Techmeme: Report: the alleged ringleader of the Scattered Spider hacking group was arrested in Spain; sources say the accused is 22-year-old Scottish man Tyler Buchanan (Brian Krebs/Krebs on Security)

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June 17, 2024, 6:40 AM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:

A look at Apple's slow AI features rollout, impressive visionOS 2 beta, and plans for the thinnest, lightest devices in tech in time for the iPhone 17 in 2025 — Apple will gradually roll out its new Intelligence features over several months, seeking to avoid the pitfalls that have plagued other AI systems.

More: 9to5Mac, MacRumors, Cybernews.com, Business Insider, Spyglass, Supercharged, Tom's Guide, Mashable, Sammy Fans, PYMNTS.com, The Verge, Boardroom, Neowin, Business Today, XDA Developers, Android Authority, Philip Elmer‑DeWitt, PhoneArena, Engadget, and AppleInsider

Threads: @parkerortolani. Mastodon: @michaelsteeber@mastodon … and @aallan@mastodon.social

X: @markgurman, @theryanprhodes, @jonyiveparody, @markgurman, @leakerapple, @gartenberg, @mnmldmg, @kylebrussell, @altryne, @matthewkeyslive, @anshelsag, @dylanmcd8, and @stevesi. Forums: r/apple

Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:

Report: the alleged ringleader of the Scattered Spider hacking group was arrested in Spain; sources say the accused is 22-year-old Scottish man Tyler Buchanan — A 22-year-old man from the United Kingdom arrested this week in Spain is allegedly the ringleader of Scattered Spider …

Source: Murcia Today. More: SecurityWeek, SiliconANGLE, and The Hacker News

Mastodon: @dannyjpalmer@infosec.exchange and @briankrebs@infosec.exchange

X: @vxunderground and @dcuthbert

Thomas Germain / BBC:

Copywriters detail how AI is changing their jobs, with some seeing a new line of work to make AI-generated text sound more human, a job that pays a lot less — If you're worried about how AI will affect your job, the world of copywriters may offer a glimpse of the future.

X: @thomasgermain, @drantoniowrites, @carnage4life, @kristadiamond, @thomasgermain, @gloria_sin, @karishmajourno, @felicitycarter, @xn_angeles, @kcsixtyseven, @michaelmiraflor, @hkesvani, @thomasgermain, and @thomasgermain

See also Mediagazer

Caroline Mimbs Nyce / The Atlantic:

Kids are interacting with AI in school and online, serving as testers for a new generation of tech, making them the ones to experience some of its worst effects — AI is quickly becoming a regular part of children's lives. What happens next? — This spring, the Los Angeles Unified School District …

X: @_akpiper, @mohanadhageali, and @carnage4life

LinkedIn: Steven Vosloo and Matthew Small

Abner Li / 9to5Google:

Google begins rolling out a “Listen to this page” feature on Chrome for Android, letting the browser read text-heavy web pages — Chrome for Android has been working on its own text-to-speech (TTS) capability for a few months now, and Google is now rolling out “Listen to this page.”

More: The Verge, Android Authority, Business Standard, Android Headlines, Business Today, Livemint, and NewsBytes

Ari Saperstein / The Guardian:

How Apple added support for automatic transcript generation in the Podcast app, a feature highly requested by both disabled users and podcast creators — Apple rolled out a feature highly requested by both disabled users and podcast creators. Why did it take so long?

More: The Verge. Mastodon: @Nicovel0@mastodon.social. X: @davewiner, @ari_saperstein, @jamescridland, @jamescridland, and @zeldman. LinkedIn: Christopher Patnoe

Juli Clover / MacRumors:

Apple added a Vocal Shortcuts accessibility feature in iOS 18 that lets users give Siri a new wake word, such as “hello, computer”

More: 9to5Mac, Mashable, The Verge, iMore, and Gizmochina

Threads: @sdw, @andreasjr, and @ajvizz. Mastodon: @ChrisChaffin@dragonscave …. Bluesky: @patrickmaroney.bsky.social

X: @aaronp613, @phyllbo_baggins, @iryantldr, @colinhughesuk, and @techpalstalk

Forums: r/apple and MacRumors Forums

Steve Lohr / New York Times:

How Terray Therapeutics uses AI to discover and develop drugs, generating 50TB of raw data daily, part of a wave of startups looking to harness AI in medicine — In high-tech labs, workers are generating data to train A.I. algorithms to design better medicine, faster. But the transformation is just getting underway.

TechCrunch:

How Black founders are creating AI models like ChatBlackGPT and Latimer.ai that cater to Black and brown communities, as current AI models lack cultural nuance — Current mainstream AI models lack too much cultural nuance for some — At first, John Pasmore was excited about ChatGPT.

Mastodon: @TechDesk@flipboard.social

Jonathan Maze / Restaurant Business:

McDonald's ends its two-year IBM partnership to test automated Drive Thru order taking and plans to remove the tech from 100+ restaurants by July 26 — The Chicago-based fast-food giant is ending its partnership with IBM on automated order-taking without an expansion.

