Techmeme
October 15, 2024, 4:00 PM

Top News

Tim Hardwick / MacRumors:
Apple unveils an updated iPad mini with A17 Pro, Apple Intelligence, and the same 8.3" display, starting at $499 with 128GB of storage, available to pre-order  —  Apple today announced a significant update to the iPad mini, featuring the powerful A17 Pro chip and support for the company's new Apple Intelligence system.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Google rolls out Android 15 to Pixel devices, adding privacy features like a “private space” for apps, security tools, and foldable and tablet improvements  —  Android 15 is now rolling out to Pixel devices, bringing them new privacy features, security tools, and improvements for foldables and tablets.
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Google rolls out a personalized Shopping feed based on recent searches and YouTube history, coming to mobile first, and adds AI-generated shopping tips  —  Google Shopping is rolling out a personalized feed that shows you a stream of products you might like.
Michael Kan / PCMag:
Chrome begins disabling uBlock Origin as part of Google's plan to phase out Manifest V2 extensions; uBlock Origin has 39M+ downloads on the Chrome Web Store  —  The browser is doing so as part of Google's plan to phase out older Manifest V2 extensions to bolster Chrome's security.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Meta rolls out “activity status” to Threads that shows a green dot next to a user's profile picture to show the user is online, if they have the feature enabled  —  Meta is adding an “activity status” to Threads so that you can see who's actively online as you're scrolling your feed.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
YouTube rolls out new features: granular playback speed controls, an improved miniplayer on iOS and Android, updated playlists, a sleep timer, and more  —  YouTube is making official a number of updates that it's been testing in recent months, like the new miniplayer and several design updates.
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
The FIDO Alliance debuts Credential Exchange Protocol, a specification to make passkeys portable across systems, and Passkey Central, a developer resource site  —  “Passkeys,” the secure authentication mechanism built to replace passwords, are getting more portable and easier for organizations …
Paul Alcorn / Tom's Hardware:
Intel and AMD forge an x86 ecosystem advisory group to ensure a unified x86 instruction set architecture moving forward, amid competition from Arm and RISC-V  —  Cats and dogs, living together!  —  In a rare public-facing display of cooperation between two of the industry's fiercest rivals …
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
WordPress plugin Jetpack releases a critical security update to fix a bug letting logged-in users access forms from website visitors, in all versions since 2016  —  WordPress plugin Jetpack released a critical security update earlier today, addressing a vulnerability that allowed a logged …
Alexandra Bruell / Wall Street Journal:
The NYT sends a cease-and-desist letter to AI startup Perplexity to stop using its content; Perplexity says it is “interested in working with every” publisher  —  Publisher demands that Perplexity stop accessing its content.  Startup isn't interested “in being anyone's antagonist,” CEO says.
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Ward Christensen, co-inventor of the computer bulletin board system (BBS), a foundational technology of the internet age, died at age 78 on October 11  —  On Friday, Ward Christensen, co-inventor of the computer bulletin board system (BBS), died at age 78 in Rolling Meadows, Illinois.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Spotify starts rolling out music videos in beta for Premium subscribers in 85 additional markets, after introducing the feature in 12 markets earlier in 2024  —  Music streaming company Spotify said today that it is testing music videos for premium users in 85 additional markets.
Chris Kornelis / New York Times:
Lillian Schwartz, one of the first artists to use a computer to make films and who brought together art, science, and tech communities in the 1970s, died at 97  —  Early in the digital era, she worked at Bell Labs on the intersection of art and technology, making films and at one point arriving at a novel theory about the “Mona Lisa.”
Cagan Koc / Bloomberg:
ASML reports Q3 order bookings down 53% QoQ to €2.6B, far below €5.39B est., and Q3 net income of €2.1B, in results apparently released early; ASML drops 15%+  —  - The chip gear maker's orders missed estimates in third quarter  — ASML cut its guidance for next year on chip sector weakness
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
UK podcaster Harry Stebbings' 20VC raised a $400M fund for early stage startups, one of Europe's biggest venture funds; the podcast recently hosted Sam Altman  —  British firm 20VC pulls in $400mn to invest in early stage tech start-ups  —  A venture firm founded by 28-year-old British …
Rashi Shrivastava / Forbes:
Decagon, which offers enterprises AI-powered customer service agents, raised a $65M Series B led by Bain Capital Ventures, valuing it at $650M  —  Companies are pitting AI-powered customer service agents against one another.  Decagon's CEO Jesse Zhang says his company's AI software has won time and again.
LinkedIn: Jesse Zhang
Jeremy Gray / PetaPixel:
Adobe says its Firefly Video Model is the first “commercially safe” text-to-video generative AI model that was trained on licensed and public domain content  —  Adobe unveiled its Firefly Video Model last month, previewing a variety of new generative AI video features.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:

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