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 …

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
5 common accounting mistakes  —  This is a guest post by Yaali Bizappln Solutions.  A lot of businesses manage their customers and finances on separate platforms.  This disconnect often leads to missed invoices …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 11/21 - What The DOJ Wants Google To Do
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:10 PM ET, August 14, 2024.

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

Nic Fildes / Financial Times:

Earlier Picks

Bobby Allyn / NPR:
Blake Brittain / Reuters:
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Abner Li / 9to5Google: