Techmeme
September 13, 2024, 11:50 AM

Top News

Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
All 25 staff of Annapurna's gaming division resigned in September after CEO Megan Ellison pulled out of talks with President Nathan Gary to spin off the unit  —  Megan Ellison-led firm sees staffers quit after spinoff talks fail.  —  The entire staff of Annapurna Interactive …
Jennifer Ouellette / Ars Technica:
Across two experiments with 2,190 American conspiracy theorists, dialogues with GPT-4 Turbo reduced their belief in their chosen conspiracy by ~20% on average  —  Co-author Gordon Pennycook: “The work overturns a lot of how we thought about conspiracies.”  —  Belief in conspiracy theories is rampant …
Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:
OpenAI's o1 models aren't as simple as the next step up from GPT-4o as they introduce major cost and performance trade-offs in exchange for improved “reasoning”  —  OpenAI released two major new preview models today: o1-preview and o1-mini (that mini one is also a preview …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Kylie Robison / The Verge:
More: OpenAI, ZDNET, One Useful Thing, Cognition, The GitHub Blog, CNN, Digits to Dollars, Artificial Ignorance, Business Insider, Wired, Sherwood News, New York Times, MarkTechPost, The Indian Express, AIM, Axios, Proactive, Reuters, Maginative, The Verge, Bloomberg, Axios, Financial Times, and OpenAI
Shakeel Hashim / Transformer:
CNBC:
The White House plans to curb the “overuse and abuse” of the de minimis loophole used by Shein and Temu, which exempts packages worth $800 or less from tariffs  —  The Biden administration announced new steps on Friday to curtail what it calls the “overuse and abuse” …
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Apple plans to allow alt app stores and browser engines on iPads in the EU with iPadOS 18 on September 16, after the EU added iPadOS to the DMA in April 2024  —  It was a matter of time, but Apple is going to allow third-party app stores on the iPad starting next week, on September 16.
Renju Jose / Reuters:
Elon Musk calls Australia's government “fascists” after it unveiled a bill to fine online platforms up to 5% of their global revenue for enabling misinformation  —  Elon Musk, owner of social media platform X, on Friday called Australia's centre-left government “fascists” …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify begins piloting parent-managed accounts for kids under 13 on family plans in select markets, including Denmark, New Zealand, and Sweden  —  Following the moves of other tech giants, Spotify announced on Friday it's introducing in-app parental controls in the form of “managed accounts” for listeners under the age of 13.
More: Spotify and The Verge
Karen Hao / The Atlantic:
Sources: Microsoft has pitched its AI to ExxonMobil, Chevron, and others to find and develop oil and gas reserves while publicly committing to reduce emissions  —  Microsoft executives have been thinking lately about the end of the world.  In a white paper published late last year, Brad Smith …
Financial Times:
Sources paint a bleak picture for startup founders in China; IT Juzi report: only 1,202 startups were founded in the country in 2023 compared to 51,302 in 2018  —  Venture capital finance has dried up amid political and economic pressures, prompting a dramatic fall in new company formation
Paul Sawers / TechCrunch:
In a provisional ruling, the CMA says Vodafone and Three's planned $19B merger could lead to higher prices, diminished service, and reduced investment in the UK  —  The U.K.'s antitrust regulator has delivered its provisional ruling in a longstanding battle to combine two of the country's major telecommunication operators.
Wall Street Journal:
United Airlines plans to start testing Starlink internet service early next year, with the first passenger flights likely equipped with free Wi-Fi later in 2025  —  Airlines see satellites providing faster, more consistent connections  —  Elon Musk may soon provide the Wi-Fi on your United flight.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft plans to make changes to Windows that will help CrowdStrike, Broadcom, Sophos, Trend Micro, and other security vendors operate outside of the kernel  —  Microsoft is announcing plans to make changes to Windows that will help CrowdStrike and other security vendors operate outside of the Windows kernel.
Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg:
Sources: the European Commission is poised to conclude X does not fall under its Digital Markets Act, after a probe found X's impact on EU markets is too small  —  - X to avoid Digital Markets Act's list of dos and don'ts  — Platform still faces a tough time from EU over disinformation
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
The White House says Adobe, Cohere, Microsoft, Anthropic, OpenAI, and Common Crawl made voluntary commitments to fight AI-generated image-based sexual abuse  —  The White House has announced that several major AI vendors, including OpenAI and Microsoft, have committed to taking steps …
Bloomberg:
Sources: CoreWeave is in talks to arrange a sale of existing shares, valuing it at $23B, up from $19.1B in May; shareholders may sell up to $500M  —  - Existing shareholders may sell up to $500 million: sources  — Latest valuation eclipses the $19.1 billion from May round
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Adobe reports Q3 revenue up 11% YoY to $5.41B, vs. $5.37B est., Digital Media revenue up 11% to $4B, Q4 revenue guidance below est.; ADBE drops 9%+ after hours  —  - Company has added AI tools to its signature creative software  — Revenue gains 11% in reported quarter; profit tops estimate

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