Techmeme
September 6, 2023, 8:05 PM

Top News

Financial Times:
The UK concedes that Ofcom would only use the Online Safety Bill to force companies to scan encrypted messaging apps when it's “technically feasible” to do so  —  Ministers will not immediately enforce online safety bill powers to scan apps after WhatsApp threatened shutdown
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Microsoft says Chinese hackers who in June breached US government email accounts stole an MSA key from a crash dump after hacking a Microsoft engineer's account  —  Microsoft says Storm-0558 Chinese hackers stole a signing key used to breach government email accounts from a Windows crash dump …
Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg:
The EU designates Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft as DMA gatekeepers, and will assess if some Microsoft services and iMessage qualify  —  - Tech firms set to challenge EU in digital antitrust clampdown  — Apple's App Store, Google Search, Amazon marketplace on list
Wayne Ma / The Information:
Source: Apple's budget for training AI is now millions of dollars per day; its conversational AI team Foundational Models has ~16 people led by Ruoming Pang  —  Apple has been expanding its computing budget for building artificial intelligence to millions of dollars a day.
New York Times:
A look at US et al v. Google, the federal government's first monopoly trial of the modern internet era, set to last 10 weeks; top executives will likely testify  —  The 10-week trial, set to begin Tuesday, amps up efforts to rein in Big Tech by targeting the core search business that turned Google into a $1.7 trillion behemoth.
Nico Grant / New York Times:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Clubhouse updates its iOS and Android apps to include asynchronous voice-only group chats, in an attempt to be “more like a messaging app”  —  Clubhouse is back, kinda.  The app that popularized social audio rooms is reinventing itself “to be more like a messaging app” …
Wall Street Journal:
Flexport CEO Dave Clark resigns after one year at the company, which he joined from Amazon; sources: Clark is considering a potential run for governor of Texas  —  The former Amazon senior executive is considering a potential run for governor of Texas, according to people familiar with the matter
Thomas Germain / Gizmodo:
Mozilla finds that all 25 major car brands the company examined fail to adhere to the most basic privacy and security standards in new internet-connected models  —  Bad news: your car is a spy.  Every major car brand's new internet-connected models flunked privacy and security tests conducted by Mozilla.
Davey Alba / Bloomberg:
Google plans a November policy update requiring election advertisers to prominently disclose when their ads contain generative AI-based images, video, or audio  —  Audio, images and video on political advertising will need to be labeled … The policy update, which applies starting mid-November …
Yoko Kubota / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: China widens its ban on using iPhones and other foreign-branded devices for work, or bringing them to the office, to all central government agencies  —  The directive is the latest step in Beijing's campaign to cut reliance on foreign technology and could hurt Apple's business in the country.
Thomas Claburn / The Register:
Google started rolling out Chrome's Enhanced Ad Privacy, part of its Topics API, via a popup; some say the Got It button is misleading for leaving tracking on  —  YMMV, based on where you are  —  Google has been gradually rolling out Chrome's “Enhanced Ad Privacy.”
Brad Stone / Bloomberg:
California Gov. Newsom signs an EO on AI risks, instructing state agencies to examine AI threats and authorizing state employees to experiment with AI tools  —  Gavin Newsom touted Silicon Valley's AI dominance, but warns of a “Pandora's box.”  —  The state of California has entered …
Reuters:
Filing: Google tentatively settles a US Play Store class action antitrust lawsuit brought by 30+ states and representing 21M+ customers; the court must approve  —  Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google on Tuesday tentatively settled a class action suit alleging that its U.S. Play Store …
Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT and 7800 XT review: great for 1440p gaming and less power hungry but the 7800 XT barely outperforms the 6800 XT and older GPUs may suffice  —  It's hard to get excited about yesterday's performance at yesterday's prices.  —  Nearly a year ago, Nvidia kicked off this GPU generation with its GeForce RTX 4090.
Horace Dediu / Asymco:
An analysis of the EU's and other data on iOS and Android usage finds that Apple's App Store generates $10.40 monthly revenue per user vs. $1.40 for Google Play  —  As I remember it, at least 10 years ago, I began to hear anecdotes from developers who built apps for both iOS and Android about their economics.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Roku plans to lay off 300+, or 10% of its staff, close offices, and take an up to $65M impairment charge in Q3 2023 for cutting some content; ROKU jumps 5%+  —  Roku will cut more than 300 staffers — laying off 10% of its workforce — as the streaming-platform company continues its battle to control costs.

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Earlier Picks

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