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Techmeme
August 9, 2023, 2:40 PM

Top News

CNBC:
Sony reports Q1 revenue up 33% YoY to $20.7B, PS5 sales up 38% YoY to 3.3M, operating income down 31% YoY to ~$782M, and expects to sell 25M PS5s by March 2024  —  Sony on Wednesday reported a 31% fall in profit in the first fiscal quarter as its life insurance unit dragged on its bottom line …
CNN:
Filing: Twitter was fined $350K for not giving Trump's account data after special counsel Jack Smith got a warrant in January 2023; Twitter ultimately complied  —  The special counsel investigation into Donald Trump secured a search warrant of the former president's Twitter account …
Greg Stohr / Bloomberg:
SCOTUS lets Apple keep its App Store payment rules for now, rejecting an Epic request that would have let developers start directing users to cheaper options  —  - Supreme Court justice won't let appeals court ruling kick in  — Epic seeking to open App Store to lower-priced alternatives
David Pierce / The Verge:
Slack unveils its biggest redesign yet, adding a Home section, a left sidebar, a DMs section similar to the one in Teams, and “a unified inbox” Activity window  —  Slack is many things.  Which is kind of the problem. … Eventually, that even affects the “talk to your team” …
Blake Brittain / Reuters:
Gizmodo EIC Dan Ackerman sues Apple, the Tetris Company, and others, accusing them of adapting his book about Tetris into a feature film without his permission  —  Dan Ackerman, editor in chief of the tech-news website Gizmodo, filed a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court on Monday accusing Apple …
Aaron Pressman / The Boston Globe:
Boston-based cybersecurity company Rapid7 lays off 18% of its staff, or ~470 people, and reports Q2 revenue up 14% YoY to $190M and net loss up 69% YoY to $67M  —  The Boston-based cybersecurity firm said the cuts will enable it to continue to grow while also freeing up cash
Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg:
Take-Two reports Q1 net revenue up 17% YoY to $1.28B, net bookings up 20% YoY to $1.2B, and forecasts $8B in bookings for the next fiscal year, hinting at GTA 6  —  Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., the company behind video games like Grand Theft Auto, rose in extended trading …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google finally adds a native Google Translate option to its Gmail app on Android, gradually rolling out now, and on iOS, rolling out starting on August 21, 2023  —  Google is finally adding a native translate capability to Gmail for Android and iOS after long supporting it on the web client.
Josh Ye / Reuters:
China plans to require that app developers file business details with the government or face sanctions from March 2024, likely creating headaches for developers  —  China will require all mobile app providers in the country to file business details with the government, its information ministry said …
Elizabeth de Luna / Mashable:
X begins making ad revenue payouts to smaller creators, after issuing payments to select accounts in July 2023; how X calculates the payouts remains unclear  —  ‘$8 to make $370 is a fantastic ROI for something I do anyway,’ one creator tweeted. … X is finally paying smaller creators …
Ava Benny-Morrison / Bloomberg:
Sources: former FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Salame is talking with prosecutors to plead guilty to criminal charges and may enter a plea as soon as September  —  - Ryan Salame was the co-chief executive of FTX Digital Markets  — Salame would be fourth former FTX executive to plead guilty
Geoffrey A. Fowler / Washington Post:
CCDH: ChatGPT, Bard, My AI, DreamStudio, DALL-E, and Midjourney generated “pro-anorexia” content 41% of the time when asked about common eating disorder topics  —  Disturbing fake images and dangerous chatbot advice: New research shows how ChatGPT, Bard, Stable Diffusion …
Joel Khalili / Wired:
Sex workers who use crypto to store wealth and accept payment, bypassing the banking system, are finding the limits of its utility amid the regulatory scrutiny  —  Banks and payments companies have long penalized sex workers.  Many thought crypto would be a solution, but now exchanges are dumping them too.
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Intel fixes a chip flaw found by a Google researcher that could let attackers steal sensitive data like passwords, affecting Skylake, Tiger Lake, and Ice Lake  —  The vulnerability could allow attackers to take advantage of an information leak to steal sensitive details like private messages, passwords, and encryption keys.
Ben Weiss / Fortune:
Aptos Labs partners with Microsoft to build a ChatGPT-powered Aptos Assistant and plans to host validator nodes on Azure; GitHub will add Aptos' Move to Copilot  —  Since the A.I.-hype train reached full speed earlier this year, there's been no shortage of crypto entrepreneurs trying to get a piece of the action.
Andrew Tarantola / Engadget:
The US launches a DARPA-led contest to build AI systems that can spot and fix software vulnerabilities, with help from Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI  —  The winning systems will be able to analyze and correct vulnerable code in critical infrastructure.
Varsha Bansal / Rest of World:
A look at the Indian Institutes of Technology, established in the 1950s and 1960s to emulate MIT and now comprising 23 schools offering a path to tech success  —  Indian tech entrepreneur Kesavan Kandadai has many accomplishments under his belt: launching Amazon Prime Video in India and founding …
Will Oremus / Washington Post:
A look at Def Con's White House-backed Generative Red Team Challenge, where contestants try to make AI chatbots go rogue; the results will be sealed for months  —  Chatbots can be biased, deceptive or even dangerous.  Hackers are competing to figure out exactly how.
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
YouTube plans to stop showing recommended videos in some places, including on the homepage, if a logged-in user's watch history feature is turned off entirely  —  Recommended videos keep users engaged on YouTube, but starting today, YouTube will stop showing recommended videos in some places …

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UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
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