Techmeme
August 24, 2023, 4:35 PM

Top News

Emilia David / The Verge:
Meta debuts Code Llama, which can generate code and debug human-written work, under the same community license as Llama 2, free for research and commercial use  —  Meta has released a tool called Code Llama, built on top of its Llama 2 large language model, to generate new code and debug human-written work, the company said.
Brendan Case / Bloomberg:
Walmart partners with Alphabet's Wing to test drone deliveries of up to six miles at two stores in the Dallas area, dropping off food and household essentials  —  - Project boosts aerial range capabilities for the retailer  — Service will be offered at two stores in the Dallas area
Suzanne Kapner / Wall Street Journal:
Shein acquires ~33% of Forever 21 parent company Sparc and Sparc takes a Shein minority stake, letting Shein sell Forever 21 items and operate inside its stores  —  Online fashion giant invests in company that operates retailer, paving way to sell its products  —  Shein and Forever 21 may soon be fast-fashion friends.
VideoCardz.com:
MSI shares an unlisted video confirming Intel's upcoming 14th Gen CPUs will see no major core count upgrades and will be 3% faster on average than 13th Gen CPUs  —  MSI unimpressed with 14th Gen Core series  —  MSI made a mistake of sharing an unlisted video which has now leaked out.
Irregular Ideas:
We are at the tail end of the first wave of LLM-based AI, which outperforms the average human in some tasks but is not good enough and is expensive to train  —  On a recent cross-country trip—I (Paul) drove from California to Illinois and back again.  On the drive, I saw a sign I had never seen before …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Meta rolls out its Threads web app to all users, featuring an app bar at the top with the same five tabs as in the mobile app; tapping Home refreshes the Feed  —  Following Tuesday's announcement, Meta is widely rolling out the Threads web app, and it offers a pretty straightforward translation of the mobile experience.
David Gewirtz / ZDNet:
Google announces new security features for Workspace, including zero-trust, data loss prevention, and digital sovereignty controls, rolling out in 2023 and 2024  —  Google Workspace, your most secure choice in productivity suites, will be getting even more secure.
Kris Holt / Engadget:
Epic Games debuts the Epic First Run program, offering developers 100% of net revenue for six months if they launch PC games exclusively on the Epic Games Store  —  Games and apps in the Epic First Run program will also benefit from extra exposure on the storefront.
Erin Woo / The Information:
Sources: TikTok plans to bar links to e-commerce sites like Amazon, to force users to buy via TikTok Shop; a source says Shop will lose $500M+ in the US in 2023  —  The cost of TikTok's online shopping expansion in the U.S. is beginning to add up.  —  TikTok Shop, the app's nascent shopping service …
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
To comply with the EU's DSA, Google plans to expand its Ads Transparency Center and offer more info on EU targeted ads, give researchers more access, and more  —  Google will provide more information on targeted advertisements and give researchers more access to data on how its products work …
Tom Phillips / Eurogamer.net:
Q&A with Phil Spencer on Game Pass, Microsoft's mobile focus, streaming story-based games like Starfield on mobile, Xbox generations, console prices, and more  —  Phil Spencer on new hardware, price drops, mid-gen refreshes - and why the company won't ditch Series S.  —  Interview by Tom Phillips Editor-in-Chief
Scott Moritz / Bloomberg:
Filing: T-Mobile plans to cut 7% of its global staff, or ~5,000 jobs, mostly in corporate and tech; AT&T has cut 74,130 jobs, or 32% of its staff, since 2021  —  T-Mobile USA Inc. is cutting 7% of its staff, part of an effort to rein in costs as the company spends heavily to attract …
Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Apple voices its support for California's Right to Repair Act, which passed a Senate vote 38-0 in May 2023 and now awaits approval before a full assembly vote  —  In a surprise move, Apple this week penned a letter to California state senator Susan Talamantes Eggman, voicing support for SB 244 …
Dade Hayes / Deadline:
WBD plans to launch CNN Max, a 24/7 stream pulled from CNN's US and international feeds alongside some original content, in “open beta” on September 27 on Max  —  - Netflix Added 2.6M U.S. Subscribers In July, Continuing Advertising Momentum Amid Password-Sharing Crackdown, Study Finds
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Hugging Face confirms raising a $235M Series D from Salesforce, Google, Amazon, Nvidia, Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and others, bringing its total funding to $395.2M  —  As first reported by The Information, then seemingly verified by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff on X (formerly known as Twitter) …

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