Techmeme
October 24, 2023, 12:20 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 …
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:
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 …
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’
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 …
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.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple schedules a “Scary Fast” event for October 30 at 5PM PT, where new Apple silicon and refreshed Macs are expected; the event has no in-person component  —  Apple today announced its second fall event of 2023, with the event set to be held on Monday, October 30 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time.
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.
Madlin Mekelburg / Bloomberg:
California and dozens of other US states sue Meta in federal court over claims Facebook and Instagram exploit youths for profit and feed them harmful content  —  The suit, filed in federal court in California, adds to growing scrutiny of social media giants over how they serve their youngest users.
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
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 …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Pebble, the Twitter alternative formerly known as T2, plans to shut down, having maxed out at 3,000 DAUs, despite decent early retention and invite conversion  —  The grip Twitter, now called X, has on the market may be stronger than some believed.  Unfortunately, that's led …
Aggi Cantrill / Bloomberg:
Munich-based Quantum Systems, which makes reconnaissance drones for Germany, Ukraine, and others, raised a €63.6M Series B, taking its total funding to €100M+  —  - Quantum Systems raised over €100 million after Series B round  — HV Capital, DTCP led round, which was backed by Thiel Ventures
Tyler Cowen / Marginal Revolution:

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