Techmeme
July 21, 2023, 4:45 PM

Top News

Makena Kelly / The Verge:
OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon, Anthropic, and Inflection make voluntary AI promises to the White House, like cybersecurity investment and watermarking  —  The White House is bringing in AI's top seven companies Friday to make a series of voluntary promises to protect users.
Lindsey Choo / Wall Street Journal:
Sensor Tower: Threads' DAUs declined to 13M, down 70% from the July 7 peak; Similarweb: the average time spent in the app has decreased from 19 minutes to four  —  Data show user engagement has fallen 70% as executives focus on options such as a chronological feed
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Reddit removes three moderators and takes charge of r/malefashionadvice, one of the biggest subreddits to close in protest of the platform's API pricing changes  —  Reddit is now in charge of r/malefashionadvice, which for a time was the biggest subreddit still closed in protest of the platform's API pricing changes.
Rich Stanton / PC Gamer:
Troy Hunt: the sensitive info of almost 4,000 Roblox Developer Conference attendees from 2017 to 2020 was leaked in 2021; Roblox disclosed the leak this week  —  This may cost the company a few Robux.  —  The major gaming platform Roblox has suffered a major data breach …
Julie Coleman / CNBC:
Digital World Acquisition Corp., which is seeking to take Truth Social public via a SPAC merger, settles fraud charges with the US SEC for $18M; DWAC is up 50%+  —  - Shares of Digital World Acquisition Corp. soared more than 50% on Friday after the company reached an $18 million dollar fraud settlement with the SEC.
Steve Dent / Engadget:
Telegram launches Stories, initially for its Premium subscribers, letting users control who can see their stories and how long they last before disappearing  —  You can display them forever or make them disappear at various times up to 48 hours.  —  Telegram's new Stories feature is here as promised …
Kevin Collier / NBC News:
NYC's MTA used AI-powered surveillance software at seven subway stations in May 2023 to track fare evaders, and plans to expand to ~12 more by the end of 2023  —  An MTA spokesperson said the software doesn't flag fare evaders to New York police but declined to comment on whether that policy could change.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: in recent months, Sergey Brin increased his Google visits to three to four days a week, working with researchers on Gemini, an AI model to rival GPT-4  —  Co-founder is working alongside AI researchers at tech giant's headquarters, aiding efforts to build powerful Gemini system
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
How Vietnam-based 1Byte, which sells TheTruthSpy stalkerware, created networks of fake sellers with forged US passports to evade detection and funnel payments  —  A network of fake sellers allowed a global phone surveillance ring to operate under the radar for years

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