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Techmeme
August 2, 2023, 12:30 PM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
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Top News

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
X now lets X Blue subscribers hide their checkmarks, but warns that “the checkmark may still appear in some places” and “some features may not be available”  —  Social media company X, formerly Twitter, now lets paid users hide their verification checkmarks.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
X renames TweetDeck to XPro; the tweetdeck.twitter.com URL and much of the copy remain unchanged, including a “tool for people who live on Twitter” description
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Amazon plans to roll out the biggest overhaul to its grocery business since buying Whole Foods in the coming weeks, including one cart for supermarket offerings  —  It's revamping stores, unifying online shopping carts and offering fresh-food delivery to customers who aren't Prime subscribers.
Wall Street Journal:
Internal Binance data and current and former employees say Chinese users traded ~$90B in crypto assets on the exchange in May 2023, despite China's crypto ban  —  Retaining its Chinese footprint will be crucial for Binance as it faces a global regulatory crackdown
Rest of World:
Interviews with people at Worldcoin booths in Nairobi, Bengaluru, and Hong Kong find many scanned their eyes to receive the sign-up bonuses, an “easy $50”  —  In Nairobi, Bengaluru, and Hong Kong, our reporters found lots of people were eager to take the deal.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft now lets Xbox owners stream gameplay from the console to Discord users, rolling out to all Xbox users in the coming months  —  Microsoft is improving its Xbox and Discord integration with a new streaming gameplay feature.  Xbox owners will soon be able to stream their gameplay …
Bloomberg:
Sources: SoftBank's Arm is targeting an IPO at a valuation of between $60B and $70B as soon as September 2023, a sign of bullish interest in AI chips  —  - Chip design firm may raise as much as $10 billion in debut  — Nvidia, Intel are in discussions to be anchor investors
Emilia David / The Verge:
Meta releases AudioCraft, a new open-source AI model that lets users create music and sounds via prompts, consisting of MusicGen, AudioGen, and EnCodec models  —  It consists of three AI models, all tackling different areas of sound generation.  MusicGen takes text inputs to generate music.
Jen Christensen / CNN:
An early-stage study of 80,000 women in Sweden who underwent a mammogram in 2021 and 2022 finds AI-supported screening increased breast cancer detection by 20%  —  Artificial intelligence found more breast cancers than doctors with years of training and experience and cut doctors' mammogram …
Bloomberg:
China releases draft rules to limit smartphone use by minors, including two hour limits for those age 16 to 18, although enforcement remains unclear  —  - Aims to prevent kids from spending too much time on phones  — Beijing has pursued campaigns to alleviate burden on minors
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Hopin, the struggling virtual events startup valued at nearly $7.7B in June 2021, sells its Events and Session units to RingCentral for an undisclosed sum  —  Hopin, the virtual events startup that saw its star (and valuation) rise quickly during the Covid-19 pandemic, is most definitely coming down to earth.
Aidan Ryan / The Information:
Sources: Changpeng Zhao tried to liquidate Binance.US earlier this year, before pivoting to attempting to sell the company, holding talks with Gemini and others  —  Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao attempted to shut down the crypto exchange's U.S. offshoot earlier this year …
Chavi Mehta / Reuters:
Meta begins the process to end news access on Facebook and Instagram in Canada, in response to a law forcing some companies to negotiate deals to pay publishers  —  Meta Platforms (META.O) said on Tuesday it has begun the process to end access to news on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada.
Charlie Fink / Forbes:
Inworld, which uses AI to help developers create game characters, raised $30M led by Lightspeed at a $500M+ valuation, following a $50M Series A in August 2022  —  Inworld, which makes AI-driven non-player characters (NPCs) for games and other applications has raised approximately $30 in new funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Slack launches Slack Sales Elevate, offering deeper integration with Salesforce's Sales Cloud for $60 per month on top of existing Slack and Salesforce fees  —  - More Slack editions coming for customer service, marketing  — New Slack CEO Lidiane Jones focuses on product updates

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:30 PM ET, August 2, 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

Theodore Schleifer / New York Times:
A look at some of the projects looking to raise money from Democratic megadonors as party strategists try to “find the next Joe Rogan”

Matt Stevens / New York Times:
LA mayor Karen Bass issues an executive directive to streamline city processes, lower filming costs, and ease shoots at well-known city-owned locations

Dan Kennedy / Media Nation:
The Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a supplement featuring an AI-generated guide to summer books that do not exist

More News

Alex Pasternack / Fast Company:
An interview with Google Jigsaw engineer Lucy Vasserman on how OpenAI, Anthropic, and others use Jigsaw's AI-based Perspective API to flag LLMs' toxic speech
More: Platformer.  Twitter: @pasternack, @pasternack, @dburghart, @max_uf, and @fastcompany.  Forums: Slashdot
Helene Braun / CoinDesk:
GameStop plans to shut down its iOS and Chrome crypto wallet extensions on November 1 due to “regulatory uncertainty”, after rolling out the service in May 2022
Chethan Rao / Android Police:
YouTube asks a small number of viewers to share their feedback on a test that generates AI-based “quick overview” summaries on some English-language videos
Clive Cookson / Financial Times:
University of Glasgow spinout Chemify, which uses a computing process to design new molecules with AI before making them in an automated lab, raised $43M
Steven Church / Bloomberg:
A Voyager Digital lawyer says the crypto lender's user data may have been stolen when the company started letting customers recover their funds in June 2023

Earlier Picks

Reuters:
Match Group reports Q2 revenue up 4% YoY to $830M, vs. $811M est., paying users down 5% YoY to 15.6M, and forecasts Q3 revenue above estimates
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
AMD reports Q2 revenue down 18% YoY to $5.36B, net income down 94% YoY to $27M, Client revenue down 54% YoY to $998M, and Data Center revenue down 11% to $1.3B
Eari Nakano / Bloomberg:
Pinterest reports Q2 revenue up 6% YoY to $708M, vs. $699M est., MAUs up 8% YoY to 465M, and expects “Q3 revenue to grow in the high single digit range” YoY
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
How illicit data brokers on Telegram, WeChat, WhatsApp, and Facebook peddle internal Amazon market data and services like attacking rivals' product listings
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
Halcyon: Cloudzy, a Wyoming-registered web hosting company likely operating out of Tehran, is acting as a command-and-control provider for state-backed hackers
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
In a challenge to TikTok, YouTube releases new Shorts creation tools for remixing, adding effects, going live, as well as an interactive Q&A sticker, and more
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