Techmeme
August 21, 2023, 4:50 PM

Top News

Ronan Farrow / New Yorker:
Interviews with 30+ of Elon Musk's colleagues and dozens of others detail his growing power, childhood, career, politics, role in Russia's Ukraine war, and more  —  How the U.S. government came to rely on the tech billionaire—and is now struggling to rein him in.
Craig Trudell / Bloomberg:
Report: before tweeting a pro-Russia Ukraine peace plan, Elon Musk said he had Kremlin consultations; he also told the US of a Putin call but publicly denied it  —  - Magazine reports on October conversation with top official  — The SpaceX CEO later denied speaking with Russian president
More: Insider and UPROXX
Mastodon: @TimKarr@mastodon.socialBluesky: @andimann.bsky.socialX: @mehdirhasan and @businessForums: r/politics
Miles Kruppa / Wall Street Journal:
YouTube and Universal Music Group partner to explore new products, using music in AI tools, and paying artists whose work is used to make AI-generated content  —  YouTube has recruited Frank Sinatra's estate and other Universal Music Group UMG .39%increase; green up pointing triangle acts …
Dana Hull / Bloomberg:
Maine's attorney general says Tesla's May 2023 data breach impacted 75,735 people, included employee-related records, and was a result of “insider wrongdoing”  —  - Data breach included employee-related records, Maine AG says  — Tesla says two former employees shared info with Handelsblatt
Shaurya Malwa / CoinDesk:
Friend.tech, which lets people use crypto to buy “shares” of X accounts, hits 100K users, per a database of wallet addresses that has raised privacy concerns  —  The growth correlates with the more than $25 million in revenue generated by the platform since its Aug. 10 launch.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apple adds Subscription Analytics to Podcasts, adds more hosts to Delegated Delivery, and integrates its podcast analytics into Linkfire's marketing platform  —  Apple announced today several new updates to its podcast creator tools, including, most notably, the addition …
Harry McCracken / Fast Company:
Interviews with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, CTO Kevin Scott, and other Microsoft executives on AI, a decade of AI investments, Office Copilots, Bing, and more  —  “In general, I get excited by new things,” says the CEO.  The story of a transformative moment that's been a decade in the making.
Vishal Chawla / The Block:
NFT platform Recur plans to shut down by November 16, 2023, after raising a $50M Series A in September 2021, and migrate the metadata of minted NFTs to the IPFS  —  - NFT platform Recur has decided to close less than two years after raising $50 million in a Series A funding round.
AI Snake Oil:
An August 17 paper on ChatGPT's political biases seems to have many flaws, like poor prompts and testing an older model, but the broader topic merits research  —  A new paper making this claim has many flaws.  But the question merits research.  —  Previous research has shown …
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
Triller's S-1 filing claims the short-form video app has had 550M signups, but Apptopia estimates it has been downloaded just 73.2M times since its 2015 launch  —  TikTok competitor Triller is preparing to go public, but estimates from Apptopia call its self-reported user numbers into question.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
UiPath:
Introducing the UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation  —  UiPath's new platform empowers enterprises to experience the full power of AI to transform industries
Zoho:
Portable badge printing with SUNMI mobile terminals, now on Zoho Backstage  —  We're excited to roll out our latest integration: the Zoho Backstage Organizer app now supports SUNMI smart mobile terminals (Android only).
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
Is AI Eating Into Google Search?
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Great Chat:
Great managers, and what makes them great
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
Reuters is ready to stand up for the press -- and embrace AI
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Lenny's Podcast:
How have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don't want? | Jerry Colonna (CEO of Reboot, executive coach, former VC)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Ian Rogers tells me I need a crypto wallet
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View:
What does Spain's blackout mean for the future of clean energy?
Azeem Azhar explores how AI and exponential technologies are shaping our future.
Subscribe to Azeem Azhar's Exponential View.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:50 PM ET, August 21, 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.

More News

Earlier Picks

New York Times:
Wall Street Journal:
Dayana Mustak / Bloomberg: