Techmeme
August 14, 2024, 1:10 PM

Top News

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple says app developers can offer NFC contactless transactions using the iPhone's Secure Element, separate from Apple Pay and Wallet, starting with iOS 18.1  —  Apple has announced that it is opening up the iPhone's NFC chip using the Secure Element to allow for third-party contactless payments …
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Apple approves Spotify updating its app to show in-app pricing information for iPhone users in the EU starting today, after Spotify's yearslong legal battle  —  Spotify will begin showing in-app pricing information for iPhone users in the European Union starting today, following a yearslong legal battle against Apple.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
xAI launches Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini in beta with improved reasoning and image generation, available now to X Premium and Premium+ users, and later via its API  —  Elon Musk-owned launched Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini in beta today with improved reasoning.  The new Grok AI model can now generate images …
Eli Blumenthal / CNET:
AT&T says it won't carry Google's new Pixel 9 Pro Fold, after selling the original Pixel Fold from 2023; the network will carry the Pixel 9, 9 Pro, and 9 Pro XL  —  The second-generation Google foldable isn't heading to AT&T. The carrier told CNET that it will not be offering Google's newest Pixel Fold to its customers.
Julian Chokkattu / Wired:
Joanna Stern / Wall Street Journal:
Gavin Bonshor / AnandTech:
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X review: the Zen 5 flagship chips are fine for highly threaded productivity workloads, but the gaming issues need to be fixed  —  Earlier this month, AMD launched the first two desktop CPUs using their latest Zen 5 microarchitecture: the Ryzen 7 9700X and the Ryzen 5 9600X.
Joseph Menn / Washington Post:
Access Now and Citizen Lab: Russian spy agencies are using deep knowledge about opponents, reporters, and human rights groups to target them via phishing emails  —  Traditional phishing attacks aimed to break into organizations advocating for Russian dissidents, among others.
Troy Hunt:
A look at the National Public Data breach, first noted in April 2024 and posted publicly last week, and why it's unlikely that “nearly 3B people” were exposed  —  I decided to write this post because there's no concise way to explain the nuances of what's being described as one of the largest data breaches ever.
Ben Dowsett / Wired:
How the English Premier League plans to use 28+ iPhone 14 or newer cameras at stadiums to call offsides later in the 2024/25 season, ditching its VAR system  —  Later this season, the UK's top soccer division will replace its controversial VAR offside-detection system in favor of a whole bunch of Apple's smartphones.
Bloomberg:
Sources: the US DOJ considers its options after the Google monopoly ruling, like forcing a breakup of the company or requiring it to share more data with rivals  —  - Antitrust enforcers soliciting input from outside companies  — Judge ruled Alphabet unit monopolized online search, ads
Dara Kerr / NPR:
Meta shuts down CrowdTangle, less than three months before the US election, in favor of the Meta Content Library; Mozilla says 50K+ petitioned against the move  —  Meta has been bombarded by academics, researchers, politicians and regulators about a tool called CrowdTangle, which most people probably haven't heard of.
Sherry Qin / Wall Street Journal:
Foxconn reports Q2 revenue up 19% YoY to ~$48B and net profit up 6% YoY to ~$1.08B, above ~$1.04B est., on strong AI server demand; its stock is up ~18% in 2024  —  Quarterly revenue rose 19% from a year earlier  —  Foxconn Technology Group reported a 6% increase in quarterly net profit …
Financial Times:
How Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta are using accounting techniques to hide their growing emissions, while working to influence pollution disclosure rules  —  Critics say a proposed change could allow large energy users to hide their true emissions  —  By its own account, Amazon is a green business leader.
Ian King / Bloomberg:
Filing: Intel sold its 1.18M Arm shares during Q2 2024, which would have raised ~$147M for Intel based on the stock's $124.34 average price in the quarter  —  Intel Corp., which is slashing jobs and expenses in a bid to turn around the business, sold its holdings in chip technology creator Arm Holdings Plc during the second quarter.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
The US NIST publishes its first three post-quantum cryptography standards; IBM's director of research thinks quantum will hit an inflection point around 2030  —  It'll still be a while before quantum computers become powerful enough to do anything useful, but it's increasingly likely …

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