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Techmeme
June 16, 2023, 3:00 PM
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Top News

Jay Peters / The Verge:
Q&A: Steve Huffman says Reddit's API was “never designed to support third-party apps” and he didn't know how much the apps were “profiting off of our API”  —  Reddit is fighting for its soul. … Huffman has argued the changes are a business decision …
Anne VanderMey / Bloomberg:
Reddit says 80% of its top subreddits are currently open; Reddark estimates that 5K+ subreddits are limiting access, down from almost 9K on June 12  —  Reddit Inc. said that most of the company's communities were operating as normal — four days after a protest that shut down thousands …
The Verge:
Reddit messages some moderators of the communities participating in the API pricing change protest, looking for defectors “willing to work towards reopening”  —  Some moderators of Reddit communities participating in the protest against API changes today got messages from the company: work to reopen your subreddits or else.
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
A “Reddit API Fact Sheet” says the company does not plan to “unilaterally” reopen subreddits; Reddit's rules may let the platform remove protesting moderators
Sean Lyngaas / CNN:
Oregon and Louisiana warn that the MOVEit hackers may have stolen the SSNs and driver's license numbers of 3.5M Oregonians and 3M+ Louisianians from state DMVs  —  Millions of people in Louisiana and Oregon have had their data compromised in the sprawling cyberattack that has also hit …
Bloomberg:
NY AG documents: Tether once counted securities from Chinese companies among its reserves; Tether said in July 2022 that it held no Chinese commercial paper  —  Tether Holdings Ltd. once counted securities issued by Chinese companies among the reserves backing its USDT stablecoin …
CoinDesk:
France probes Binance for illegally providing digital asset services and poor money laundering checks; Binance quits Netherlands after failing to get a license  —  Binance is suspected of illegally providing digital asset services to local customers, and implementing poor money laundering checks …
Manya Saini / Reuters:
BlackRock files an SEC application to register its iShares Bitcoin Trust as a spot bitcoin ETF, using Coinbase Custody as its custodian  —  BlackRock (BLK.N), the world's biggest asset manager, on Thursday filed for a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) that would allow investors to get exposure …
Andrew Tarantola / Engadget:
Meta unveils Voicebox, a generative text-to-speech model the company hopes could be the ChatGPT of the spoken word, but won't release an app citing misuse risks  —  But the company won't be sharing the app or its source code for the time being.  —  Today, we are one step closer …
Mia Sato / The Verge:
How the “arms race” of SEO experts has left Google Search and the web drowning in garbage text, resulting in customers and businesses failing to find each other  —  The SEO arms race has left Google and the web drowning in garbage text, with customers and businesses flailing to find each other.
Leo Schwartz / Fortune:
Digital assets platform Bakkt delists Solana, Polygon, and Cardano, taking proactive action until there is US regulatory clarity on offering coins “compliantly”  —  Just over two months after completing a $155 million acquisition for the trading infrastructure provider Apex Crypto …
Lora Kolodny / CNBC:
Twitter suspends the accounts of public records database PlainSite and its founder Aaron Greenspan, who has tracked litigation by or against Tesla and Twitter  —  - Elon Musk-led Twitter on Tuesday suspended the Twitter accounts of PlainSite and its founder Aaron Greenspan, a prominent critic of Tesla and Musk.
More: Insider, Reuters, and Politico
Bluesky: @romitmehta.com.  Tweets: @jeremiahlee, @drewwash, and @arawnsley
Venkatesh Gorantla / MySmartPrice:
Alleged official renders of Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 show the clamshell-style foldable phone may get a 3.4-inch outer screen  —  The newly revealed Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 design render shows that the clamshell-style foldable phone is certainly getting a significant upgrade.  —  HIGHLIGHTS
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
In a cease and desist, Texas' securities regulator says crypto lender Abra has been insolvent since at least March 31, 2023, and accuses the company of fraud  —  State regulators say Abra held tens of millions of dollars' worth of assets on now bankrupt platforms.
Bloomberg:
In a meeting with Bill Gates, Xi Jinping says China is willing to engage in tech cooperation with the US; Xi could meet Antony Blinken on June 18 or June 19  —  President Xi Jinping said China is willing to work with the world on technology innovation and global challenges including pandemic prevention during …
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
Alphabet plans to wind down Google Domains and sell its assets, including ~10M domains, to Squarespace in Q3 2023, a source says for ~$180M; SQSP jumps 9%+  —  Alphabet Inc. is winding down its Google Domains business and selling its assets to Squarespace Inc., according to a statement Thursday.

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UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:00 PM ET, June 16, 2023.

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From Mediagazer

Sara Fischer / Axios:
PBS and a public TV affiliate in Minnesota sue the Trump administration, saying his executive order to cut federal funding violated PBS' First Amendment rights

Max Tani / Semafor:
The California State Senate opens an inquiry into whether Paramount's reported $15M proposed settlement with Trump violated bribery and unfair competition laws

Chris Willman / Variety:
Taylor Swift acquires the rights to her first six albums from Shamrock Capital; sources say the deal was in the mid-$300M range

More News

Benedict Evans:
Apple Vision Pro shows that current AR/VR devices, like Meta's Quests, aren't good enough to break out of the gaming market and need a step change in capability
Dana Priest / Washington Post:
Hanan Elatr, Jamal Khashoggi's widow, sues the NSO Group in Virginia, claiming Saudi Arabia used the Israeli company's Pegasus phone spyware to track them both
Financial Times:
Sources: media companies like News Corp and The Guardian have discussed LLM copyright issues and a subscription fee with OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, or Adobe
Katharine Gemmell / Bloomberg:
The UK CMA clears Amazon's $1.7B iRobot deal announced in August 2022, saying acquiring the robot vacuum maker would have “no impact on competition in the UK”

Earlier Picks

Reuters:
Micron plans to invest $603M in its chip packaging facility in Xian, China; in May 2023, China blocked key infrastructure operators from buying Micron products
Stephen Shankland / CNET:
Intel announces Tunnel Falls, its first quantum chip, featuring 12 qubits that use electrons to store data, available to select academic and research partners
Teo Armus / Washington Post:
Amazon formally opens Metropolitan Park in Arlington, Virginia, marking the first phase of HQ2, where the company plans to bring 25K highly paid workers by 2030
Sylvia Varnham O'Regan / The Information:
Sources: Meta is working on ways to make the next version of LLaMA available for commercial use; the open-source LLM is currently only licensed for research use
Bloomberg:
How Microsoft's bet on OpenAI due to transfer learning, an approach that wasn't yet commercialized, may help Microsoft leapfrog Google and corner the AI market
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Twitch launches a Partner Plus tier, offering a 70/30 revenue sharing split to creators who have 350+ recurring paid subscriptions for three consecutive months
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