Techmeme
October 24, 2023, 12:00 PM

Top News

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
David Pierce / The Verge:
Automattic plans to acquire Texts, a $15 per month messaging app that works with WhatsApp, Instagram, LinkedIn, Signal, iMessage, and more, for $50M  —  Automattic, the company that runs WordPress.com, Tumblr, Pocket Casts, and a number of other popular web properties, just made a different kind …
Melissa Heikkilä / MIT Technology Review:
A look at Nightshade and Glaze, tools made by researchers at UChicago that help artists “poison” their work to confuse or break AI models that later train on it  —  A new tool lets artists add invisible changes to the pixels in their art before they upload it online so that if it's scraped …
Benedict Evans:
A Twitter user since 2007 reflects on leaving due to Elon Musk swapping stasis at the company for chaos, his constant bullshitting, and spreading toxic content  —  Twitter always used to look a lot like Craigslist.  It stumbled into something that a lot of people found very useful …
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
A paper from Geoffrey Hinton and other experts warns of AI systems' worrying capabilities and says 33% of companies' AI R&D budgets should go to managing risks  —  Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton, two of the so-called AI godfathers, have joined with 22 other leading AI academics …
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Sources: many people inside Apple do not believe its own AI/ML team can deliver on generative AI, and worry that the company will only use that team's output  —  Speaking of Mark Gurman, he has an interesting bit about Apple's AI efforts in his latest Power On column:
Reuters:
Sources: Nvidia has begun designing ARM CPUs for Windows PCs, and AMD also plans to build ARM chips; source: Nvidia and AMD could start selling them in 2025  —  Nvidia (NVDA.O) dominates the market for artificial intelligence computing chips.  Now it is coming after Intel's longtime stronghold of personal computers.
Kenza Bryan / Financial Times:
EU environmental groups criticize Apple branding its new Apple Watches as “carbon neutral” and using credits to cancel out the 7kg to 12kg of emissions per unit  —  iPhone maker flags credentials of its latest Watch products as EU seeks to clamp down on ‘greenwashing’
Marissa Newman / Bloomberg:
Google disables live traffic conditions in Israel and the Gaza Strip for its Maps and Waze apps, a source says at the request of the Israel Defense Forces  —  - Israeli army asked tech giant to limit real-time information  — Google took similar action in Ukraine during war with Russia
Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
Spotify Q3: revenue up 11% YoY to €3.4B, MAUs up 26% to 574M, subscribers up 16% YoY to 226M, and €32M operating income, vs. a €44.6M loss est.; SPOT jumps 9%+  —  Spotify Technology SA rose the most since January after the music-streaming giant reported third-quarter results …
David Pierce / The Verge:
A look at POSSE, a decade-old idea that a user should Publish (on your) Own Site and Syndicate Elsewhere, and the challenges of building a system based on that  —  The platform era is ending.  Rather than build new Twitters and Facebooks, we can create a stuff-posting system that works better for everybody.
Suzanne Smalley / The Record:
Q&A with FTC Commissioner and digital privacy expert Alvaro Bedoya on the agency's plan to hire child psychologists to understand social media's impact on kids  —  I saw and I heard stories from parents about the mental health issues that their children were experiencing and how both the parents and …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Xreal, formerly Nreal, announces the $399 Xreal Air 2 and $449 Air 2 Pro, AR glasses with brighter Micro OLED displays, available in five countries in November  —  Xreal is opening preorders for its latest generation of augmented reality glasses, the Xreal Air 2 and Air 2 Pro …
Tyler Cowen / Marginal Revolution:
Karissa Bell / Engadget:
Meta is “listening to feedback” after some users noticed the company is cross-posting Threads posts to users' Facebook feeds without offering an opt-out option  —  The company said it's “listening to feedback” about the feature.  —  Meta is starting to ramp up its growth-hacking tactics …

Sponsor Posts

Termina:
AI Powered Diligence at Scale  —  VCs and founders deploy Termina AI Scans on >12% of all known series A+ deals to uncover hidden risks and opportunities.  Explore how you too can invest and build better companies with AI.
Zoho:
Set it, forget it, and stop worrying about form availability!  —  Let's say you have a booking form that you only want to be available during business hours, or you're hosting an event with a specific registration period …
SBS Comms:
Expect Better: SBS Comms  —  The media landscape is changing fast, so don't be slow — out with the old, in with the new.  SBS helps tech companies like GitHub, Cloudflare, Flexport, Ramp and more modernize comms and secure impactful results.
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:
Fri. 10/28 - GPT-4.5
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Invest Like the Best:
Doug Leone - Lessons from a Titan
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
Understanding Elon Musk's polarizing ascent in the MAGA movement
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Lenny's Podcast:
An inside look at X's Community Notes | Keith Coleman (VP of Product) and Jay Baxter (ML Lead)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Generative Now:
Mikey Shulman answers your questions about Suno and making music with AI
A podcast from Lightspeed dedicated to highlighting the stories, strategies and insights behind today's most exciting AI companies.
Subscribe to Generative Now.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:00 PM ET, October 24, 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

Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Brian Steinberg / Variety:

Earlier Picks

Jay Peters / The Verge:
NBC News:
Push Square: