Techmeme
June 29, 2023, 10:00 PM

Top News

Kent Walker / Google:
Google tells Canada's government it will remove Canadian news links from Search, News, and Discover and close Google News Showcase when Bill C-18 takes effect  —  President of Global Affairs, Google & Alphabet … The Government of Canada has enacted a new law called Bill C-18 …
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Inflection AI, a startup led by DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman that released its Pi chatbot in May 2023, raised $1.3B, a source says at a $4B valuation  —  Backed by Microsoft, Nvidia and billionaires Reid Hoffman, Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt, the startup led by ex-DeepMind leader Mustafa Suleyman …
Kotaku:
Niantic lays off 230 employees, closes its Los Angeles studio, and moves away from in-house game development, saying its expenses grew faster than its revenue  —  Pokémon Go will remain one of Niantic's top priorities moving forward  —  Niantic is shuttering its Los Angeles studio …
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
YouTube is running a test globally that limits ad blocker users to three videos, giving them the option to turn off their tool or subscribe to YouTube Premium  —  YouTube is currently running what it describes as a “small experiment globally,” warning users to toggle off their ad blockers …
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Meta plans to let people in the EU directly download apps through Facebook ads; a pilot is set to start with select Android app developers as soon as in 2023  —  Meta is planning to let people in the EU directly download apps through Facebook ads, setting the company up to eventually compete with Google and Apple's app stores.
Bloomberg:
Filing: Fidelity refiles for a spot bitcoin ETF with the US SEC, after similar applications from BlackRock, Invesco, WisdomTree, Valkyrie, Bitwise, and others  —  Fidelity Investments is the latest financial services heavyweight to throw its name into the race to offer the first US exchange-traded fund investing in Bitcoin.
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Q&A with Marc Andreessen on “Public Intellectual Marc”, software and the physical world, his AI essay, COVID-19, Twitter, China, a16z, crypto bets, and more  —  Today's Stratechery Interview — and the last Interview of the summer — is with Marc Andreessen.
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:
Sources: Linda Yaccarino plans to add full-screen, sound-on video ads to Twitter's short-video feed and is wooing celebrities in the hopes of selling more ads  —  New CEO hits the ground running with plans for new ads offering and tells staff to get ready for ‘hand-to-hand combat’
Julia Love / Bloomberg:
Police in San Francisco and other cities are obtaining warrants for Waymo and Cruise driverless car camera footage to help solve murders and other crimes  —  In December 2021, San Francisco police were working to solve the murder of an Uber driver.  As detectives reviewed local surveillance footage …
Mastodon: @jann@twit.socialTwitter: @rachelmetz, @eff, @sarahfrier, and @tomaxwell
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Microsoft adds AI-powered shopping tools, including GPT-generated buying guides in the US, to its Bing search engine and the Bing AI chatbot in Edge's sidebar  —  Microsoft today announced a slew of new AI-powered shopping tools for its new Bing search engine and the Bing AI chatbot in the Edge sidebar.
Bloomberg:
Documents and sources: in the coming weeks, the FTC plans to file a far-reaching antitrust lawsuit against Amazon's marketplace, after months of honing its case  —  Lina Khan's Federal Trade Commission has already filed three cases against Amazon.com Inc. Now she's gearing up for the Big One.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Meta publishes a deep dive into how AI recommends Facebook and Instagram content, including 22 “system cards” covering AI use in Feed, Stories, Reels, and more  —  Meta has published a deep dive into the company's social media algorithms in a bid to demystify how content is recommended for Instagram and Facebook users.
Aaron Holmes / The Information:
Court docs: Satya Nadella said Azure's cloud server business made $34B in revenue in the year ended June 2022; AWS generated $72B in revenue in the same period  —  For years Microsoft has kept a lid on details about the true size of its Azure cloud server rental business …
Patrick McGee / Financial Times:
Advertisers demand significant refunds from YouTube after an Adalytics report found millions of ads served via YouTube's TrueView system are hidden from users  —  Study shows millions of ads are hidden away in violation of Google-owned group's policies  —  Advertising industry figures …
Richard Priday / Tom's Guide:
Asus Zenfone 10 review: compact for a 5.9" display, powerful performance, and excellent battery life, but limited cameras and only two years of software updates  —  Everything you need in a premium Android phone, in a surprisingly small frame  —  Tom's Guide Verdict … Why you can trust Tom's Guide?
Matt Burgess / Wired:
Activists and researchers file a GDPR complaint against Pornhub in Italy, claiming the company is “illegally” handling users' data; the process could take years  —  Complaints filed in the European Union claim the porn site fails to follow basic data-collection policies under GDPR.
Washington Post:
Meta's Oversight Board calls for Meta to suspend Cambodian PM Hun Sen on Facebook and Instagram, the first time the Board has asked Meta to ban a head of state  —  MANILA — The social media giant Meta's Oversight Board called Thursday for the immediate suspension of Cambodian Prime Minister …
Krisztian Sandor / CoinDesk:
Binance says its euro banking partner Paysafe will stop supporting the exchange on September 26; Binance recently retreated from the UK, Netherlands, and Cyprus  —  The exchange recently announced retreats from the U.K., Netherlands and Cyprus.  —  Binance's euros banking partner …
Joshua Wolens / PC Gamer:
Reddit user sliced_lime, most likely Mojang's Mikael Hedberg, says Mojang no longer plans to post changelogs to r/Minecraft due to Reddit's API pricing changes  —  The Minecraft subreddit won't be a source for official Mojang communications going forward.  —  If you want official updates …
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Snap announces that Snapchat+, which lets users access experimental and pre-released features for $3.99 per month, reached 4M paid subscribers in its first year  —  Snapchat on Thursday will announce that its subscription service, Snapchat+, has reached 4 million paid subscribers in its first year, executives told Axios.

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Zoho:
The crossroads of AI and SaaS  —  Enabling businesses of all sizes to build products in-house and disqualifying SaaS tools that are not AI-powered.  In a span of just two years, AI has made a name for itself as the key driver for innovation.
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 12/20 - Gemini Flash Thinking
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:00 PM ET, June 29, 2023.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
Ernie Smith / VICE:

Earlier Picks

Stephanie Bodoni / Bloomberg:
Priya Anand / Bloomberg:
Stephen Nellis / Reuters:
Gerrit De Vynck / Washington Post:
Ina Fried / Axios: