Note: Techmeme is hiring part-time editors. Go here to apply, or tell a friend!
Techmeme
October 19, 2023, 9:50 AM

Top News

RT Watson / The Block:
Chainalysis says recent media reports about the supposed use of crypto by terrorist organizations might be overstating metrics and using “flawed analyses”  —  - Chainalysis said some recent reports about the supposed use of crypto by terrorist organizations might be overstating metrics and using “flawed analyses.”
Joseph Cox / 404 Media:
Leo Schwartz / Fortune:
New York AG Letitia James sues the Winklevoss' Gemini, Genesis, and its parent Digital Currency Group, alleging the companies defrauded 230K investors of $1B+  —  New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing the Winklevoss twin-led exchange Gemini along with the crypto lending firm Genesis …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
WhatsApp plans to let users switch between two accounts on Android in the coming weeks; a second account will still need a separate phone number and SIM card  —  If you use two different WhatsApp accounts, you'll soon be able to access both from just one device.
WABetaInfo:
WhatsApp rolls out a view once mode for voice notes to some beta users on iOS and Android, after launching the feature for photos and videos in August 2021  —  WhatsApp is introducing a new feature to allow users to share voice notes with view once mode enabled for added privacy.
Financial Times:
Sources: the UK plans to announce an international advisory group on AI, loosely modeled on the UN's IPCC, at the November 2023 AI summit in Bletchley Park  —  The British government wants to draw on expert knowledge about the fast-developing technology  —  The UK is planning to announce …
Financial Times:
John Thornhill / Financial Times:
Bloomberg:
TSMC reports Q3 revenue down 14.6% YoY to ~$17.28B, net income down 24.9% YoY to ~$6.5B, and expects to spend $32B on growing and upgrading capacity in 2023  —  - Sales and capex projections both came in ahead of estimates  — World's most advanced chipmaker is struggling with a downturn
Sarah Whitten / CNBC:
Netflix reports Q3 revenue up 7.8% YoY to $8.54B, vs. $8.54B est., and global paid memberships up 10.8% YoY to 247.15M, vs. 243.88M est.; NFLX jumps 18%+  —  - Netflix shares popped more than 13% after it posted earnings.  — The company reported a boost in subscriber growth driven …
Jessica Toonkel / Wall Street Journal:
Wayne Ma / The Information:
Sources: Apple fired at least five employees who worked in the company's App Store in China following an internal investigation into business misconduct  —  Apple fired at least five employees who worked in the company's App Store in China following an internal probe into business misconduct …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google updates Play Protect with real-time scanning at the code level, prompting users to scan unknown Android apps before sideloading, starting in India  —  To avoid detection, Google has found that malicious parties are looking beyond the Play Store to infect Android devices with malware.
Kris Holt / Engadget:
Amazon plans to expand its Prime Air drone delivery system to the UK, Italy, and a third US city in late 2024 and integrate Prime Air into its delivery network  —  The company will also bring the Prime Air program to a third US city by the end of 2024.  —  Amazon has some big plans …
Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:
Nokia plans to cut up to 14,000 jobs, or ~16% of its 86,000 workforce, and reports Q3 2023 net sales down 20% YoY to €4.98B and profit down 69% YoY to €133M  —  - Nokia said it would cut up to 14,000 jobs as part of a cost cutting plan following third quarter earnings that plunged.
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Stanford unveils the Foundation Model Transparency Index, featuring 100 indicators; Llama 2 led at 54%, GPT-4 placed third at 48%, and PaLM 2 took fifth at 40%  —  Stanford researchers have ranked 10 major A.I. models on how openly they operate.  —  How much do we know about A.I.?
Pew Research Center:
A May 2023 survey of 5,101 US adults: 78% of Democrats and 68% of Republicans support more government regulation over what companies can do with people's data  —  The role of technology companies, AI and regulation - plus personal experiences with data breaches, passwords, cybersecurity and privacy policies
Financial Times:
Steve Lohr / New York Times:
US v. Google: Pandu Nayak, Google's VP of Search and first witness, testifies that smart employees explain its success and lead to innovations, such as on LLMs  —  While the Justice Department says Google has squeezed partners and made expensive deals to maintain its search dominance, the company has a more genteel story to tell.
Shaurya Malwa / CoinDesk:
US v. SBF: accounting professor Peter Easton testifies that FTX used “over a billion dollars” of customer funds to buy back Binance's FTX stake, bought in 2019  —  Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said in a 2022 post the company had received over $2.1 billion in binance usd (BUSD) stablecoins and FTX's FTT tokens.
Francesco Canepa / Reuters:
The European Central Bank plans to start a two-year “preparation phase” for the digital euro on November 1, to finalize rules, select partners, and do testing  —  The European Central Bank took a further step on Wednesday towards launching a digital version of the euro …
Natalie Alms / Nextgov/FCW:
The US GSA plans to add facial recognition tech to Login.gov in 2024 and another digital identity verification option for those who don't want to use the tech  —  The General Services Administration is changing its digital identity service to allow users to authenticate themselves by matching …

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:
6 Tips to Unlock Revenue with Transactional Emails  —  This is a guest post by Tabular.You might think of transactional emails as boring necessities, but the truth is, they're far more powerful than you realize.
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 9:50 AM ET, October 19, 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

Gavin Bonshor / AnandTech:
Elahe Izadi / Washington Post:

Earlier Picks

Susan D'Agostino / Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:
Abner Li / 9to5Google: