Note: Techmeme is hiring part-time editors. Go here to apply, or tell a friend!
Techmeme
September 27, 2023, 11:10 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Meta debuts the $500 Quest 3, featuring a 30% higher resolution than the Quest 2, double the processing power, new lenses, a thinner design, and new controllers  —  - New mixed-reality headset to start at $500, a $200 increase  — Apple to launch rival device, Vision Pro, early next year
The Verge:
Q&A with Mark Zuckerberg on Threads, the future of AI, Quest 3, his Elon Musk rivalry, decentralized social media, “open-source” AI tools, encryption, and more  —  In a rare interview, Meta's CEO dives into where AI is going next, the new Quest 3 headset, and his ongoing rivalry with Elon Musk.
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Hands-on with Meta Quest 3: an iterative update, but its mixed reality pass through video is less grainy than the Quest Pro and offers color, unlike the Quest 2  —  An upgraded VR game console with an extra feature. … I can't tell if Meta is trying too hard to make me look at the world through …
Eddie Makuch / GameSpot:
Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Mia Sato / The Verge:
Meta announces AI-generated chat stickers for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, and unveils new AI-powered image editing tools for Instagram  —  New generative AI tools announced Wednesday at Meta's Connect event will allow users to edit images and create stickers using text prompts.
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Meta unveils a Meta AI assistant for WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram, and 28 AI characters based on celebrities like MrBeast, Charli D'Amelio, and Snoop Dogg  —  The Meta AI assistant is coming to WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram, along with dozens of AI characters based on celebrities like MrBeast and Charli D'Amelio.
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
The US and Japan warn that the China-backed BlackTech hacking group is breaching network devices, including Cisco's, to install backdoors on corporate networks  —  US and Japanese law enforcement and cybersecurity agencies warn of the Chinese ‘BlackTech’ hackers breaching network devices …
Erin Woo / The Information:
Sources: X is cutting ~50% of its global team devoted to limiting disinformation and election fraud, less than a month after saying it would expand the team  —  Elon Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter, is cutting around half of the global team devoted to limiting disinformation and election fraud …
Byron Kaye / Reuters:
Samrhitha Arunasalam / Reuters:
OpenAI says ChatGPT can now browse the web, available first to Plus and Enterprise users, and the chatbot is “no longer limited to data before September 2021”  —  ChatGPT users will now be able to surf the web, Microsoft-backed (MSFT.O) OpenAI said on Wednesday …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy confirms that former Microsoft CPO Panos Panay will be joining Amazon at the end of October to lead its devices and services division  —  It's official: Panos Panay, Microsoft's former product lead, is headed to Amazon. … “As a strong product builder and inventor …
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Paris-based Mistral AI makes its first LLM, Mistral 7B, that the startup claims outperforms open models with up to 13B parameters, free to use sans restrictions  —  The most popular language models out there may be accessed via API, but open models — as far as that term can be taken seriously — are gaining ground.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
David Pierce / The Verge:
Leah Nylen / Bloomberg:
US v. Google: Microsoft says the company has tried for years to displace Google as the iPhone's default search engine, but Apple never seriously considered Bing  —  - Executive testifies Microsoft sought browser switch for years  — ‘Apple is making more money on Bing existing than Bing does’
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan plans to retire in March 2024; Ryan joined Sony in 1994, just before the first PlayStation debuted  —  Jim Ryan, president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, is stepping down after almost 30 years with the company.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Generate videos with Veo 3 in Google Gemini  —  Create high-quality, 8-second videos with Veo 3, our state-of-the-art AI video generator.  Try it with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.
UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
Zoho:
Sandbox testing: Create Mail Agents in sandbox mode  —  Email is considered the backbone for any organization's communication.  That's even more true for transactional emails, which are operation-critical for any business.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
Big Meta/Anduril Deal Is A Big Deal
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
The Social Radars:
Ron Conway, Founder, SV Angel Part 4 (Bonus)
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
Subscribe to The Social Radars.
Hard Fork:
The A.I. Jobpocalypse + Building at Anthropic with Mike Krieger + Hard Fork Crimes Division
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Rick Smith (CEO, Axon): The Wild Ride From Near-Bankruptcy to $50B+
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'Sewing Machine Repair Shop', With Patrick McGee
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
How private equity kills companies and communities
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:10 PM ET, September 27, 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

Emily Birnbaum / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Ming-Chi Kuo:
Alex Cranz / The Verge:
CNBC: