OceanGate fires a whistleblower, hackers threaten to leak Reddit data, and Marvel embraces AI artHello, lovelies, and welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter that recaps the week in tech. For many folks, this workweek was a day shorter, thanks to the Juneteenth observance on Monday. But plenty happened.
We’ve got coverage on the OceanGate tragedy, and we’ve continued to closely track the Reddit API controversy — which shows no signs of abating. Elsewhere, TC has a full review of the new Google Pixel Tablet (spoiler alert: the bundled dock is a major highlight), and we have the skinny on Microsoft’s quantum plans and more.
If you haven’t already, sign up here to get WiR in your inbox every Saturday. Then read on for the week’s digest.
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OceanGate fired a whistleblower: The director of marine operations at OceanGate, the company whose submersible went missing Sunday on an expedition to the Titanic in the North Atlantic, was fired after raising concerns about its first-of-a-kind carbon fiber hull and other systems before its maiden voyage, according to a court filing in a 2018 lawsuit.
Hackers threaten to leak Reddit data: Hackers are threatening to release confidential data stolen from Reddit unless the company pays a ransom demand — and reverses its controversial API price hikes. In a post on its dark web leak site, the BlackCat ransomware gang, also known as ALPHV, claims to have stolen 80 gigabytes of compressed data from Reddit during a February breach of the company’s systems. 
Reddit protests continue: In more Reddit news, multiple subreddits are adopting alternative methods of protesting the aforementioned API changes, such as publishing only one kind of post, changing the topic in focus and days when the community turns private. Many of these communities took part in a “blackout” from June 12–14 to protest the API rule changes, which could effectively kill a host of third-party apps.
Google Pixel Tablet review: Brian reviews the new Pixel Tablet, Google’s first attempt in a minute at an Android-powered device with a tablet form factor. The verdict? The so-so slate is greater than the sum of its parts with the addition of a bundled smart home dock. Read on for the rest of his impressions.
Microsoft gets serious about quantum: This week, Microsoft announced its roadmap for building a quantum supercomputer, using the topological qubits the company’s researchers have been working on for quite some time. There’s still plenty of intermediary milestones to be reached. But the company believes that it’ll take fewer than 10 years to build a quantum supercomputer using these qubits.
WhatsApp gets automatic silencing: WhatsApp has introduced a new feature to automatically silence calls from unknown numbers. It comes after multiple customers in India, the chat app’s biggest market with more than 500 million users, complained about an increase in spam calls over the past year.
Marvel’s AI art controversy: Marvel’s latest series, “Secret Invasion,” made its debut on Disney+ this week — sparking backlash after it was confirmed that the intro sequence was AI-generated. Method Studios, the VFX company responsible for the graphics, told The Hollywood Reporter, “No artists’ jobs were replaced by incorporating these new tools” — but that didn’t stop many artists from taking to Twitter express their frustrations.
Board members quit Byju’s: On Thursday, global giant Deloitte quit as the auditor of Byju’s and three board members resigned from the most valuable Indian startup, sending a shock wave through the industry a year after the Indian firm’s tardy financial reporting attracted global scrutiny.
Audio
Need a podcast to pass the commute — or just a lazy Sunday afternoon? TechCrunch has you covered. There’s bound to be something that appeals in TC’s growing audio content stable.
This week’s episode of Found featured Web Sun, the co-founder and president of Komodo Health, a startup that uses data to create a comprehensive map of the U.S. healthcare system. Web opened up about what drove him to entrepreneurship and how mutual friends introduced him to his co-founder, thinking they’d get along (little did they know!). He also talked about navigating fundraising during the bull market and layoffs — a timely topic to be sure.
TechCrunch+
TC+ subscribers get access to in-depth commentary, analysis and surveys — which you know if you’re already a subscriber. If you’re not, consider signing up. Here are a few highlights from this week:
Europe’s and Israel’s unicorns: Accel partner Harry Nelis writes about how, in the last two decades, we’ve seen a wealth of strong founders and operators emerge across Europe and Israel, building innovative products and category-defining unicorn companies that are now competing on the global stage.
Coinbase, the next super app: As the crypto markets continue to face uncertainty, Coinbase’s CEO Brian Armstrong sees greater potential for the digital asset ecosystem to grow. In the next five to seven years, Armstrong’s vision for Coinbase includes turning it into a “super app,” referring to apps like WeChat and Alipay, which are used for messaging, commerce, banking, loans, payments and even for ordering food.
AI infiltrates crowdsourced work: A new paper from researchers at Swiss university EPFL suggests that between 33% and 46% of distributed crowd workers on Amazon Mechanical Turk appear to have “cheated” when performing a particular task assigned to them, using tools such as ChatGPT to do some of the work. If that practice is widespread, it may turn out to be a pretty serious issue, Haje writes.

