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September 20, 2023, 5:30 PM
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The Verge:
Everything Amazon announced at its product event: Alexa Emergency Assist for $6/month, the Alexa Eye Gaze accessibility feature, the $50 Echo Pop Kids, and more  —  Amazon is kicking off its annual fall product announcements at its HQ2 campus in Arlington, Virginia.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Amazon refreshes its Alexa-powered Echo Frames glasses: enhanced speech processing, better noise isolation, 15% thinner, and a six-hour battery life for $270  —  Amazon today unveiled a new generation of Echo Frames, its Alexa-powered glasses, with enhanced speech processing, better noise isolation and a $269.99 price tag.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Amazon unveils new generative AI features aimed at making Alexa more conversational and personalized, available as a free preview on all Echo devices in the US  —  During a press event this morning at its HQ2 headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, Amazon announced that it'll soon use …
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge:
Amazon unveils the $180 Echo Hub, a wall-mountable smart home controller with an 8" touchscreen, and Map View, an Alexa app interface for the user's floor plan  —  Designed specifically as a smart home controller, the Echo Hub is a slimline version of an Echo Show 8 or a shrunken version of a Show 15.
Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Amazon refreshes its $150 Echo Show 8 with a new design, a centered camera, a smart home hub, Spatial Audio, and a home screen that changes based on proximity  —  Amazon kicked off today's Fall Devices Event with an update to its Echo Show 8.  The small smart screen features smart home hub functionality and improved audio quality.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Amazon announces the $50 Fire TV Stick 4K, the $60 Fire TV Stick 4K Max, the $120 24-inch Fire TV Soundbar, and generative AI updates for Fire TV voice search
Ina Fried / Axios:
OpenAI teases DALL-E 3, which can be summoned and controlled using ChatGPT, and plans to make the tool available to ChatGPT+ and enterprise customers in October  —  OpenAI is offering an early look at DALL-E 3, the next version of its image generation tool.
CNBC:
Sources: as equities soared in 2020, Apple and Goldman were working on an iPhone stock trading feature but shelved the project when markets turned south in 2022  —  - Apple was exploring the launch of an iPhone feature that would let users buy and sell stocks, according to three sources familiar with the plans.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 review: Double Tap is great, but Precision Finding requires an iPhone 15, and the Siri and brightness improvements feel minor  —  Iterative updates aren't flashy, but these smartwatches are mainly for folks who don't have Apple Watches yet.
Ben Weiss / Fortune:
PayPal says select Venmo users can now purchase its stablecoin PYUSD, with a rollout to more users in the coming weeks, in addition to BTC, ETH, BCH, and LTC  —  PayPal announced on Wednesday that Venmo users will be able to buy PayPal's new stablecoin, PayPal USD, increasing the number …
BBC:
After Meta criticized the UK's potential E2EE rules, the UK says Meta “failed to provide assurances” over keeping its platforms “safe from sickening abusers”  —  Facebook's owner Meta has hit back at a new government campaign strongly critical of its plans to encrypt messages.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Meta expands its Meta Verified program to businesses on Facebook and Instagram in select markets, for $21.99/month/page for each or $34.99/month/page for both  —  Meta announced today that it is expanding Meta Verified to businesses after first launching it for creators in March.
Financial Times:
Meta launches in-chat payments for WhatsApp in India, letting businesses accept payments via credit cards, debit cards, WhatsApp Pay, and UPI at no extra charge
Qianer Liu / Financial Times:
Sources: the Kirin 9000S SoC has four CPUs that use Arm designs, the other four use Huawei-modified Arm designs, HiSilicon developed the GPU and NPU, and more  —  Facing US sanctions, Chinese company emulates Apple by using its own designs in chips for Mate 60 Pro
Dana Mattioli / Wall Street Journal:
In its Prime lawsuit, the FTC alleges three Amazon executives played key roles in enrolling customers unwittingly and making it hard to cancel subscriptions  —  Federal agency alleges Amazon executives were aware of enrolling customers unwittingly and erecting intentional hurdles to cancellation
Nikkei Asia:
On WeChat, China's Ministry of State Security says the US, since 2009, has continuously hacked Huawei's servers, stolen critical data, and installed backdoors  —  Beijing says Washington forces tech companies to install backdoors for spying  —  China has accused the U.S. of hacking Huawei's servers continuously since 2009.
WABetaInfo:
WhatsApp releases a beta for iOS via Apple's TestFlight with a companion mode for iPadOS, built using Mac Catalyst, after years of user requests for an iPad app  —  WhatsApp has just submitted a new update through the TestFlight beta Program, bringing the version up to 23.19.1.71.
Mariam Sunny / Reuters:
Neuralink is recruiting for the first human trial of its brain implant for paralysis patients, expected to take about six years, likely for fewer than 10 people  —  Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's brain-chip startup Neuralink said on Tuesday it has received approval from an independent review board …
Spencer Soper / Bloomberg:
Documents: Amazon scrapped a planned 2% fee on merchants that don't use its shipping services; disclosed in August, the fee was set to take effect on October 1  —  - Levy was to affect merchants that don't use Amazon logistics  — US expected to file antitrust suit against company this month
More: Reuters and Best Stocks

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From Mediagazer

Michael M. Grynbaum / New York Times:
Memo: CBS News President and CEO Wendy McMahon is stepping down from the network, saying “it's become clear the company and I do not agree on the path forward”

Andrew Webster / The Verge:
Netflix says Season 56 of Sesame Street will be available on Netflix “later this year”; Sesame Street had searched for a streamer since Max dropped it in 2024

New York Times:
Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway re-sign their Vox Media deal using a novel revenue-sharing contract with no guaranteed payments, potentially earning them ~$70M

More News

Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Apple's FineWoven accessories and iPhone cases are really bad: they're expensive, quickly show wear, and scratch very easily, leaving seemingly permanent marks
Bloomberg:
Klaviyo closes up 9.2% in its New York Stock Exchange debut, valuing the Shopify-backed e-commerce marketing company at $9.9B on a fully diluted basis
Mark Bergen / Bloomberg:
Copenhagen-based Corti, whose AI co-pilot transcribes hospital calls and does paperwork, raised $60M led by Atomico and Prosus, sources say at a $260M valuation

Earlier Picks

Javier Espinoza / Financial Times:
An Uber executive says the EU's Platform Work Directive that designates gig workers as employees may raise prices and cause Uber to close in hundreds of cities
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
The Linux Foundation launches the Unified Acceleration Foundation to create an open standard for accelerator programming, an evolution of the oneAPI initiative
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Bard's “Google it” feature adds the ability to “double check” answers by highlighting phrases with “supporting or contradicting information found by Search”
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