Techmeme
September 7, 2023, 4:50 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: China plans to expand its ban on iPhones in sensitive departments to government agencies and state companies, an unprecedented blockade; AAPL drops 3%+  —  - Beijing begins by banning the devices from certain bodies  — It could deal blow to Apple and amplifies a self-reliance push
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Google plans to update Chrome in the coming weeks to incorporate the company's Material You design language, including refreshed icons and new color palettes  —  Chrome on the desktop is about to get a new look.  Google's widely used browser is getting an update based on its Material …
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Tom Phillips / Eurogamer.net:
Source: at Gamescom in August, Nintendo demoed the Switch 2 running a souped-up Breath of the Wild to developers; the console is expected to launch in 2024  —  Ahead of widely-expected launch next year.  —  News by Tom Phillips Editor-in-Chief  —  In Cologne last month …
Sam Kessler / CoinDesk:
Ex-FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Salame pleads guilty to federal campaign finance and money transmitting crimes and will forfeit $1.5B+ as part of the deal  —  Salame admitted to being a “straw donor” to secretly funnel millions of dollars to Republican political candidates while Bankman-Fried donated to Democrats.
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
Microsoft commits to defending customers of its AI Copilots from copyright infringement lawsuits, as long as they've “used the guardrails and content filters”  —  The software giant also will pay related fines and settlements, so long as customers follow its rules.
Alistair Charlton / Forbes:
BMW drops a controversial subscription that activates heated seats or other hardware already in its cars, limiting subscriptions to software-based functions  —  BMW has made a U-turn on a controversial subscription service that saw drivers pay a fee to activate the heated seats already fitted to their car.
CNBC:
Riot Blockchain reports earning $31.7M in energy credits from Texas' power grid to curtail its usage in August, dwarfing the ~$8.9M in bitcoin the company mined  —  - Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms raked in $31.7 million in energy credits from Texas power grid operator ERCOT in August.
Christopher Dring / GamesIndustry.biz:
The ESA announces organizer ReedPop will not be working on future E3 events and informs the Los Angeles Convention Center that 2024's E3 will not be held there  —  E3 2024 may still happen, but not at the Los Angeles Convention Center  —  News by Christopher Dring Head of Games B2B
Lane Brown / Vulture:
How Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer, an important metric in entertainment, became erratic and reductive as some PR firms hack its score by paying obscure “critics”  —  In 2018, a movie-publicity company called Bunker 15 took on a new project: Ophelia, a feminist retelling of Hamlet starring Daisy Ridley.
Sandali Handagama / CoinDesk:
An IMF and Financial Stability Board paper warns jurisdictions against blanket crypto bans, recommending targeted restrictions and sound monetary policy instead  —  The global standard-setters also warned stablecoins adopted by multiple jurisdictions “may transmit volatility more abruptly” than other crypto.
Dylan Smith / TucsonSentinel.com:
Molly Holzschlag, aka “mollydotcom”, a longtime advocate for a more open web and accessible, inclusive online design standards, died at 60 on September 5  —  Pioneer of online design & accessibility  —  Molly Holzschlag, whose pioneering work in online design standards led to her being dubbed …
Linda Hardesty / Fierce Wireless:
The Senate votes 55 to 43 to approve Anna Gomez as the fifth FCC commissioner, breaking the deadlock at the agency and giving the FCC a 3-2 Democratic majority  —  Today, the U.S. Senate finally approved a nominee to fill the vacant, fifth seat on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Joe Coscarelli / New York Times:
Ghostwriter, the anonymous creator who used AI to mimic Drake and The Weeknd, has met with record labels, Grammy organizers, and more, and releases a new song  —  The anonymous artist, who stirred conversation with the A.I. track “Heart on My Sleeve,” has been quietly consulting with executives, while also gunning for a Grammy.
Vishal Chawla / The Block:
Vitalik Buterin co-authors a paper on Privacy Pools, a blockchain protocol to verify the legality of user funds without revealing their full transaction history  —  - Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin co-authored a research paper on a privacy protocol named Privacy Pools.
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Google releases September 2023 updates for Android 11, 12, 12L, and 13 to fix a privilege escalation zero-day that “may be under limited, targeted exploitation”  —  The September 2023 Android security updates tackle 33 vulnerabilities, including a zero-day bug currently targeted in the wild.
Walter Isaacson / TIME:
An excerpt from the new Elon Musk biography details an argument with Larry Page in 2013 over AI's dangers, how he co-founded OpenAI and founded xAI, and more  —  At a conference in 2012, Elon Musk met Demis Hassabis, the video-game designer and artificial—intelligence researcher who had co-founded …
Forbes:
Imbue, formerly Generally Intelligent, which claims to have access to 10K Nvidia H100 GPUs to train its AI “agents”, raised a $200M Series B at a $1B valuation  —  The startup, one of very few woman-led AI unicorns, has a $1 billion valuation and access to 10,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs …

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
5 common accounting mistakes  —  This is a guest post by Yaali Bizappln Solutions.  A lot of businesses manage their customers and finances on separate platforms.  This disconnect often leads to missed invoices …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Mon. 11/25 - Return Of The Vita?
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:50 PM ET, September 7, 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

Zeke Faux / New York Magazine:
Leo Schwartz / Fortune:
Natasha Singer / New York Times:
Alex York / Forbes:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg: