Techmeme
November 14, 2024, 1:30 PM

Top News

Javier Espinoza / Financial Times:
The EU fines Meta €797.72M for tying Facebook Marketplace to Facebook and “imposing unfair trading conditions” on rival websites, the first such fine for Meta  —  Facebook is undermining rivals by ‘tying’ its free Marketplace services with the social network, Brussels says
Bloomberg:
Polymarket says the FBI seized CEO Shayne Coplan's phone and electronics; source: the DOJ is investigating Polymarket for allegedly accepting bets from US users  —  - Polymarket says FBI agents seized CEO's phone, electronics  — Platform has taken recent measures to weed out US traders
David Pierce / The Verge:
Google releases a new free Gemini app for iOS, letting users ask questions and chat via text, voice, or camera, as well as use conversational Gemini Live  —  In the AI chatbot world, ubiquity is everything.  Companies have raced to build desktop and mobile apps for their bots …
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Sources: the CFPB moves to place Google under formal federal supervision, an extraordinary move that may lead to regular inspections; Google fiercely resisted  —  The agency aims to conduct more rigorous direct oversight of the tech firm, a major move that Google has resisted in the final months of the Biden administration.
John Voorhees / MacStories:
Apple releases updates to Final Cut Pro, adding AI-generated closed captions and Vision Pro spatial video editing, and Logic Pro for macOS and iPadOS  —  Today, Apple revealed the latest updates to Final Cut Pro for the Mac and iPad, with both offering a variety of new features and simplified workflows.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google says real-time protections against scam calls and malicious apps are rolling out on Pixel 6 or newer devices and coming soon to more Android phones  —  After demoing at I/O 2024 in May, Google is rolling out real-time Scam Detection for phone calls on Pixel devices.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Adam Mosseri says Threads had “more than 15M signups in November alone” and it is “going on three months with more than a million signups a day”  —  Bluesky might be on the rise, but Instagram and Threads boss Adam Mosseri wants you to know that Threads is still much bigger.
Bloomberg:
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Google plans to stop showing political ads to users in the EU in 2025 due to uncertainties around new transparency rules coming into effect in October 2025  —  Google has announced it will stop showing political ads to users in the European Union next year due to uncertainties around the bloc's new transparency regulations.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Google updates Maps to help users search for products like home goods, clothing, and electronics and find stores nearby, improve traffic reporting, and more  —  Google has added some new travel and shopping features to Maps that aim to make it easier to find local products and stay on time during busy periods.
Dwarkesh Patel / Dwarkesh Podcast:
Q&A with pseudonymous AI researcher Gwern Branwen on anonymity, the grand theory of intelligence, seeing LLM scaling early, AGI timelines, blogging, and more  —  Legacy & Anonymity in the Age of AGI  —  Gwern is a pseudonymous researcher and writer.  He was one of the first people to see LLM scaling coming.
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
UK consumer rights group Which? launches a legal claim against Apple, seeking £3B in compensation, alleging that Apple locked ~40M UK users into iCloud services  —  U.K. consumer rights group ‘Which?’ is filing a legal claim against Apple under competition law on behalf of some 40 million users …
New York Times:
A look at “blind box livestreaming”, an e-commerce trend in China that has become an entertaining and, some users and experts said, addictive pastime  —  How many plastic trinkets would you end up with?  The game keeps many addicted, buyers and spectators alike.
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
FBI and CISA: Chinese hackers breached multiple US telecom companies, compromising the “private communications” of US officials and stealing customer call data  —  CISA and the FBI confirmed that Chinese hackers compromised the “private communications” of a “limited number” …
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
The EU publishes its first draft of a Code of Practice under the AI Act for general-purpose AI models, including provisions for copyright and systemic risk  —  A first draft of a Code of Practice that will apply to providers of general-purpose AI models under the European Union's AI Act has been published …
Financial Times:
Sources: the FTC plans to probe allegations that Microsoft is abusing its market power in productivity software to prevent customers from leaving Azure  —  FTC chair Lina Khan continues to pursue Big Tech in final days of Biden presidency  —  The Federal Trade Commission is preparing …
More: Reuters
Zac Bowden / Windows Central:
Microsoft releases Windows 11 ISOs for Arm64 PCs, letting users clean install Windows via official offline media, including the latest Snapdragon X Copilot+ PCs  —  Windows 11 ISOs for PCs with an Arm64 processor are now officially available, but older Snapdragon laptops will need to jump through additional hoops to get them working.
Bloomberg:
Foxconn reports Q3 revenue up 20% YoY to a record ~$57.01B, a ~$1.5B net income, vs. ~$1.41B est., and expects half of its server orders in 2025 to be for AI  —  - Both beat quarterly profit estimates thanks to AI servers  — Hon Hai cloud products to match mobile phone sales in 2025

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