and Eddie Wu taking over as CEO. This change, effective in September, follows the company's largest restructuring in 24 years, dividing it into six separate units. Zhang will continue to lead Alibaba's cloud unit, citing new opportunities in generative AI.

Big Tech Median Salaries Rise (3-minute read)

Despite economic challenges, median annual compensation at 278 S&P 500 companies rose in 2022, with tech companies like Meta and Alphabet leading the pack, according to a MyLogIQ study.

🚀 Startups Scene

Snap's AI Chatbot to Personalize Ads (1-minute read)

Snap is exploring how its AI chatbot, My AI, can enhance its advertising business by personalizing ads based on user interactions.

Opera Launches AI-Infused Browser (3-minute read)

Opera has released Opera One, its AI-infused browser, to the public. The browser features an integrated AI, Aria, developed in partnership with OpenAI, which can answer user queries, generate text or code, and provide support for Opera products.

Reddit Hackers Demand $4.5M Ransom (2-minute read)

Ransomware group BlackCat claims responsibility for Reddit's February phishing attack, demanding a $4.5 million ransom and a rollback of Reddit's controversial API pricing changes.

🤖 AI & Emerging Tech

Meta Shifts Focus to Generative AI (4-minute read)

Meta is reallocating resources from AI research to developing AI products like chatbots. This shift has led to the departure of a significant number of researchers involved in large language models.

Microsoft's Orca Outperforms AI Models (3-minute read)

Microsoft introduces Orca, a 13-billion parameter model that learns from GPT-4's reasoning process, significantly improving the performance of existing instruction-tuned models and addressing task diversity, query complexity, and data scaling challenges.

Meta Withholds AI Model Over Misuse Concerns (1-minute read)

Meta has developed a versatile AI model, Voicebox, capable of generating speech in six languages. However, the company has decided not to publicly release the model or its code due to potential misuse risks.

Insight: This decision at the company level reflects a growing industry-wide concern about the potential misuse of advanced AI technologies, highlighting the need for robust ethical guidelines and regulations in the tech sector.

Indonesia Launches Largest Satellite (1-minute read)

Indonesia, in collaboration with SpaceX, has launched its largest telecommunication satellite, SATRIA-1, a $540 million project aimed at expanding internet access across the country's remote regions.

AI Training on AI Risks Gibberish Output (3-minute read)

Machine learning experts predict that AIs trained solely on other AIs will eventually produce nonsensical content. This phenomenon, termed "model collapse", could make AI training via web scraping less effective over time as AI-generated content increases online.

Insight: As AI-generated content becomes more prevalent, the quality of data for training future AI models could deteriorate. This could impact the tech industry's reliance on AI for various applications, from content creation to data analysis.

💰´Tech Market Pulse

Adobe's Figma Acquisition Faces EU Probe (5-minute read)

Adobe's $20bn deal to acquire Figma, a rival in the digital design market, is set to undergo a lengthy antitrust investigation by the EU. Regulators are concerned that the acquisition could lead to less innovation and higher prices. This comes after similar probes were launched in the UK and the US.

Insight: This development has a global impact, indicating increased scrutiny of tech acquisitions by regulatory bodies. We can expect a potential slowdown in market consolidation and increased challenges for large tech companies planning acquisitions.

💡Tech Perspectives & Extra

Reddit Blackout Impacts Google Search (3-minute read)

The ongoing blackout protest by Reddit subreddits against the platform's planned API changes has disrupted a popular Google search hack that added "+reddit" to queries for more human answers. This presents a potential opportunity for Google and Microsoft Bing's chatbots to fill the gap.

AI to Boost Startup Boom: Airbnb CEO (3-minute read)

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky predicts that artificial intelligence (AI) will fuel the creation of millions of startups, despite potentially reducing jobs at existing companies. He believes AI will enhance efficiency, enabling people to build their own companies and enrich the job market.