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August 31, 2023, 8:00 PM
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Top News

Walter Isaacson / Wall Street Journal:
An excerpt from Walter Isaacson's new Elon Musk biography details Musk's decision to buy Twitter and how his moods fluctuated wildly before the official closing  —  In an exclusive excerpt from his new biography ‘Elon Musk,’ Walter Isaacson offers a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most surprising …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Meta begins testing keyword search on Threads in Australia and New Zealand, and plans a rollout to more English-speaking countries before adding more languages  —  Threads launched one of the most anticipated features, a web version of the platform, last week.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Meta is testing a “For you on Threads” carousel in Instagram, with a button to open the Threads app, after adding a “Send to Instagram DM” button in Threads
Charlotte Hughes-Morgan / Bloomberg:
Elon Musk says X users will be able to make video and audio calls without sharing a phone number, as X “is the effective global address book”, but gives no date  —  Users of X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, will be able to make video and audio calls through …
Aisha Counts / Bloomberg:
X updates its privacy policy to let the company collect “biometric information for safety, security, and identification purposes”, plus jobs and education data  —  - In policy shift, X will use the data for safety, security  — Employment, education history will be used to recommend jobs
Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg:
Microsoft plans to unbundle Teams from Microsoft 365 and Office 365 in Europe on October 1, discounting the suites by €24/year and selling Teams for €60/year  —  - Company offers to unbundle Teams from other business software  — EU investigating if Microsoft's bundling broke antitrust law
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
University of Zürich and Intel researchers reveal Swift, an autonomous drone trained via deep reinforcement learning to beat human champions in FPV drone racing  —  University creates the first autonomous system capable of beating humans at drone racing.
New York Times:
A look at Starfield, a game by Microsoft's Bethesda with 1,000 explorable planets, set for September 6 after a 10-month delay, as Microsoft needs an Xbox hit  —  The stakes are high for Bethesda's newest role-playing game.  Microsoft needs an Xbox hit, and players are hungry for an expansive and satisfying space adventure.
Camomile Shumba / CoinDesk:
Swift and Web3 services startup Chainlink send tokenized value across private and public blockchains using Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol  —  The interbank messaging system Swift announced in June it was collaborating with Chainlink and dozens of financial institutions to test connecting blockchains.
Jamie Crawley / CoinDesk:
Binance plans to “gradually” end support for its BUSD stablecoin by February 2024, as “Paxos halted minting of new BUSD” after an NYDFS order in February 2023  —  The move follows Paxos' decision to halt minting of new BUSD.  —  Cryptocurrency exchange Binance said it will …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
YouTube Music redesigns its Now Playing screen on Android and iOS with larger cover art and a comments section, after launching real-time lyrics last week  —  After pulling a variant at the start of this year, YouTube Music is rolling out the latest redesign of Now Playing on Android and iOS, adding a comments section.
Ashley Belanger / Ars Technica:
A US District judge grants a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking the enforcement of a Texas law that requires age verification to access porn sites  —  Texas was supposed to start enforcing the law tomorrow.  —  The day before a Texas antiporn law that requires age verification …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Meta releases FACET, an AI benchmarking tool for evaluating the “fairness” of AI models that classify and detect things in photos and videos, including people  —  Continuing on its open source tear, Meta today released a new AI benchmark, FACET, designed to evaluate the “fairness” …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Bumble updates its community guidelines to crack down on bots, spam, ghosting, and doxxing, and says the company blocked 8.2M+ accounts in 2023, mostly using AI  —  Dating app company Bumble has released its updated community guidelines with an aim to crack down on bots, spam, ghosting, and doxing.
More: Mashable
Morgan Park / PC Gamer:
Activision partners with Modulate to test ToxMod, an AI-based voice moderation tool, across Modern Warfare 2, Warzone 2, and other games, in North America  —  There's a new AI-powered sheriff in town, and its name is ToxMod.  —  Call of Duty is joining the growing number …
James Hunt / The Block:
A US judge dismisses a lawsuit against Uniswap, founder Hayden Adams, a16z, and others over scam token sales, as software cannot be held liable for user losses  —  - Uniswap founder Hayden Adams hailed the court's comments as “based” after a class action lawsuit alleging liability for scam token sales was thrown out.
Wired:
A monthslong investigation exposes the secrets of Russian ransomware gang Trickbot, which thrives despite global disruption efforts, and a key member's identity  —  A WIRED investigation into a cache of documents posted by an unknown figure lays bare the Trickbot ransomware gang's secrets, including the identity of a central member.
Christine Hall / TechCrunch:
Otto, formerly TeleVet, which makes software for veterinary clinics, raised a $43M Series B led by Mercury Fund, which led its $5M Series A in December 2022  —  Scheduling medical appointments is challenging enough for humans, so Otto, formerly TeleVet, wants to make it easy to, at the very least, care for our pets.
More: Otto and FinSMEs
Joseph Cox / 404 Media:
NYC's subway service disables a feature in its OMNY contactless system after a flaw let anyone see a rider's seven-day trip history using their credit card info  —  In the mid-afternoon one Saturday earlier this month, the target got on the New York subway.  I knew what station they entered the subway at and at what specific time.
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Dell reports Q2 revenue down 13% YoY to $22.9B, vs. $20.8B est., Client Solutions down 16% to $12.9B, Infrastructure Solutions down 11% to $8.5B; DELL jumps 7%+  —  - Server partnership on AI with chipmaker Nvidia fuels demand  — PC sales to consumers and businesses were better than expected

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:00 PM ET, August 31, 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

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
The White House says “no final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made” and it is exploring options for “Making Hollywood Great Again”

Scott Nover / Washington Post:
The New York Times wins four Pulitzers, the most of any news organization in 2025; The Washington Post wins two, and ProPublica wins the public service prize

Max Tani / Semafor:
Sources: Paramount delayed and altered a Daily Show-branded initiative to encourage people to run for local office, as it placates the Trump administration

More News

Stephen Nellis / Reuters:
The US Department of Commerce says the government “has not blocked chip sales to the Middle East”, after an Nvidia filing revealed new US export license rules

Earlier Picks

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge:
Philips Hue launches Secure, a DIY security system with E2EE, starting at $200 for a wired indoor/outdoor camera, and plans to add Matter support in September
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
The FCC rejects ISPs' requests to eliminate an upcoming requirement that they list all their monthly fees, saying “every consumer needs transparent information”
Emilia David / The Verge:
The US Copyright Office seeks public input on AI and copyright issues, including using copyrighted works for AI training; written comments are due on October 18
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:
Meta now lets Facebook users submit requests to access, alter, or delete some of their third-party information that the company uses for generative AI training
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Sources: Apple plans to eliminate its social media support adviser roles across X, YouTube, and the Apple Support Community website starting on October 1, 2023
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google launches its Search Generative Experience in India and Japan via a Search Labs opt-in, after the US debut of the AI search feature in preview in May 2023
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Sony plans to raise PlayStation Plus annual subscription prices on September 6: Essential from $60 to $80, Extra from $100 to $135, Premium from $120 to $160
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