Oceangate fires whistleblower, hackers threaten to leak Reddit data, Marvel embraces AI art

Image credit: OceanGate Inc. operates under license.

Hello dear friends and welcome to Week in Review (WiR). This is TechCrunch’s regular newsletter rounding up his week in the tech industry. For many, he’s one day shorter at work this week, thanks to Juneteen Day on Monday. But a lot has happened.

We’ve been covering the Oceangate tragedy and have been following the Reddit API controversy closely, and the controversy shows no signs of abating. Elsewhere, TC has a full review of the new Google Pixel Tablet (spoiler alert: the included dock is the big highlight). It also includes details on Microsoft’s quantum plans and more.

If you haven’t signed up yet, sign up here and WiR will arrive in your inbox every Saturday. So read on for this week’s digest.

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Oceangate fired the whistleblower. The ocean operations chief for Oceangate, whose submarine went missing on Sunday during its expedition to the Titanic in the North Atlantic, expressed concern about the company’s first carbon fiber hull and other systems ahead of its maiden voyage. , was fired, according to documents filed with the court in a 2018 lawsuit.

Hackers threaten to leak Reddit data: Hackers have threatened to release sensitive data stolen from Reddit unless the company pays a ransom and rolls back its controversial API price hike. The BlackCat ransomware group, also known as ALPHV, claims in a post on the dark web leak site that he stole 80 gigabytes of compressed data from Reddit when it compromised its systems in February. .

Protests on Reddit continue: Further Reddit news reveals that multiple subreddits have responded to the aforementioned API changes, such as publishing only one type of post, changing the topics they focus on, and changing the date the community goes private. It employs a different method of protesting. Many of these communities took part in a “blackout” from June 12-14 to protest API rule changes, which could effectively suspend a number of third-party apps. .

Google Pixel tablet review: Brian reviews the new Pixel Tablet. This is Google’s first attempt at his Android-powered device with a tablet form factor. verdict? A so-so slate is more than the sum of its parts when you add the bundled smart home dock. Keep reading for the rest of his impressions.

Microsoft takes quantum seriously. This week, Microsoft unveiled a roadmap for building a quantum supercomputer using topological qubits, something that its researchers have been working on for a long time. There are still many intermediate milestones to reach. But the company believes it will take less than a decade to build a quantum supercomputer using these qubits.

WhatsApp will automatically silence itself. WhatsApp has introduced a new feature that automatically silences calls from unknown numbers. This comes after several customers in India, the largest market for chat apps with over 500 million users, complained of an increase in spam calls over the past year.

Marvel’s AI Art Controversy: Marvel’s latest series, “Secret Invasion,” premiered on Disney+ this week, sparking backlash after it was confirmed that the intro sequence was generated by AI. His VFX company, Method Studios, which handles graphics, told The Hollywood Reporter, “The introduction of these new tools did not replace the artist’s job.” But that didn’t stop many artists from expressing their frustrations on his Twitter.

A board member has left Byju. On Thursday, global giant Deloitte stepped down from its Byju’s auditors, with three directors resigning from the most valuable Indian start-up, a year after delays in financial reporting by Indian companies grabbed global attention. It took the industry by surprise.

audio

Need a podcast to pass your commute or just for a lazy Sunday afternoon? TechCrunch has you covered. TC’s audio content, which continues to grow steadily, is sure to have something appealing.

This week’s episode of Found featured Web Sun, co-founder and president of Komodo Health, a startup that uses data to create a comprehensive map of the U.S. healthcare system. Webb explained what drove him to entrepreneurship and how his mutual friends introduced him to the co-founders and thought they would get along (little did they know! ) was revealed. He also talked about fundraising and job cuts during a bull market. This is certainly a timely topic.

TechCrunch+

TC+ subscribers have access to detailed commentary, analysis and surveys. If you’re already a subscriber, you know these things. If not, please consider signing up. Here are some highlights from the week.

European and Israeli unicorns: Accel partner Harry Nelis has spent the last 20 years seeing the emergence of a number of strong founders and executives across Europe and Israel, building innovative products and category-defining unicorn companies that are now on the global stage. I am writing about what we have seen in competition.

Coinbase, the next super app: As the cryptocurrency market continues to face uncertainty, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong sees even greater potential for growth in the digital asset ecosystem. Over the next five to seven years, Armstrong’s vision for Coinbase includes turning Coinbase into a “super app.” This refers to apps like WeChat and Alipay used for messaging, commerce, banking, loans, payments and even food ordering.

AI permeates crowdsourcing jobs. According to a new paper by researchers at the Swiss university EPFL, between 33% and 46% of distributed crowdworkers on Amazon Mechanical Turk use tools like ChatGPT when performing specific tasks assigned to them. It has been suggested that it appears to have “cheated” to perform some tasks. work. If the practice becomes widespread, Haje wrote, it could become a pretty serious problem.

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