Get your TechCrunch fix IRL. Join us at Disrupt 2023 in San Francisco this September to immerse yourself in all things startup. From headline interviews to intimate roundtables to a jam-packed startup expo floor, there’s something for everyone at Disrupt. Save up to $600 when you buy your pass now through August 11, and save 15% on top of that with promo code WIR. Learn more.

OceanGate fires a whistleblower, hackers threaten to leak Reddit data, and Marvel embraces AI art by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

Getting It Done: The Week in D.I.Y. & Indie MusicThis week, our tips and advice for the independent, do-it-yourselfers out there covered how to make money with YouTube, how to secure funding, and more… A guide to secure funding. Continue reading
The post Getting It Done: The Week in D.I.Y. & Indie Music appeared first on Hypebot.

REWIND: The new music industry’s Week In ReviewA busy week by any definition, the music industry was no exception, with AI making strides in sync, Spotify adding a new subscriber tier and more… Spotify to (finally) add. Continue reading
The post REWIND: The new music industry’s Week In Review appeared first on Hypebot.

PSP stereoController2 from PSP Audioware PSP Audioware’s latest plug-in offers control and adjustment over incorrectly recorded stereo material, as well as providing a range of useful processing options for the later stages of a mix.

Moog Releases New Episode of GIANTS Synth History Documentary SeriesGIANTS is a platform for legendary electronic musicians and innovators to express themselves through the art of storytelling. The artists in this series have left an indelible impact on electronic music history and culture, and their contributions have pushed the artform and industry forward. They are the “giants” whose shoulders we stand on—the pioneers who propelled synthesizers and analog instruments into the mainstream many years ago. Watch the newest episode, centered on early synthesizer pioneer Bernie Krause, here.

Following an entertaining and insightful first episode of the series about Moog synthesizer co-inventor Herb Deutsch, this second installment of GIANTS focuses on soundscape ecologist and bio-acoustician Bernie Krause. Once a Motown session guitarist intrigued by early advancements in the world of electronic music, the artist’s first Moog modular synthesizer encounter in 1965 led him to develop a new understanding of sound and musical expression. It was this understanding and early adoption of the instrument—co-owning one of the very first models—that helped Bernie and his musical partner Paul Beaver introduce the Moog synthesizer to the likes of George Harrison, The Monkees, The Byrds, and The Rolling Stones. 

Krause shares his story in the latest episode of Moog Music’s GIANTS docuseries. Watch the episode here.

To keep up with future releases of GIANTS, join Moog’s email newsletter list here.The post Moog Releases New Episode of GIANTS Synth History Documentary Series first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

The Village Recorders Hosts Women In Music's Shoptalk 102The Village Studios, long recognized for promoting women’s careers in production, recently hosted the Los Angeles Chapter of Women In Music’s Shoptalk 102, the second in a series of workshops about the technical basics of audio recording and the terminology of the control room.

Moderated by producer Lenise Bent, and assisted by engineer Jasmine Mills, the panel was curated by The Village Studios manager Tina Morris and offered wisdom from veteran engineer/producers Vanessa Wormer and Alise Laymac, as well as insight from newer staff members Nicole Schmidt and Hannah Samuels.

Organizer Kathleen Wirt, who hosted Shoptalk 101 at 4th Street Recording, said “Most female artists are still working in studios with an all-male production crew and are hesitant to ask about the aspects of the process that they don’t fully understand. Shoptalk serves toempower female artists in their recording sessions by providing a safe space where they can ask women engineers and producers any question without judgment. The comments we had afterwards were universally and enthusiastically positive, with many attendees sharing their personal experiences and expressing how grateful they were for the knowledge they had gained.”

To connect with WIM, visit womeninmusic.orgThe post The Village Recorders Hosts Women In Music's Shoptalk 102 first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

ECB official labels crypto as 'deleterious' with 'no societal benefits' in scathing speechAccording to Fabio Panetta, the volatility of crypto and aspects of blockchain technology made digital assets only suitable for gambling.

