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Techmeme
August 2, 2023, 8:05 PM
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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.
Elon Musk / @elonmusk:
Elon Musk says X will amend its creator payouts policy to take no cut until a payout exceeds $100K, and plans to talk to Tim Cook about lower App Store fees  —  Super Important to Support Creators! If you can afford it, please subscribe to as many creators on this platform as you find interesting. People from every corner of the world post incredible content on 𝕏, but often live in tough circumstances, where even a few hundred...
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
Reuters:
Kenya's interior ministry says it suspended the local activities of Worldcoin while government agencies assess potential risks to public safety  —  - Worldcoin says it has measures safeguarding privacy  — Kenyan authorities say will investigate Worldcoin's authenticity
Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
Sources: US DOJ officials are weighing fraud charges against Binance but worry that an indictment could cause a run on the exchange like the one that befell FTX  —  U.S. Department of Justice officials are considering fraud charges against crypto exchange Binance, but are concerned about the cost …
Wall Street Journal:
Internal Binance data and current and former employees: China-based users traded $90B+ in crypto assets on the exchange in May 2023, despite China's crypto ban
David Pierce / The Verge:
Google updates its generative AI-based Search Generative Experience with more multimedia, faster responses, and additional context for links in its summary box  —  Google's AI-powered Search Generative Experience is getting a big new feature: images and video.
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple says Apple Card's savings account, which has had a 4.15% interest rate since its April 2023 launch with partner Goldman Sachs, has topped $10B in deposits  —  Apple today announced that its high-interest savings account for Apple Card has topped over $10 billion in deposits.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft lets Xbox Insiders stream gameplay from their console to Discord users, available to all Xbox Series X, Series S, and One owners in the coming months  —  Microsoft is improving its Xbox and Discord integration with a new streaming gameplay feature.
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Amazon plans to roll out its biggest grocery business overhaul since acquiring Whole Foods, in the coming weeks, including merging its various supermarket carts  —  It's revamping stores, unifying online shopping carts and offering fresh-food delivery to customers who aren't Prime subscribers.
Jacob Bogage / Washington Post:
The IRS says that, by 2025, taxpayers will be able to file every major tax form online, and all paper returns will be digitized  —  Major improvements to online tools could speed up refunds by four weeks for American who currently mail documents to the tax agency, officials said
Emilia David / The Verge:
Meta releases AudioCraft, an open-source AI tool that lets users create music and sounds via text 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.
Joseph Menn / Washington Post:
Hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow plans to detail Veilid, a framework to encrypt social media and apps, at Def Con on August 11, its biggest launch in 10+ years  —  Cult of the Dead Cow is a hacker collective whose members at one time included Texas politician Beto O'Rourke
Amy Lewin / Sifted:
Hopin, the struggling virtual events startup valued at $7.75B in August 2021, sells its Events and Session units to RingCentral; CEO Johnny Boufarhat steps down  —  UPDATED: The startup, which was once the fastest-growing in Europe, has also sold its flagship product
Jen Christensen / CNN:
An early-stage study of 80K+ women in Sweden who underwent a mammogram between April 2021 and July 2022 finds AI-supported screening detected 20% more cancers  —  Artificial intelligence found more breast cancers than doctors with years of training and experience and cut doctors' mammogram …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Roblox CEO David Baszucki says Roblox's open beta on Meta's Quest headsets, launched on July 27, has already been downloaded “well over” 1M times  —  Roblox just launched in open beta on Meta's Quest VR headsets last week, and it's already been downloaded “well over” 1 million times, according to Roblox CEO David Baszucki.

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:05 PM ET, August 2, 2023.

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From Mediagazer

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

Brooks Barnes / New York Times:
Disney's live-action Lilo & Stitch grossed $610M globally in just 10 days, and could reach $950M; the film cost $100M and may make $300M+ in box office profit

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

More News

Reuters:
PayPal reports Q2 revenue up 7% YoY to $7.3B, total payment volume up 11% YoY to $376.5B, and a 21.4% operating margin, below its 22% forecast; PYPL drops 7%+
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Qualcomm reports Q3 revenue down 23% YoY to $8.45B, vs. $8.5B est., handset chip revenue down 25% YoY to $5.26B, and net income down 52% YoY to $1.8B
Reuters:
Senegal blocks TikTok amid protests over dissolving the main opposition party and detaining its leader, after restricting access to internet services on July 31
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

Earlier Picks

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
Bloomberg:
China releases draft rules to limit minors' smartphone use, including two-hour limits for teens aged 16 to 18; platforms would be responsible for enforcement
Bloomberg:
Sources: SoftBank's Arm is targeting an IPO at a valuation of between $60B and $70B as soon as September 2023, looking to raise as much as $10B in its debut
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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