More: The Verge, PCMag, TweakTown, Restaurant Technology News, and The Decoder

X: @mcfranchisee and @jonathanmaze. Forums: Hacker News

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From Mediagazer

Harshita Mary Varghese / Reuters:

Warner Bros. Discovery says John Malone is not seeking re-election to the board of directors and will instead take on the role of chairman emeritus

Julian Clover / Broadband TV News:

A group of current and former BBC World Service journalists warn that cuts to the international service risk fracturing “the core identity of the World Service”

Natalie Korach / Vanity Fair:

Q&A with Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway on covering Trump's tariffs; their Odd Lots newsletter saw sign-ups jump 142% in April vs. March average

More News

Scott Hayden / Road to VR:

Logitech unveils the MX Ink, a stylus for Meta Quest 2 and Quest 3, plus “future headsets”, the Quest's first third-party input device, shipping in September

More: UploadVR, Android Central, CNET, How-To Geek, UploadVR, Logitech Blog, MIXED Reality News, VentureBeat, Digital Trends, and The Verge

X: @skarredghost, @bmfshow, and @lunayian

Financial Times:

Structure Research: tech companies' data center plans in India will push the nation from the sixth place to the top spot in Asia Pacific for self-built capacity

More: Inc42 Media

Rohan Goswami / CNBC:

Sources: activist fund Starboard Value has taken a ~$500M stake in Autodesk and spoken to its board over concerns regarding a probe that led to its CFO's ouster

More: Proactive, Wall Street Journal, Benzinga, and Reuters

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: Wells Fargo's credit card with fintech startup Bilt, rewarding rent payments and gaining 1M+ signups in 18 months, costs the bank up to $10M per month

More: PYMNTS.com. X: @pitdesi, @hitsamty, @pitdesi, @rakeshsfnyc, @trengriffin, and @charliemagne. Forums: r/biltrewards

Blake Brittain / Reuters:

A Texas federal jury orders Amazon to pay nearly $122M to adtech company AlmondNet for infringing on two patents related to personalized ad targeting

More: Silicon Republic, Bloomberg Law, and ip fray

The Conversation:

Despite disinformation concerns during India's elections, political parties largely used AI, including deepfakes, constructively, primarily for voter outreach

More: Associated Press. X: @harvardash, @harvardash, @harvardash, and @vandinika. LinkedIn: Vandinika Shukla

Earlier Picks

Connie Loizos / TechCrunch:

Q&A with FTC Chair Lina Khan on scrutinizing Big Tech's “innovations in potential lawbreaking” with AI deals, the FTC's AI use, startups, acquisitions, and more

More: TechCrunch, TechCrunch on YouTube, StrictlyVC on Buzzsprout, TechCrunch, Fortune, and TechSpot

Threads: @techcrunch, @techcrunch, and @techcrunch

X: @florian4gamers, @revolution, @revolution, and @hipsterelectron. Forums: Slashdot

Bloomberg:

DefiLlama: crypto startup funding has crossed $100B since 2014; Block Research says Coinbase Ventures has made 443 investments, or ~4% of all deals since 2017

More: crypto.news, Coinspeaker, Cryptonews, and PYMNTS.com

X: @ryanjamesweeks and @crypto

Chris Metinko / Crunchbase News:

A look at tech companies' investments in AI startups: Nvidia and NVentures completed a total of 32 deals in 2023, while Microsoft and M12 made 21 investments

Caroline O'Donovan / Washington Post:

Leaked documents reveal life-threatening issues at Amazon's primary-care service One Medical, raising concerns about Amazon's frugal approach to health care

X: @rakeshsfnyc, @fenitn, @bijans, @chiglinsky, @boltyboy, @bulldoghill, @drpanmd, and @peter_grinspoon. LinkedIn: Dr Saif Abed

Ben Cohen / Wall Street Journal:

How Duolingo uses streaks and notifications to keep users coming back to the app; 70% of Duolingo's 30M+ DAUs have weeklong streaks and 5M have one-year streaks

Bluesky: @silversalty.bsky.social. X: @kushkatakia and @jakewengroff. LinkedIn: Ben Cohen

Andrew Williams / Wired:

Apple may not be bringing Apple Intelligence to iPhone 15, which has 6GB of RAM vs. iPhone 15 Pro's 8GB, due to RAM requirements for on-device AI processing

More: Latest Odisha News …, Forbes, TweakTown, The Shortcut, and Digital Trends

Threads: @thatchriscarley, @jslxmd, @phonearena, and @sung.kim.mw

X: @carnage4life, @carnage4life, @r3dash, @masnconrad, @bendee983, @jessicascott09, @davetroy, @vadimyuryev, @nimishdubey, @simonhartleyusa, and @chaitanya7483

Forums: r/apple and r/technology