Techmeme
September 28, 2023, 10:40 PM

Top News

Ash Parrish / The Verge:
Epic Games lays off 16% of its workforce, or ~830 employees, divests from music storefront Bandcamp, and intends to spin off “kid-tech” company SuperAwesome  —  Bloomberg reports that Fortnite developer Epic Games is expected to lay off 16 percent of its workforce.
Songtradr:
Wall Street Journal:
France's competition authority raided a “graphics cards sector” company this week as part of a cloud-computing inquiry; sources say the target was Nvidia  —  France's competition authority has expressed concerns that established companies in the sector could exclude smaller ones
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Google lets publishers use a robots.txt flag to opt out of the company using their data to train its AI models, while remaining accessible through Google Search  —  Google just announced it's giving website publishers a way to opt out of having their data used to train the company's AI models …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Microsoft discussed selling Bing to Apple around 2020, a deal that would have replaced Google as the default search engine on Apple's devices  —  - Microsoft executives pitched Apple's Cue on a deal around 2020  — Apple ultimately stuck with Google as default search engine
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
Google patches a Chrome zero-day that was exploited by a commercial spyware vendor, just two days after Google's Threat Analysis Group informed the Chrome team  —  Google has rushed to patch a zero-day vulnerability in Chrome that was exploited by a commercial spyware vendor.
Umar Shakir / The Verge:
Google plans to stop supporting its $5K, 55" Jamboard meeting room display on September 30, 2024 and phase out its collaborative Jamboard app on October 1, 2024  —  It's never a dull day at the Google graveyard — the company has blogged a Workspace update today announcing the end of its collaborative Jamboard whiteboarding software.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google rolls out ChromeOS 117 with a Material You redesign, adaptive charging, a new camera and microphone privacy indicator, an improved clipboard, and more  —  Google is rolling out ChromeOS 117, and it's a very big update for Chromebooks that adds Material You, as well as other usability enhancements.
Financial Times:
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Reddit removes the ability to opt out of ad personalization based on Reddit activity but says that users will still have opt-out controls in “select countries”  —  Reddit said Wednesday that the platform is revamping its privacy settings with an aim to make ad personalization and account visibility toggles consistent.
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Raspberry Pi 5 launches with a 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A76 chip, up to 8GB of RAM, two 4K HDMI ports with HDR, available in October for $60 for a 4GB model  —  Despite doubts that the Raspberry Pi 5 would launch this year, the latest version of the microcomputer has arrived with some notable upgrades at a $60 starting price.
Malathi Nayak / Bloomberg:
Apple asks SCOTUS to revisit the 2021 Epic Games ruling regarding alternative IAP payment options, a day after Epic separately asked SCOTUS to take up the case  —  - IPhone maker wants to avoid allowing an end run around store  — Fortnite maker has separately asked high court to take up case
RT Watson / The Block:
Coinbase says the crypto exchange has gained approval from the Bermuda Monetary Authority to offer non-US retail users perpetual futures trading  —  - Coinbase has gained approval to offer non-U.S. retail users perpetual futures trading from the Bermuda Monetary Authority.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Google unveils the Fitbit Charge 6, with a haptic side button, integration with Google services like YouTube Music, and more, available on October 12 for $160  —  Fitbit is back with the Charge 6 — and on paper, this one feels like the most Fitbit-y Fitbit since Google actively began folding the company into its ecosystem.
Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
Email: Serve Robotics, used by Uber Eats in Los Angeles, shared video filmed by one of its food delivery robots to the LAPD as part of a criminal investigation  —  This article was primarily reported using public records requests.  We are making it available to all readers as a public service.
Lex Fridman / Lex Fridman Podcast:
In an interview using Meta's photorealistic Codec Avatars, Mark Zuckerberg talks about the metaverse, Quest 3, the nature of reality, AI, and humanity's future  —  - Watch the full YouTube version of the podcast  —  Table of Contents  —  Here are the loose “chapters” in the conversation.
Bloomberg:
An analysis of 115 warrants in five US states shows that investigators are increasingly using Google's location and search data to try to solve nonviolent cases  —  Investigators increasingly use warrants to obtain location and search data from Google, even for nonviolent cases—and even for people who had nothing to do with the crime.
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.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
State of AI: Adoption, Challenges and Recommendations  —  Examining the current state of AI, the key challenges organizations face, and practical recommendations for utilizing AI integration alongside other best practices.
SignalFire:
SignalFire raises another $1 billion to back applied AI startups  —  We build AI too.  It tracks 650M tech employees so we can help companies with recruiting and GTM across enterprise, infra, healthcare, security, and consumer.
Zoho:
How to turn employees into your brand's biggest supporters  —  Turning your employees into your brand's biggest advocates is one of the most powerful ways to grow your brand.  When employees feel connected to your mission …
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:
Zuck Trying To Make Fetch Happen
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Hard Fork:
Is Google Breaking Up? + Seasteading Is Back + Tool Time
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:
Blake Scholl (Founder and CEO, Boom Supersonic) on Why Supersonic Flight Failed & How Boom is Bringing it Back
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
BG2 Pod:
Tariffs, Free Trade, Export Controls, H20 & Rare Earth Ban
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Great Chat:
Founders need prenups, too
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:40 PM ET, September 28, 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

Financial Times:
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:

Earlier Picks

Camomile Shumba / CoinDesk:
CNBC:
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch: