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Techmeme
July 13, 2023, 2:20 PM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
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Top News

Bloomberg:
The US arrests and charges former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky with six counts, including wire fraud; the SEC, CFTC, and FTC sue Mashinsky and the crypto company  —  Alex Mashinsky, the former chief executive officer of Celsius Network Ltd., was accused by prosecutors of orchestrating …
Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:
Google updates Bard with support for 43 more languages, including Arabic, and releases the chatbot in Europe and Brazil after adding new privacy features  —  Latest version to also include a privacy hub for all users  —  Google is betting a new version of its artificial-intelligence chatbot will say hallo …
Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
Document: the FTC sends OpenAI a 20-page demand for records on the risks of its AI models and a March 2023 security incident over payment-related information  —  The agency's demand for OpenAI's documents about AI risks mark the company's greatest U.S. regulatory threat to date
Sara Fischer / Axios:
The AP and OpenAI sign a two-year deal; the AP gets access to OpenAI's tech in return for licensing some of its text archive dating back to 1985 for AI training  —  The Associated Press on Thursday said it reached a two-year deal with OpenAI, the parent company to ChatGPT, to share access to select news content and technology.
Tom Hals / Reuters:
A US judge says Ripple's XRP sales to sophisticated investors violated securities law but that sales on exchanges were not offers of securities; XRP jumps 50%+  —  U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres said Ripple Labs Inc's institutional sales of its XRP digital token violated federal law …
The Verge:
The FTC files to appeal a US court ruling that cleared the way for Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard; the existing TRO expires at 11:59pm PT on July 14  —  The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says it is appealing a recent US federal court order that cleared the way for Microsoft to purchase Activision Blizzard.
Tim Hardwick / MacRumors:
Apple launches Tap to Pay on iPhone in the UK, starting with Revolut and Tyl by NatWest as the first platforms, following the US, Australia, and Taiwan  —  Apple has announced the launch of Tap to Pay on iPhone in the United Kingdom, allowing independent sellers, small merchants …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Apple adds bilingual support to Siri, starting with Indic languages like Hindi and Telugu; Google Assistant got multilingual support in 2018 and Alexa in 2019  —  Apple released its first set of public beta versions of iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma on Wednesday.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple updates macOS Sonoma to bring iCloud Keychain passwords to non-Safari browsers for the first time, expanding on a Chrome extension  —  The macOS Sonoma update that is in testing allows Mac owners who opt to use Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or another browser to use Apple's Password Manager for filling passwords.
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
GitHub launches support for passkeys in public beta, letting users who opt in upgrade from security keys to passkeys, and use those in place of password and 2FA  —  GitHub announced today the introduction of passwordless authentication support in public beta, allowing users to upgrade from security keys to passkeys.
Financial Times:
Sources: Meta plans to release a commercial version of LLaMA imminently and will make the AI model more widely available and customizable by companies  —  Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Google are surging ahead in Silicon Valley development race  —  Meta is poised to release a commercial version …
Nikkei Asia:
Sony plans to spend ~$2.13B on gaming R&D for the FY ending March 2024, accounting for ~40% of its total R&D expenditure and surpassing electronics and chips  —  Japan electronics giant to ramp up live-game titles to catch up to Microsoft  —  Sony is aiming for 60% of game development costs …
Washington Post:
In June, the US State Department told Microsoft that its emails in Azure were hacked; attackers stole a Microsoft key and hacked ~25 organizations' emails  —  The State Department discovered the Microsoft vulnerability, which affected unclassified government systems, last month
New York Times:
Microsoft says Chinese hackers gained access to US government email accounts and had access to at least some accounts for a month before the breach was detected
Leah Nylen / Bloomberg:
At a congressional hearing, FTC's Lina Khan defends herself against attacks from Republicans over alleged ethics violation and aggressive antitrust enforcement  —  Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan fended off Republican attacks over her adherence to ethics laws and aggressive antitrust enforcement …
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Nothing Phone (2) review: neat light strips, useful always-on display, and four-year software support, but only splash resistant and not certified on Verizon  —  Form, function, and a good midrange phone. … The Nothing Phone 2 is better than the Phone 1 in a lot of small ways.
Bloomberg:
Adobe: US shoppers spent $12.7B during Amazon's Prime Day, up 6.1% YoY but below estimates of 9.5% growth; an increasing share of customers used BNPL services  —  US shoppers spent $12.7 billion online during Amazon.com Inc.'s 48-hour Prime Day, up 6.1% from a year ago but short of estimates for 9.5% growth, according to Adobe Inc.
Kyle Chayka / New Yorker:
A writer details using AI startup Writer's LLM to generate text in his writing style and says that most of the tool's “insights” felt hollow or approximated  —  A new wave of artificial-intelligence startups is trying to “scale language” by automating the work of writing.

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:20 PM ET, July 13, 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.

From Mediagazer

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Sources: Disney is laying off several hundred employees globally across multiple teams, including TV and film

Max Tani / Semafor:
Sources: in May 2024, Business Insider sent some staff a recommended reading list that included seemingly AI-generated books that did not appear to exist

Naman Ramachandran / Variety:
Marc Maron plans to end WTF With Marc Maron podcast in the fall; the groundbreaking podcast helped define the medium with 1,600+ episodes after its 2009 launch

More News

Earlier Picks

Aaron Holmes / The Information:
Cloud security startup Orca sues Israeli competitor Wiz in the US for allegedly illegally copying patented software that monitors data stored on cloud servers
Ash Parrish / The Verge:
Xbox tests reactive voice chat moderation, letting Xbox Insiders report 60-second audio clips of inappropriate voice messages for the Xbox safety team to review
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Meta says Roblox is coming to Meta's Quest 2, Quest Pro, and Quest 3, starting with an open beta on App Lab “in the coming weeks”, with cross-platform support
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
Elon Musk forms xAI, a startup he will lead to “understand the true nature of the universe”; the staff has worked at Google, Microsoft, Tesla, OpenAI, and more
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
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