Techmeme: Meta responds to concerns about Israel-Hamas war misinformation, saying the company formed an operations center, restricted certain hashtags, and more (Sarah Fielding/Engadget)

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October 15, 2023, 3:32 AM

Top News

New York Times:

The Microsoft-Activision deal closure shows that tech giants can still grow by getting “vertical mergers” through courts and regulators relatively unscathed — With the completion of the blockbuster acquisition, the notion that tech giants can grow through “vertical transactions” remains intact.

More: TweakTown, Game Developer, Stock Market News, and Sports Business Journal

Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to. X: @seangraf

Financial Times:

How Brad Smith, who became Microsoft's top legal officer in 2002, used a legal, policy, and influence machine costing $1B+ a year to close the Activision deal — Company's top legal officer has honed diplomatic skills to recast the US tech giant's reputation

Diane Bartz / Reuters:

The US FTC says it remains focused on its appeal opposing Microsoft's acquisition of Activision and will “assess” the company's cloud gaming deal with Ubisoft

More: Thurrott, Neowin, GameSpot, Digital Trends, New York Times, and AppleInsider

Bluesky: @marypcbuk.bsky.social. X: @tomwarren, @fosspatents, and @joenandez

Forums: r/news and Slashdot

Samuel Tolbert / Windows Central:

The UK CMA approves Microsoft's $68.7B Activision Blizzard acquisition, after Microsoft reformed the deal to sell some Activision cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft

More: GamesIndustry.biz, Xbox on YouTube, OnMSFT.com, GamingBolt, HotHardware, Tech.eu, Gameranx, MSPoweruser, GOV.UK, VentureBeat, Activision Blizzard King, Windows Central, The Verge, Android Headlines, Fortune, Appuals.com, Coinspeaker, The Hill, DatacenterDynamics, WinBuzzer, KitGuru, Computerworld, TechSpot, The Irish Times, Tech.co, Neowin, TNW, VideoCardz.com, iMore, Ghacks, Eurogamer.net, Bloomberg, The Messenger, The Hollywood Reporter, and CNBC

Threads: @lacobus, @finite187, and @carnage4life. Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to

X: @bradsmi, @tomwarren, @cmagovuk, @divestech, @caffar3cristina, @colteastwood, @postup_sog, @deeketweak, @benjisales, @atvi_ab, @idlesloth84_, @tomwarren, @fosspatents, and @cmagovuk

LinkedIn: David Parker, Jordi Macias, Rafael Brown, Steve Huot, and Ronan Scanlan

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft completes its Activision Blizzard acquisition after a 20-month battle with regulators in the UK and the US; Bobby Kotick will remain CEO through 2023

More: Ars Technica, BBC, Deadline, The Verge, Xbox Wire, Game Rant, TweakTown, Cryptopolitan, Activision Blizzard King, Reuters, TweakTown, Gameranx, Forbes, Tech Xplore, The Guardian, VideoCardz.com, Microsoft On the Issues, Wired, VentureBeat, Los Angeles Times, Polygon, New York Post, Axios, Cointelegraph, New York Times, Windows Central, Windows Central, Engadget, GoNintendo, Engadget, Associated Press, GeekWire, The Ringer, ExtremeTech, Kotaku, Notebookcheck, guru3d.com, GamingBolt, New York Times, Destructoid, The Information, Mashable, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, The Hollywood Reporter, Gizmodo, The Messenger, Game Rant, GeekWire, Variety, SlashGear, CNBC, TechPowerUp, Appuals.com, TechRadar, KitGuru, MSPoweruser, Pure Xbox, IGN, TheGamer, The Verge, Polygon, iPhone in Canada Blog, MSPoweruser, TechStartups, Neowin, TechCrunch, Wccftech, Dot Esports, Bloomberg, Forbes, PC Gamer, Video Games Chronicle, GameSpot, T3, and Polygon

Threads: @migueldeicaza, @tomwarrenuk, @tomwarrenuk, and @tomwarrenuk. Mastodon: @corbin@toot.community

X: @jasonschreier, @bradsmi, @xboxp3, @lulumeservey, @kellen_browning, @tomwarren, @dinabass, @satyanadella, @tomwarren, and @xbox

LinkedIn: Steven Dowling Jr, Steven Vonder Haar, Rachit Gupta, Niki Ozment Buchanan, Tom Koch, Justin Kruger, Kortni Lee, Colin Cashin, J.D. Roux, and Sarah Bond

Tom Warren / The Verge:

A look at Microsoft's deal with Ubisoft, which now gets the cloud gaming rights for Call of Duty and current Activision games outside of the EU for 15 years

More: Ubisoft, BBC, ComingSoon.net, Neowin, Eurogamer.net, Game Rant, GameSpot, Gameranx, MobileSyrup, and Dexerto

X: @charlieintel and @tomwarren

Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media:

Some AI image detectors are labeling real photographs from the Israel-Hamas war as fake, creating what an expert calls a “second level of disinformation” — Online AI image detecting tools that may or may not work are labeling real photographs from the war in Israel and Palestine as fake …

More: Forbes. Mastodon: @maxkennerly@mstdn.social and @remixtures@tldr.nettime.org

X: @jason_koebler, @iethics, @emanuelmaiberg, and @josephfcox

Forums: Hacker News and r/artificial

Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post:

How social media is inducing a fog of war surpassing previous clashes between Israel and Hamas, shaping the views of panicked citizens and a global public — The barrage of false images, memes, videos and posts — mostly generated from within the region itself — is making it difficult to assess what is real.

More: CNN and Toronto Star

Mastodon: @katestarbird@mstdn.social. X: @lizzadwoskin, @digiphile, @kareemrifai, @colincrowell, and @shayan86

Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:

GPT-4V, the new mode of GPT-4 that lets users upload images as part of conversations, allows for prompt injection attacks by following instructions in images — GPT4-V is the new mode of GPT-4 that allows you to upload images as part of your conversations. It's absolutely brilliant.

More: The Decoder. Mastodon: @xris@ecoevo.social and @north_easton@mastodon.social

X: @benjamindekr, @goodside, @mn_google, @simonw, @fabianstelzer, @simonw, @fabianstelzer, @fabianstelzer, @_burkard, @jeremyphoward, and @fabianstelzer. Forums: Hacker News

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

Disney+ Hotstar reclaims the global streaming record for most live concurrent views with 35M watching the October 14 India-Pakistan ICC Cricket World Cup match — In India, few events garner as much attention as a cricket game. A high-profile match between neighbors India and Pakistan delivered …

More: Moneycontrol, What's On Disney Plus, Inc42 Media, and Business Today

LinkedIn: Mukund Acharya and Lalith Srinivas

Lily Hay Newman / Wired:

The HTTP/2 Rapid Reset flaw, which was exploited to launch record-setting DDoS attacks, requires patching every web server before the problem can be eradicated — Dubbed “HTTP/2 Rapid Reset,” the flaw requires making patches available for virtually every web server around the world before the problem can be eradicated.

More: Ars Technica, The Cloudflare Blog, CVE, and Hackaday

X: @cisacyber, @jbhall56, @aselipsky, @googlecloud, @programmingart, and @backchnnl. LinkedIn: Jasmina V.. Forums: Ars OpenForum

Kate Irwin / Decrypt:

DappRadar: blockchain gaming projects raised $600M in Q3 2023, down 38% YoY, and $2.3B so far in 2023, which is only 30% of what was raised for all of 2022 — While the gaming industry continues to be plagued by mass layoffs, crypto gaming is still seeing many millions invested each quarter.

Source: DappRadar. More: Cointelegraph, Bitcoinist.com, Cryptopolitan, Bitcoin News, The Daily Hodl, crypto.news, and Cryptonews

Jared Newman / Fast Company:

A look at Obsidian, an indie, Electron-based note-taking app that has developed a cult following on Discord and Reddit; Obsidian estimates that it has ~1M users — The indie darling rejects everything you know about modern software. And its strategy is working.

Mastodon: @Bodling@deacon.social. X: @kepano, @chrisalbon, @kepano, @vivanvatsa, @nickmilo, @moderndosh, @spikedoanz, @kepano, @choldgraf, @omeruzvn, @mjpost, @harrymccracken, @twofifteenam, @generativist, and @fastcotech

Simon Hill / Wired:

Hands-on with Wi-Charge's wireless charging system that delivers power of up to 2 or 3 watts but requires a line of sight between transmitter and receiver — Nikola Tesla once dreamed of transferring electrical energy through the air. Now, a company called Wi-Charge is beta-testing a prototype technology …

Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg:

How influencers played a key role in boosting the popularity of Riot Game's Valorant among Gen Z gamers; Riot says 70% of Valorant players are Generation Z — Valorant was never a sure thing, until it was. … Rachell Hofstetter, known to fans as Valkyrae, yells like a banshee as she dodges gunfire in the video game.

More: Dot Esports. X: @zhugeex, @cecianasta, @gaudep, @firstadopter, and @acvalens. LinkedIn: Gaude Lydia Paez

Forums: r/pcgaming and r/VALORANT

Brendan Bordelon / Politico:

How Dustin Moskovitz's Open Philanthropy is pushing policymakers to focus on AI's long-term risks by funding salaries of staff in Congress and federal agencies — An organization backed by Silicon Valley billionaires and tied to leading artificial intelligence firms is funding the salaries …

More: Gizmodo. Mastodon: @rikefranke@bagarrosphere.fr and @KimPerales@toad.social

X: @brendanbordelon, @tonyajoriley, @xriskology, @angie_rasmussen, @basedbeffjezos, @superwuster, @_kramki, and @jason_kint

LinkedIn: Stephan A. Schwartz, Dr. Rumman Chowdhury, and Ana Brandusescu

Forums: r/singularity and r/neoliberal

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:32 AM ET, October 15, 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.

From Mediagazer

Liam Scott / Voice of America:

Reporters Without Borders sues X in France for “complicity in disseminating false information”, after X failed to block a fake video with RSF's logo

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:

The Onion, backed by some Sandy Hook families and Everytown for Gun Safety, buys Infowars in a bankruptcy auction, and plans a January 2025 relaunch as a parody

Matthew Keys / The Desk:

Disney said Disney+ Q4 ARPU in the US and Canada, down 1% QoQ to $7.70, was affected partly by new wholesale arrangements with some distributors

More News

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:

A look at the efforts by companies and governments to build their own satellite networks that can deliver internet connectivity anywhere on Earth

More: Neowin, PCMag, Singularity Hub, ExtremeTech, Fierce Wireless, Pocket-lint, Tom's Guide, and DigiTimes

Joel Rosenblatt / Bloomberg:

A California judge allows a group of lawsuits against Meta and others alleging social media is addictive for children to proceed based on a negligence claim

More: San Francisco Chronicle and Bloomberg Law

X: @tonypyros, @akwyz, and @hoofnagle

Josh Eidelson / Bloomberg:

Filing: the US NLRB alleges that X illegally fired an employee in November 2022 in retaliation for her posts challenging the company's RTO policy

More: CNBC, The Verge, Cryptopolitan, Engadget, Insider, Reuters, and Business Times

Threads: @itsmattslaw. X: @zoeschiffer, @josheidelson, and @josheidelson. LinkedIn: Richard King

Forums: Hacker News, r/elonmusk, and r/law

Jo Marchant / Nature:

A student wins a contest to read the text inside a carbonized Roman scroll, which had been unreadable since a volcanic eruption in AD 79, using an ML algorithm

More: Vesuvius Challenge, The Decoder, Decrypt, New Scientist, PCMag, Luke Farritor on Google Docs, The Messenger, Gizmodo, Cryptopolitan, The Guardian, Not Boring by Packy McCormick, Youssef Nader on GitHub, Luke Farritor on GitHub, The AI Underwriter, and New York Times

Mastodon: @luis_in_brief@social.coop, @robindlaws@dice.camp, and @col000r@mastodon …

X: @natfriedman, @natfriedman, @lukefarritor, @lukefarritor, @jomarchant, @omar4ur, @wallaceme, @kseniase_, @steve_sailer, @tim_zaman, @natfriedman, @youssef_m_nader, @natfriedman, @natfriedman, and @optimoprincipi

LinkedIn: Stephen Clarke BA, Emanuele C., Michael Robbins, Craig Bennett, Shawn Beck, Daniel Holgate, Niall Ogilvy, Allison Lewis, and Craig Bennett

Forums: Hacker News, r/Futurology, r/technews, r/technology, r/programming, r/ancientrome, r/history, and r/interestingasfuck

Earlier Picks

Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:

Nvidia plans to raise the price of its GeForce Now cloud gaming service in Canada and some European countries in November, citing “increased operational costs”

More: Engadget, Tom's Hardware, NVIDIA Support, Wccftech, The Verge, and NVIDIA

X: @fosspatents and @tomwarren. Forums: r/GeForceNOW

Yogita Khatri / The Block:

Tether promotes long-time CTO Paolo Ardoino to CEO, starting in December, and plans to become a “tech-centric organization”; the current CEO will be an advisor

Sarah Fielding / Engadget:

Meta responds to concerns about Israel-Hamas war misinformation, saying the company formed an operations center, restricted certain hashtags, and more

More: Meta, The Verge, Forbes, Business Post, Bloomberg, Benzinga, Rolling Stone, CNN, Social Media Today, New York Daily News, TechCrunch, TechCrunch, The Information, Quartz, The Tech Report, The Hill, TIME, UPI, The Verge, The Messenger, Washington Examiner, Tech Xplore, Reuters, Nairametrics, CNBC, MediaNama, BusinessLIVE, and The Guardian

Threads: @mattnavarra, @ianhillmedia, @frostsocial, @danny_bimma, @kathmschmidt, @frostsocial, @klausphotos, @alexkantrowitz, @luciussweets, @michelle.jaconi, @alexkantrowitz, @justingp331, @littlebluedogphotography, @tylorsweeney, @richardmalland, @fegodev, @mattnavarra, and @pygar40000

Mastodon: @samsy@social.tchncs.de and @taylorlorenz@mastodon.social. Bluesky: @kyleorl.bsky.social

X: @thefatgoalie, @auroraintel, @marionawfal, @senmarcorubio, and @business

LinkedIn: Tom Bonsundy-O'Bryan, Jake Kennedy, and Ori Modai

Bloomberg:

Canon begins selling nanoimprint chip machines, which impress circuit patterns onto wafers without photolithography, likely avoiding trade curbs, to rival ASML

More: Canon Global, PhoneArena, SPARROWS NEWS, The Register, TechSpot, CNBC, PetaPixel, and The Messenger

X: @ericjhonsa and @leokelion. LinkedIn: Himadri Majumdar

Forums: r/singularity and Slashdot