Techmeme
November 21, 2024, 7:30 PM

Top News

Kent Walker / The Keyword:
Google says the DOJ's “wildly overbroad proposal goes miles beyond the Court's decision”, would hurt US consumers, and jeopardize the US' global tech leadership  —  President, Global Affairs & Chief Legal Officer, Google & Alphabet  —  As part of its lawsuit over how we distribute Search …
Bloomberg:
Michael Liedtke / Associated Press:
M.G. Siegler / Spyglass:
Paresh Dave / Wired:
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority:
Source: Google has canceled the development of a second-generation Pixel Tablet, planned for release in 2025, due to concerns that it wouldn't sell very well  —  Google is pulling the plug on its next Pixel Tablet, citing fears the product wouldn't sell very well.  —  •  —  TL;DR
Paige Smith / Bloomberg:
The CFPB will supervise tech companies with digital wallets, like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Venmo, with 50M+ annual transactions, treating them more like banks  —  The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will now treat those companies more like banks as long as they handle …
Brady Dale / Axios:
SEC chair Gary Gensler will step down on January 20; it has been traditional for SEC chairs to resign if the administration changes in the middle of their term  —  - “I thank President Biden for entrusting me with this incredible responsibility. … The agency had resisted launching exchange …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is testing a more conversational version of Siri, dubbed “LLM Siri”, with plans to release it in spring 2026 as part of iOS 19 and macOS 16  —  - Company is working on overhaul that employees call ‘LLM Siri’  — Unveiling planned for next year, with rollout coming in 2026
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Adam Mosseri says Threads is rebalancing ranking to prioritize content from people that users follow, warns that creators' “unconnected” reach may go down  —  As Bluesky's user numbers continue to rise, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri says Threads will change its For You page to show fewer posts from accounts you don't follow.
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Meta is rolling out voice message transcripts on WhatsApp globally over the coming weeks in select languages, and says they are generated on users' devices  —  WhatsApp announced on Thursday it's rolling out voice message transcripts.  The Meta-owned company says the new feature will come …
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Jensen Huang says “foundation model pretraining scaling is intact” and models like OpenAI's o1 could play a larger role in Nvidia's business moving forward  —  Nvidia raked in more than $19 billion in net income during the last quarter, the company reported on Wednesday …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
SafeRent, an AI screening tool used by landlords, agrees to pay ~$2.3M to settle a discrimination lawsuit and will no longer display certain tenant scores  —  SafeRent, an AI screening tool used by landlords, will no longer use AI-powered “scores” to evaluate whether someone using housing vouchers would make a good tenant.
James Reddick / The Record:
In its latest security report, Meta says it removed 2M+ accounts this year connected to pig butchering scams conducted from Southeast Asia and the UAE  —  Meta has taken down more than 2 million accounts this year connected to pig butchering scams conducted from Southeast Asia and the United Arab Emirates, the company said Thursday.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Cybersecurity startup Wiz acquires Dazz, a specialist in security remediation and risk management; sources say the cash-and-stock deal is valued at $450M  —  Wiz, one of the most talked-about names in the world of cybersecurity, is making a significant acquisition to expand its product reach …
Steven Levy / Wired:
How Satya Nadella put Microsoft back on top, including by cleaning up its toxic culture, embracing open source, and crafting the OpenAI deal, as it nears 50  —  When Satya Nadella took over as CEO, the company was lumbering and uncool.  He cleaned up a toxic culture, crafted the deal of the decade, and put Microsoft back on top.
Michelle Conlin / Reuters:
Nick Pickles, who left X as VP of Global Affairs in September, joins Sam Altman's Tools for Humanity, which is building World Network, as chief policy officer  —  Nick Pickles, the former head of global affairs at Elon Musk's social media platform X, is joining forces with one of Musk's rivals, his fellow OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman.
Ronan Farrow / New Yorker:
The Trump administration's promises of mass deportations may lead to increased use of spyware like Graphite; ICE has a $2M contract with Graphite maker Paragon  —  Other Western democracies have been roiled by the use of spyware to target political opponents, activists, journalists, and other vulnerable groups.
Guthrie Scrimgeour / Wired:
Hawaii's The Garden Island stops using AI-generated newscasters on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram after two months, likely due to the negative public response  —  A local newspaper in Hawaii experimented with AI-generated presenters to engage and boost its readership.  After two months, the bots have been shelved.

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Anna Gross / Financial Times: