Category: BUYSEMPERFI

Large language models recently emerged as a powerful and transformative new kind of technology. Their potential became headline news as ordinary people were dazzled by the capabilities of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, released just a year ago.

In the months that followed the release of ChatGPT, discovering new jailbreaking methods became a popular pastime for mischievous users, as well as those interested in the security and reliability of AI systems. But scores of startups are now building prototypes and fully fledged products on top of large language model APIs. OpenAI said at its first-ever developer conference in November that over 2 million developers are now using its APIs.

These models simply predict the text that should follow a given input, but they are trained on vast quantities of text, from the web and other digital sources, using huge numbers of computer chips, over a period of many weeks or even months. With enough data and training, language models exhibit savant-like prediction skills, responding to an extraordinary range of input with coherent and pertinent-seeming information.

The models also exhibit biases learned from their training data and tend to fabricate information when the answer to a prompt is less straightforward. Without safeguards, they can offer advice to people on how to do things like obtain drugs or make bombs. To keep the models in check, the companies behind them use the same method employed to make their responses more coherent and accurate-looking. This involves having humans grade the model’s answers and using that feedback to fine-tune the model so that it is less likely to misbehave.

Robust Intelligence provided WIRED with several example jailbreaks that sidestep such safeguards. Not all of them worked on ChatGPT, the chatbot built on top of GPT-4, but several did, including one for generating phishing messages, and another for producing ideas to help a malicious actor remain hidden on a government computer network.

A similar method was developed by a research group led by Eric Wong, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania. The one from Robust Intelligence and his team involves additional refinements that let the system generate jailbreaks with half as many tries.

Brendan Dolan-Gavitt, an associate professor at New York University who studies computer security and machine learning, says the new technique revealed by Robust Intelligence shows that human fine-tuning is not a watertight way to secure models against attack.

Dolan-Gavitt says companies that are building systems on top of large language models like GPT-4 should employ additional safeguards. “We need to make sure that we design systems that use LLMs so that jailbreaks don’t allow malicious users to get access to things they shouldn’t,” he says.

To say Grand Theft Auto VI is hotly anticipated is an understatement. Rockstar’s last car larceny game dropped more than 10 years ago, and despite a circus of speculation and some leaks in 2022, fans have seen almost nothing from the franchise. That all changed today when the company released the first trailer for GTA 6.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Just days after people gleefully posted their Spotify Wrapped, bad news came for the music streaming giant. Spotify announced Monday it would cut 17 percent of its workforce, a chunk that equates to an estimated 1,500 people. It’s the third time the world’s largest music streamer has cut jobs this year.

The news came after Spotify posted its first profitable quarter since 2021. In a memo to staff, CEO Daniel Ek said the company had expanded its workforce and offerings significantly throughout 2020 and 2021 thanks to lower-cost capital, but is now bumping up against the same problems startups across industries are facing, like high capital costs and slowed economic growth.

Ek said the cuts may seem “surprisingly large given the recent positive earnings report and our performance,” but due to “the gap between our financial goal state and our current operational costs,” Spotify would take “substantial action.”

Despite its popularity (Spotify held 30 percent of the music streaming market by late 2022), the company has long struggled to turn consistent profits. The layoffs wrap up a bad year: Spotify also cut 6 percent of its workforce in January, followed by another 2 percent in June as it slimmed down its podcasting business. Even as the world’s most recognizable music streaming service, Spotify is plagued by an unreliable business model, where record companies sit back and rake in royalty payments, while artists can struggle to bring in enough cash.

“Investors are increasingly impatient in 2023 for tech firms to start making money,” says Phil Bird, head of rights at royalties at software development company Vistex. Spotify isn’t alone—tech companies have slashed jobs throughout the year, with more than 250,000 people losing jobs worldwide in 2023, according to layoffs.fyi, a site that tracks job cuts in tech.

Many major tech companies that overhired during the pandemic have taken steps to right-size—and that’s what Ek says Spotify is doing now, too. But Spotify’s high cost to license music adds to its financial strain. “The cost of doing business is huge for streaming companies,” Bird says.

Spotify gained momentum in the third quarter of 2023, earning €32 million ($34.6 m) in operating income. It now has 226 million subscribers and 574 million monthly users. “On the surface, it looks great,” says Simon Dyson, senior principal analyst of music and digital audio at consultancy firm Omdia. “It’s that nagging costs that it can’t get on top of.”

After being ousted from the House of Representatives last week, ex-congressman George Santos has officially joined Cameo, the platform famous for custom messages from celebrities and influencers.

Though Santos has not yet posted anything to his Cameo profile, it advertises a selection of personally-recorded pep talks, “gossip,” roasts, and advice messages from Santos himself. These video messages, all promised to be delivered within 24 hours of an order, were initially priced at $75, but the cost has since increased to $200.

A former Santos staffer confirmed to WIRED on Monday that the profile was real, and it is now linked on the ex-representative’s personal X account. Cameo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

After winning his Long Island congressional election last year, problems mounted for Santos after the North Shore Leader and the New York Times reported that he allegedly lied about his finances and much of his personal background, like where he went to college and having worked for Goldman Sachs. More absurd lies were uncovered, involving claims that his mother died as a result of 9/11 (she didn’t) and that Santos was the star of Baruch College’s volleyball team (he wasn’t, and also didn’t attend Baruch).

In May, Santos was charged on multiple federal counts of money laundering, identity theft, and theft of public funds. He is set to face trial next September.

Despite these charges, Santos wasn’t expelled until after the House Ethics Committee finished its own investigation in November and claimed that he misused thousands of dollars in campaign donations. The report said that Santos spent $50,000 in campaign funds to pay off personal debts and made other unlawful purchases, like subscribing to creators on OnlyFans. Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) has also accused Santos of defrauding him and his mother by charging their personal credit cards.

Santos isn’t the first politician to join the ranks of Chuck Norris, Tay Zonday, and Brian Baumgartner of “The Office” fame on Cameo: Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and political consultant Roger Stone have their own profiles, both touting nearly five star ratings.

The Biden campaign has also experimented with Cameo in the past. In 2020, the campaign partnered with the platform to allow participating celebrities, like Andy Cohen, Mandy Moore, and Melissa Etheridge, to earmark portions of their earnings as donations, according to The Verge.

Until Santos goes to trial, it’s impossible to know if his donors will ever claw back the money his campaign allegedly stole from them. But unlike Santos’s reported donor fraud, Cameo has a money back guarantee for scams.

We have tested several other outdoor security cameras. These are the ones we like that just missed out on a place above.

Imou Knight Spotlight Camera for $180 or £100: A smart design and solid feature set make this an attractive security camera for the right spot. It can record at up to 4K with HDR, has a 600-lumen spotlight around the lens, and can take microSD cards up to 256 GB (sold separately) to record locally. The app offers a wide range of features, including detection zones, cross line alerts, and human or pet detection, though the AI sometimes gets it wrong. Sadly, the low frame rate (15) too often results in blurry footage, but this came close to snagging a spot above.

Reolink Go PT Ultra for $250: If you need a wireless security camera that can connect to cellular 3G or 4G LTE networks, you could do worse than this offering from Reolink. It is a pan-and-tilt camera that can record up to 4K video on a local microSD card (sold separately), or you can subscribe for cloud storage. It has a wee spotlight and decent color night vision, and it comes with a solar panel to keep the battery topped up. The detection is reliable but doesn’t always categorize subjects correctly. Loading time and lag will depend on the strength of the signal. Just make sure you check carrier compatibility and get a SIM card before you buy.

Annke NC800 for $350: Capable of capturing high resolution footage up to 4K, the NC800 boasts color night vision without a spotlight. This is an IP camera designed for local use with an NVR (network video recorder), though you can also insert a microSD card for local recordings. There is PoE (power-over-Ethernet) or you can plug in via Ethernet to your router with a separate power connection, but either way you will have to run cables. I had some trouble with the frame rate to my phone at higher resolutions, but it delivers good picture quality with no lag. I also like that the app supports 2FA with fingerprint unlock. But configuration is tricky and far from intuitive.

Defender Guard Pro for $134: Previously our top tethered pick, the Defender Guard Pro (7/10, WIRED Recommends) ticks most boxes. It’s affordable, delivers 2K video, two-way audio, and local storage via an included microSD card. Plus, there’s a spotlight and siren. Setup was glitchy and you must run a power cable inside, so it’s a hassle to install. The price has also increased since we first recommended it, and stock seems to be limited.

Wyze Cam OG for $24 and Wyze Cam OG Telephoto for $34: This interesting pair of affordable cameras from Wyze work well together, and you can get them bundled with a stack kit for $56. The OG gives you a 120-degree wide view and sports a spotlight, and the OG Telephoto has a 3x optical zoom. For example, you might have the OG cover your backyard and use the Telephoto to focus on the gate area, and you can set up a picture-in-picture view in the Wyze app. Both are IP65 rated, but if you want to use an outdoor socket, you must buy the Wyze Outdoor Power Adapter ($15).

Swann AllSecure650 4 Camera Kit for $700: This kit includes four wireless, battery-powered cameras and a network video recorder (NVR) that can plug into a TV or monitor via HDMI. The cameras can record up to 2K, and footage is crisp and detailed enough to zoom in on, though there is a mild fisheye effect. The night vision is reasonably good, but the two-way audio lags and sounds distorted. I like the option to view all camera feeds simultaneously, the backup battery in the NVR makes it a cinch to swap batteries when a camera is running low, and everything is local with no need for a subscription. Unfortunately, the mobile app is poor, camera feeds sometimes take several seconds to load, and there doesn’t seem to be any 2FA. The NVR interface is also clunky to navigate with the provided mouse.

Arlo Pro 4 for $160: This camera was our top pick and it is still an excellent buy that is widely available. Its successor, the Pro 5, has slightly better battery life and enhanced color night vision, but there isn’t a huge difference. This camera provides crisp, clear footage, responds swiftly, and has an excellent detection and notification system, but you must also factor in the cost of an Arlo subscription starting from $5 per month for a single camera.

Reolink Argus 3 Pro for $120: There’s a lot to like with this security camera, not least the affordable price. It offers 2K video, local or cloud storage, two-way audio, a siren, and person recognition. The live feed loads fast, and it’s cheap to buy a solar panel accessory for power. The app is a little confusing, but Reolink recently added 2FA. I also tested the Reolink Argus PT with solar panel ($160), which is a solid pan-and-tilt camera with an otherwise similar feature set. Both Reolink cameras also support dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz).

Eve Outdoor Cam for $250: This stylish floodlight camera must be wired in, and installation is tricky (you may want an electrician). It can replace an outdoor light to give you motion-activated light (up to 1,500 lumens), 1080p video (157-degree field-of-view), and two-way audio. But as a Homekit camera, you will need an Apple Homekit hub (Apple TV, HomePod, or iPad) and an iCloud+ storage plan. Sadly, the video and sound quality are average, it only works on 2.4-GHz Wi-Fi, and there’s no Android support.

Toucan Wireless Outdoor Camera for $50: Toucan’s wireless camera resembles our top pick from Arlo with a smart magnetic mount and easy installation. The 1080p video is good in ideal conditions but struggles with mixed lighting (no HDR). Two-way audio is passable. The app works well and loads the live feed quite quickly, but this is cloud-only, which means you need to subscribe (from $3 per month) if you want tagged events, more than the last 24 hours recorded, or to download more than five videos per month.

Wyze Cam V3 Outdoor Camera for $35: This camera has an IP65 rating making, it suitable for outdoor use. It comes close to matching the Wyze Cam Outdoor on video quality and features, but because it must be plugged in, you might easily end up spending more on a lengthy cable than on the camera itself. Local storage is also limited to a microSD card on the device.

Toucan Security Light Camera for $130: You can simply plug this camera into an outlet, and it comes with an 8-meter waterproof cable. It has a motion-activated light (1,200 lumens), records 1080p video, and supports two-way audio. I found the footage quite detailed, but it struggled with direct sunlight. You can record locally on a microSD card (sold separately), and you get 24 hours of free cloud storage, but it has limitations. Plans start from $3 per month. Even with motion detection set to the lowest sensitivity, this camera triggered too often during testing, and there’s no way to filter for people, so I got frequent false positives (blowing leaves, moths, and birds all triggered alerts).

Ezviz C3X for $80: The C3X gets the basics right, offering crisp footage and reliable alerts. It sports a dual-lens camera for better night vision, offering full-color video without the need for a spotlight. It is also easy to set up, takes a microSD card, and supports convenient two-factor authentication with a fingerprint. Unfortunately, you have to run a power cable (there’s optional Ethernet too), and the cloud subscription is too expensive. I also tested the wireless Ezviz EB3 (£40), a 2K, battery-powered outdoor security camera with on-device person detection and a microSD card slot, but it’s only available in the UK.

Blurams Outdoor Lite 3 for $50: This is a feature-packed security camera for the price, with support for pan, tilt, and zoom functionality, spotlights, siren, motion tracking, continuous recording, and two-way audio. You can store footage locally on a microSD card (sold separately) or subscribe to a cloud plan. Video quality is reasonable, but the app is very glitchy and loading the live feed was inconsistent (sometimes it just buffered indefinitely).

SimpliSafe Wireless Outdoor Security Camera for $180: A solid set of features, crisp 1080p video, and support for HDR sounds tempting, but you need a Simplisafe security system (9/10, WIRED recommends) and monitoring plan to make this camera worthwhile, making it too expensive for what you get. (The Arlo Pro 4 offers better-quality video and more features.) It may be a useful add-on for existing SimpliSafe customers, though.

Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), says the Section 702 program “invariably” intercepts communications between foreigners and their American family members. Using the program for vetting purposes means committing to “entirely suspicionless searches” of both, he says.

Andy Wong, a director of advocacy at Stop AAPI Hate, a coalition of community-based groups, has called out Democrats specifically for supporting the move, labeling it a “betrayal” of the Latino and Asian American communities. “We need leaders who dismantle systemic racism,” Wong says, “not entrench policies that leave us more exposed, separated, and vulnerable.”

Turner, the HPSCI chairman, said Sunday on Face the Nation that his committee had a bill to extend the 702 program endorsed by, among others, Jim Himes, the committee’s ranking Democrat. Turner accused lawmakers not onboard with his bill of misunderstanding how the program works and its “value and importance” to “national security.”

ACLU’s Hamadanchy tells WIRED that it would be concerning to see Himes and other Democrats endorsing use of the program against immigrant communities. “It would represent a dramatic expansion of the current vetting practices,” he says, “and it would be disappointing if it is something Congressman Himes has signed on to.”

Himes did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Turner said Sunday that he’d already gained the support of the SSCI chairman Mike Warner, a Democrat of Virginia, who introduced his own 702 bill last week. Warner’s bill also includes language that expands the 702 program to “enable the vetting of non-United States persons who are being processed for travel to the United States,” but does not mention visas or green cards.

Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s liberty & national security program, calls Warner’s proposals unnecessary. “There are already plenty of vetting mechanisms in place to ensure that visitors to this country don’t pose a threat to national security or public safety,” she says.

“People should be able to vacation, work, or study in the United States without opening up their private communications to US government scrutiny,” Goitein adds.

Although the text of his bill is not public, much is already known about Turner’s aims. Last month, the HPSCI released an outline of its proposals describing, among other so-called “reforms,” an amendment that would allow the government to search the 702 database “for the purpose of screening and vetting immigration and non-immigrant visa applicants.”

Sony rightfully believes the haptics on its DualSense add such a layer of immersion that every PS5 since launch has come with Astro’s Playroom, the tech demo/video game that helps introduce you to the features of the console and its controller. This game expertly showcases the DualSense’s haptic abilities. The Access Controller does not have this feature. It is understandable, because a lot of disabled gamers don’t like or can’t use haptics—but some can. The option would have been nice to have, especially since the Access Controller seems to have enough room to fit a haptic motor.

On the software side, there are a couple of features to get excited about. First, a player can map two button presses to one single input. For instance, if a game has a combo attack, a player can map Jump and Attack to one button that is easy to press. But the most helpful software addition may be the ability to toggle buttons on and off for a long press. So if a game requires a player to hold a button for an extended period of time—like the ignition button in Gran Turismo 7—the player can turn on the button’s toggle, press it twice, and the system will recognize this as a long press.

The Access Controller does have one software issue. When a player sets it up, they are asked to orient the joystick in one of the four cardinal directions. There is no option to orient the joystick at a diagonal. Although you can rotate the joystick wherever you want, a player still has to adhere to four directional parameters. This issue could be fixed with a firmware update, though.

Also, if we’re talking about accessibility, it would have been encouraging to see Sony offer a tab in the PlayStation app dedicated to the Access Controller. In the future, this is where disabled gamers could make their Access Controller or PS5 compatible with voice commands or eye and head tracking. With the infrastructure of the PlayStation app soundly established, it would be convenient if all of those software features existed in one place when you bought an Access Controller.

Sony’s Access Controller will forever be linked to and compared with the Xbox Adaptive Controller—and that’s a good thing. There has never before been a time when the two biggest gaming companies offered a first-party controller designed from the ground up for disabled gamers. I point out the critiques to demonstrate how far the industry has to go to make disabled gaming on par with abled gaming. But over the past five years, the evolution of accessibility in gaming is something every engineer and developer should be proud of.

Time will tell, but the biggest asset of the Access Controller may be its longevity. Diseases and injuries evolve over time, and our bodies have to adapt to these changes. Because the Access Controller’s joystick and buttons can be moved and used in so many different ways, a disabled or abled-body gamer could alter the product when their body changes. Besides more ports, Sony has built a foundational piece of inclusive hardware that it can iterate off of, and with some updates to the software, the Access Controller could truly be revolutionary.

Video games can transport someone to unimaginable worlds and produce novel experiences for that player. That’s why it really is a shame to deny anyone this artistic medium. When attending middle school, I gamed all the time, then I stopped in high school and college, and recently, I’ve followed the industry closely but have played sporadically because of my dexterity issues. In an instant, the Access Controller’s ingenuity solved my issues and opened gaming back up for me. The only problem now is finding the time to play.

DNA is nature’s original storage system. The molecule is made up of the chemical bases adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine—shortened to A, C, G, and T—which pair off to form a double helix. The order of these bases determines the genetic blueprint of every living organism.

To store data in DNA, a file is converted from its binary code of 0s and 1s into a series of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts. On Biomemory’s website, a user can type the text message they want to store into an interface that looks something like Google Translate, which converts it into DNA code. Then, Biomemory custom-builds a DNA strand from that code, chemically synthesizing it base by base to match the desired sequence. Erwani says the company’s current process takes about eight hours to make one kilobyte’s worth of data.

The DNA is synthesized in a solution, so the next step is drying it to increase its shelf life. Taking inspiration from credit cards embedded with a microchip, which were first deployed in France in the 1980s, scientists at Biomemory designed a silver credit-card-like device with a circular chip that holds the dried DNA. To preserve the DNA, the card is sealed to prevent any oxygen from entering.

Arwani says customers will receive two identical cards—one to keep and another to test out the process of retrieving the data. To retrieve their message, customers will mail in one of the cards, which will be opened, and the dried DNA will be rehydrated and read by a sequencing machine. The sequence—made up of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts—is then emailed to the customer, who can plug that into Biomemory’s website to translate it back into the text message.

Arwani sees potential for DNA as a long-term storage option for people who want a safe, secure way to keep data of sentimental value. Nicholas Guise, chief scientist at the Cybersecurity, Information Protection & Hardware Evaluation Research (CIPHER) Lab at Georgia Tech Research Institute, says he could see customers using the cards to store information that wouldn’t change over a long period of time, such as critical passwords, the location of a safety deposit key, a beloved family recipe, or a message to a child or grandchild.

“It has to be something you care a lot about having forever but you’re not retrieving it often,” Guise says. “At a kilobyte you can’t do much, but at a slightly higher scale, you can start storing family photos and home videos.”

Do you ever wish you could put a massage gun directly on your eyeballs after a particularly long and stressful day? Or better yet, pop both eyes right out and give the socket a good rub before replacing them? Unfortunately, neither of those things are medically advisable. Instead, I’ve been getting some relief thanks to eye massagers.

For about a month, I’ve been using Gravity’s Eye Massager when I’m dealing with a headache, sore eyes from a day of writing, or I just need to relax a bit before I go to bed. I tried Therabody’s Smart Goggles (9/10, WIRED Recommends) last year. Despite my initial doubts that such a gadget could work, they quickly became my favorite product of the year—I didn’t know I was missing such a key piece of my comfort puzzle. Gravity’s version is half the price. There are some differences, but it holds its own against the massage heavyweight. While all our eyes are probably tired, the company notes that anyone with major eye diseases like glaucoma, cataracts, or retinal detachment, should not use this.

Easy on the Eyes

Photograph: Gravity

Gravity’s Eye Massager uses air pressure to gently squeeze and contract against your temples and around your eyes. Air pressure is different than the rolling nodes you might be used to in some massagers, which tend to really dig in and can even hurt during or after the massage is over. Inside this device, airbags inflate and deflate, allowing it to cup to your face, squeezing with just the right intensity before deflating and starting over. Therabody’s version doesn’t grip quite as much. Now that I’ve tried Gravity’s, it feels like it’s lacking.

There are five modes. Multi-Function employs all three features, heat, vibration, and pressure. Relax mode ditches vibrations, Rest is just pressure, and Revive uses pressure and vibration. The last mode, Heat, is a welcome addition, even if most of the time I opted for adding in other functions too. I used to buy disposable, self-heating eye masks for when one of my ocular migraines started. They helped a little, but this massager gets much warmer (107 degrees Fahrenheit) and feels significantly better. Even without the massage function on, just the goggles pressing against your face is much more relaxing than an insubstantial, gauzy mask. Therabody’s version doesn’t have a heat-only mode, as the pressure massage is a constant.

Photograph: Gravity

One of the most stunning twists in the recent five-day crisis at ChatGPT creator OpenAI came when some 95 percent of the company’s hundreds of employees threatened to quit. The staff planned to follow CEO Sam Altman to develop successors to ChatGPT at Microsoft instead. The threat appeared to mark a turning point in Altman’s ultimately successful attempt to return to OpenAI—it was also a scenario that businesses have the legal power to block in most US states.

California, home to OpenAI’s San Francisco HQ, is one of a handful states that bar the enforcement of noncompete agreements in employment contracts, which can forbid employees from hopping jobs to a competitor, often for years. That picture is now set to change, as a raft of new legislation aims to make more places like California.

Until this year, Oklahoma and North Dakota were the only states besides California that outlawed the enforcement of noncompetes. Over the past several months, more states began to follow suit, motivated in part by new research revealing the negative impact of NCAs on innovation and wages.

So far during the 2023 legislative session, 38 states have introduced a whopping 81 bills aimed at banning or curtailing NCA enforcement, according to the Economic Innovation Group (EIG), a public policy organization founded by Napster cofounder Sean Parker. The proposed laws range from industry-specific prohibitions to more sweeping bans. In total, 10 states have enacted some form of limitation on the agreements this year.

According to research from the Universities of Maryland and Michigan, nearly one of five US workers are subject to noncompete agreements, and a third of those are presented after the worker has accepted a job offer. In tech, that number is significantly higher: 35 percent of people working in computer- and math-related vocations and 36 percent of engineers work under noncompetes, the highest share of workers in all industries alongside architects, according to the paper. If not for California’s ban, that number would surely be higher. More than half of US states even allow companies to use NCAs to bind employees after they have been laid off, according to an analysis by the law firm Beck Reed Riden.

Those numbers now look set to shift. In July, Minnesota became the first state in over a century to enact a near-total ban on NCA enforcement. (All the bans allow for a narrow list of exceptions, such as permitting an entrepreneur who sells their business from immediately starting a competitor.) Meanwhile, the EIC, labor groups, and antitrust advocates are pressuring New York governor Kathy Hochul to sign a ban that the state assembly passed this summer.

Expanding Bans

At the federal level, the National Labor Relations Board declared this year that noncompetes violate the National Labor Relations Act, and the Federal Trade Commission proposed a rule that would ban the practice nationwide. Bloomberg Law reported that the agency is expected to finalize the rule in April, although business groups are likely to challenge it. In February, lawmakers reintroduced the bipartisan Workforce Mobility Act into the Senate, which would outlaw noncompetes in all but a few scenarios. California even strengthened its ban this year, outlawing the enforcement of noncompete agreements signed in other states and making it illegal to require an NCA.

California’s noncompete laws have famously been credited with helping birth Silicon Valley. “The traitorous eight,” a group of employees of Shockley Semiconductor, a pioneer of silicon-based semiconductors, decamped to found rival Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957, then some of them left to start Intel a decade later. Steves Jobs and Wozniak left posts at Atari and HP in the mid-1970s and started Apple. In 2011, Eric Yuan quit Cisco after the company rejected his idea for a video conferencing system. That same year he founded Zoom. The list goes on. A national ban on noncompetes could open the door for new startups in states like Texas and Florida where tech companies have flocked in recent years.