Hacker responsible for 2020 Twitter breach sentenced to prisonThree years after one of the most visible hacks in recent history played out in real-time in front of millions of Twitter users, one of the hackers responsible for the breach will now serve time in federal prison.
Joseph James O’Connor, 24, was sentenced Friday in a New York federal court to five years in prison after pleading guilty in May to four counts of computer hacking, wire fraud and cyberstalking. O’Connor also agreed to forfeit at least $794,000 to the victims of his crimes.
O’Connor, a U.K. citizen, was extradited from Spain at the request of U.S. prosecutors earlier this year and has remained in custody since.
In the hearing, Judge Jed S. Rakoff said O’Connor will likely serve about half of his sentence after spending more than two years in pre-trial custody.
O’Connor faced a maximum of 77 years in prison, according to Reuters. Justice Department prosecutors called for O’Connor to serve at least seven years in prison.
In court, O’Connor said his crimes were “stupid and pointless,” apologized to his victims, and asked the judge for leniency.
According to prosecutors, O’Connor “used his sophisticated technological abilities for malicious purposes — conducting a complex SIM swap attack to steal large amounts of cryptocurrency, hacking Twitter, conducting computer intrusions to take over social media accounts, and even cyberstalking two victims, including a minor victim.”
The government said O’Connor, known by his online handle PlugWalkJoe, was part of a group that broke into dozens of high-profile Twitter accounts, including Apple, Binance, Bill Gates, Joe Biden and Elon Musk, to spread cryptocurrency get-rich-quick scams in July 2020.
O’Connor used phone-based social engineering techniques to trick Twitter employees into granting the group of hackers access to Twitter’s network. One of the other hackers convicted of the Twitter breach, Graham Ivan Clark, also known as Kirk, used the access to Twitter’s network to abuse an internal admin tool to hijack and reassign Twitter user accounts.
A screenshot of the Twitter admin panel that the hackers breached in order to reassign access to Twitter user accounts. Image Credits: TechCrunch (supplied)
Twitter temporarily blocked users from posting to the site as it grappled with the intrusion, as millions of users watched in real time as their timelines flooded with cryptocurrency scams from some of the most recognizable names on the planet.
A subsequent investigation by New York’s Department of Financial Services, which accused Twitter of inadequate cybersecurity protections, found that the hackers broke in by “calling Twitter employees and claiming to be from Twitter’s IT department,” then hijacked the Twitter accounts of politicians, celebrities, and entrepreneurs to tweet “double your bitcoin” scams.
The scam netted about $120,000, according to public blockchain records.
Several of the tweets that were published during the 2020 Twitter hack. Image Credits: TechCrunch
The breach prompted Twitter to improve its cybersecurity controls, introducing hardware security keys for its employees to prevent future phishing attempts.
Two years on from the hack, more explosive allegations about the breach came to light.
Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, who was hired as Twitter’s head of security months after the breach, later described the hackers’ access as achieving “god mode,” which allowed them to imposter-tweet from any account they wanted. Zatko called the incident “the largest hack of a social media platform in history” in a whistleblower complaint filed with federal regulators in 2022, in which Zatko accused his former employer of cybersecurity failings.
Twitter auto-replied with a poop emoji in response to an emailed request for comment, as it has done since a short time after Elon Musk acquired the company.

A hacker used Twitter’s own ‘admin’ tool to spread cryptocurrency scam

Hacker responsible for 2020 Twitter breach sentenced to prison by Zack Whittaker originally published on TechCrunch

From a $500m deal for Warner Bros’ film music catalog to Scooter Braun’s NDA… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-UpThe headlines from the past week you can't afford to miss...
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The Other Songs Live raises £65,000 The Other Songs Live, which recently took place at the London Palladium, raised over £65,000 for The Brit School and Ivors Academy. 

Learn how to get nominated for a Grammy as an Independent ArtistOver the last two weeks, the Grammy Awards have added three new categories perfect for indie artists and labels, reduced the number of nominees in several categories, and taken a. Continue reading
The post Learn how to get nominated for a Grammy as an Independent Artist appeared first on Hypebot.

Sweetwater’s Gearfest livesteam returns this Friday & SaturdayOnline musical instrument and music tech retailer Sweetwater’s annual GearFest event begins today at 3 PM ET with a free livestream event on Friday, June 23, and Saturday, June 24. Sweetwater will give. Continue reading
The post Sweetwater’s Gearfest livesteam returns this Friday & Saturday appeared first on Hypebot.

Exclusive: Scooter Braun wanted to sell Taylor Swift her masters. What happened?If you were gripped by MBW's investigation into this saga last week... buckle up
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Geoff Taylor joins Sony Music as EVP, Artificial IntelligenceFormer BPI boss will focus on one of the global industry's biggest priority talking points
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4 important things to look for in a Music PublicistAn artist and their publicist should always be on the same page. Here are a few essentials when it comes the the dynamic between both of you. by Erica D’Aurora. Continue reading
The post 4 important things to look for in a Music Publicist appeared first on Hypebot.