Techmeme
July 13, 2023, 11:55 AM

Top News

Bloomberg:
The SEC, CFTC, and FTC sue ex-Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky and the company over alleged fraud and more; Mashinsky was arrested and charged with six counts  —  Alex Mashinsky, the former chief executive officer of Celsius Network Ltd., was accused by prosecutors of orchestrating a yearslong scheme …
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 …
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.
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:
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
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 …
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.
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 …
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 …
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.
Toby Bochan / CoinDesk:
In a major policy shift, Google Play now lets developers incorporate tokenized digital assets, such as NFTs, into their Android apps and games  —  The company is opening up the ability for developers to let users buy, sell or earn digital assets in apps as long as they maintain transparency and adhere to other rules.
Kyle Chayka / New Yorker:
A writer details using AI startup Writer's LLM to generate text in his writing style and says most “insights” that the tool produced felt hollow or approximated  —  A new wave of artificial-intelligence startups is trying to “scale language” by automating the work of writing.
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  —  Rolling out today to Xbox Insiders, the new reporting feature will allow players to capture and submit 60-second audio clips …

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Earlier Picks

Aaron Holmes / The Information:
Davey Alba / Bloomberg:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
Richard MacManus / The New Stack:
Colin Lecher / The Markup: