Techmeme
August 6, 2024, 8:30 PM

Top News

Chris Welch / The Verge:
Google unveils the $100 Google TV Streamer, with better performance than Chromecast with Google TV, Thread and Matter support, and more, shipping September 24  —  Google isn't waiting for its upcoming hardware event to announce the Chromecast's successor.  Alongside the new, sleeker Nest Thermostat …
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge:
Google unveils Gemini-based features for Google Home, coming later in 2024: descriptive captions for Nest camera videos, a smarter Assistant for Nest, and more  —  Amazon has already announced its plans for a smarter Alexa to power your home.  Now, it's Google's turn to promise that it can produce a better …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google says the Chromecast with Google TV 4K and HD will remain on sale until stock runs out, as the company stops making the Chromecast, first launched in 2013  —  The first Chromecast was announced in July of 2013 with the goal of letting people stream content from phones to televisions.
Sara Fischer / Axios:
X sues the World Federation of Advertisers, GARM, and GARM members CVS Health, Mars, Orsted, and Unilever over what Linda Yaccarino calls an “illegal boycott”  —  Members include major tech companies, advertisers, agencies, ad tech firms and advertising coalitions.
More: New York Times, The Register, TechCrunch, Platformer, BBC, Adweek, Mashable, Rumble, The Verge, Ars Technica, New York Post, The Hollywood Reporter, The Independent, The Hill, Reclaim The Net, Android Headlines, Engadget, IGN, PYMNTS.com, Fast Company, Business Insider, MobileSyrup, Financial Times, Bloomberg, Deadline, Wired, CoinGape, Quartz, The Information, Digiday, Thurrott, Tech Xplore, Boing Boing, and Variety
Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
Behind the YouTube influencers, WhatsApp and Telegram groups, and services like FewFeed fueling Facebook's problem of creators profiting from viral “AI slop”  —  Gyan Abhishek is standing in front of a giant touch screen, like Jim Cramer on Mad Money or an ESPN talking head analyzing a football play.
The Verge:
Steve Lohr / New York Times:
Google losing its US antitrust case may have major ripple effects for Apple, Amazon, and Meta, just as Microsoft's loss in 2000 influenced the Google decision  —  Nearly a quarter-century after Microsoft lost a similar case, a judge's decision that Google abused a monopoly in internet search is likely to have major ripple effects.
CNBC:
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:
Reddit Q2: revenue rose 54% YoY to $281.2M, vs. $254M est., Daily Active Uniques increased 51% YoY to 91.2M, and net loss dropped from $41.1M to $10.1M YoY  —  Reddit reported second-quarter results on Tuesday that topped analysts' estimates.  —  Here are the key numbers:
John Schulman / @johnschulman2:
OpenAI co-founder John Schulman departs to join Anthropic and focus on AI alignment, and says “I'm not leaving due to lack of support for alignment research”  —  I shared the following note with my OpenAI colleagues today: I've made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI. This choice stems from my desire to deepen my focus on AI alignment, and to start a new chapter of my career where I can return to hands-on technical work. I've decided
Natalie Lung / Bloomberg:
Ryan Smith / AnandTech:
Intel says its Foundry's lead products on Intel 18A are booting and expects the first external customer chip design tape out in H1 2025  —  Following Intel's painful Q2 earnings call and the announcement of their 2025 cost reduction plan last week, it has become increasingly evident …
Natalie Lung / Bloomberg:
Uber reports Q2 revenue up 16% YoY to $10.7B, Gross Bookings up 19% to $40B, vs. $39.7B est., and Mobility Gross Bookings up 23% to $20.6B; UBER closes up 10.9%  —  - Results driven by better-than-expected growth in ridehailing  — Autonomous rides grew six-fold from year ago through partners
Doug Bock Clark / ProPublica:
A researcher finds another flaw in Georgia's voter registration cancellation portal, which has had bugs that made submitting requests for any Georgian trivial  —  The flaw would have allowed anyone to submit a voter registration cancellation request for any Georgian using their name …
Fei-Fei Li / Fortune:
California's AI safety bill will harm developers, open-source development, the public sector, and academia, while failing to address the potential harms of AI  —  Fei-Fei Li, PhD, is a computer scientist who is widely credited with being the ‘Godmother of AI’. … Today, AI is more advanced than ever.
Michelle Pokrass / OpenAI:
OpenAI unveils Structure Outputs in the API, a feature to ensure model-generated outputs match JSON Schemas, and lower pricing for a new version of GPT-4o  —  We are introducing Structured Outputs in the API—model outputs now reliably adhere to developer-supplied JSON Schemas.
Lisa Stiffler / GeekWire:
Seattle-based industrial analytics startup Seeq raised a $50M Series D led by Sixth Street Growth, bringing its total raised to ~$165M  —  Seattle industrial analytics startup Seeq announced on Tuesday that it has landed $50 million in new funding.  The company has raised a total of approximately $165 million from investors to date.
More: Seeq and FinSMEs

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Sara Fischer / Axios:
Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:

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