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Techmeme
July 19, 2023, 11:10 AM

Top News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft and Activision Blizzard agree to extend their merger agreement to October 18, pending the outcome of negotiations with UK regulators  —  Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have agreed to extend their merger agreement pending the outcome of negotiations with UK regulators.
Or Goren / Cord Busters:
Netflix removes its $10 Basic tier, its most affordable ad-free tier, in the US and UK for new and rejoining members  —  This post may contain affiliate links*  —  Breaking: In a major shakeup of its pricing model, Netflix, the global streaming giant, has abandoned its low-cost ‘Basic’ tier …
Todd Haselton / CNBC:
Microsoft's stock closed up 4% at $359.49 on July 18, an all-time high, after announcing pricing for Microsoft 365 Copilot service; MSFT is up ~50% in 2023  —  - Microsoft shares rallied to an all-time high after the company announced pricing for its new Microsoft 365 artificial intelligence subscription service.
Will Shanklin / Engadget:
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Rapid7: threat actors have exploited zero-day RCE flaws in Adobe ColdFusion and Citrix NetScaler; Citrix patched its flaw but Adobe issued an incomplete fix  —  The exploited code-execution flaws are the kind coveted by ransomware and nation-state hackers.  —  Organizations big and small …
Ryan Smith / AnandTech:
Samsung says it has completed the development of its first generation GDDR7 DRAM, slated for 2024, with a 32Gbps data transfer rate, up ~33% from GDDR6's 24Gbps  —  Samsung has announced this evening that they have completed development on their first generation of GDDR7 memory.
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
Sources: Google is internally piloting an opt-in program where some employees will be restricted to internet-free PCs to reduce the risk of cyberattacks  —  - Google is enlisting employees for a pilot program to work without internet access.  — The search giant, which is undergoing …
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Hands-on with Framework Laptop 16, a modular gaming laptop that lets you replace and upgrade the whole GPU, for pre-order starting at $1,399 for the DIY edition  —  Four layers of modular components — including a swappable discrete GPU — right at your fingertips.
Meta:
Meta releases Llama 2, its open-source LLM with double the context length, for free for research and commercial use, and expands its Microsoft partnership  —  Recent breakthroughs in AI, and generative AI in particular, have captured the public's imagination and demonstrated what those developing …
More: The Official Microsoft Blog, Meta, Meta, Windows Central, BBC, ZDNet, Forbes, InfoWorld, Insider, Simon Willison's Weblog, Interconnects, The Verge, Hugging Face, Bitcoinist.com, Neowin, Amazon Web Services, The Guardian, AI News, ITPro, Petri IT Knowledgebase, Axios, Pricebaba.com Daily, Techlusive, gHacks Technology News, Fortune, Livemint, Sammy Fans, Silicon Republic, Phandroid, Cointelegraph, Reuters, The Register, Social Media Today, EnterpriseAI, Ars Technica, Axios, WRAL TechWire, Windows Report, Decrypt, Tech in Asia, Insider, Supervised, VentureBeat, New York Times, Livemint, Tech Startups, Engadget, MIT Technology Review, Wall Street Journal, Cointelegraph, and SiliconANGLE
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Over 8,500 authors sign an Authors Guild letter asking AI leaders to get consent and fairly compensate writers when using copyrighted material for generative AI  —  If you ask GPT-4 to do a passage in the style of Carmen Machado or Margaret Atwood or Alexander Chee, it will do a fair job at it …
Axios:
Sources: Vox Media plans to stop using Chorus, its CMS that the company licensed to external publishers from 2018 to 2022, and move its websites to WordPress  —  Vox Media, the parent company to websites such as New York Magazine, Eater and SB Nation, will no longer use Chorus …
Gene Park / Washington Post:
A look at “non-playable character” TikTok creators, like Pinkydoll, who livestream themselves doing robotic and repetitive actions for digital tips  —  On TikTok, a woman named Pinkydoll with a thousand-yard stare faces you, undulating just enough to let you know she's alive.
Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Review of $350 Beats Studio Pro headphones: nice transparency mode, lossless USB-C audio, native iOS and Android support, but subpar build quality for the price  —  They look like a lazy refresh from the outside, but the noise-canceling Studio Pros include a ton of new features like transparency mode and lossless USB-C audio.
Matthew Humphries / PCMag:
Intel grants Asus a non-exclusive license to its NUC designs; Asus will make and sell 10th to 13th gen NUC systems and can develop new system designs  —  The agreement covers existing NUCs and allows Asus to design new models. … , Asus is granted a non-exclusive license to Intel's NUC designs …
Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft will make 31 security logs available for free to its lower-cost cloud service licensees from September, after criticism about China hack disclosures  —  Company says it will make security logs available to customers with lower-cost cloud services  —  Microsoft said it plans …
Jon Gertner / New York Times:
A look at the Wikipedia community's debates about AI, including AI's threats and potential benefits, knowledge creation, truthfulness, and legal concerns  —  Can the online encyclopedia help teach A.I. chatbots to get their facts right — without destroying itself in the process?

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More News

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The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Andy Maxwell / TorrentFreak:
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Natasha Mascarenhas / The Information:
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