Techmeme
September 7, 2023, 11:05 AM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: China plans to expand its ban on iPhones in sensitive departments to government agencies and state companies, an unprecedented blockade; AAPL drops 3%+  —  - Beijing begins by banning the devices from certain bodies  — It could deal blow to Apple and amplifies a self-reliance push
Tom Phillips / Eurogamer.net:
Source: at Gamescom in August, Nintendo demoed the Switch 2 running a souped up version of Breath of the Wild to developers; the device is expected in 2024  —  Ahead of widely-expected launch next year.  —  News by Tom Phillips Editor-in-Chief  —  In Cologne last month …
Dylan Smith / TucsonSentinel.com:
Molly Holzschlag, aka “mollydotcom”, a longtime advocate for the open web and accessible, inclusive online design standards, died at 60 on September 5  —  Pioneer of online design & accessibility  —  Molly Holzschlag, whose pioneering work in online design standards led to her being dubbed …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Google plans to update Chrome to incorporate its Material You design language in the coming weeks, including refreshed icons and new color palettes  —  Chrome on the desktop is about to get a new look.  Google's widely used browser is getting an update based on its Material You design language …
CNBC:
Riot reports earning $31.7M in energy credits from Texas power grid operator ERCOT to curtail its usage in August, dwarfing the ~$8.9M worth of bitcoin mined  —  - Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms raked in $31.7 million in energy credits from Texas power grid operator ERCOT in August.
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Microsoft says Chinese hackers who in June breached US government email accounts stole an MSA key from a crash dump after hacking a Microsoft engineer's account  —  Microsoft says Storm-0558 Chinese hackers stole a signing key used to breach government email accounts from a Windows crash dump …
Lane Brown / Vulture:
How Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer, an important metric in entertainment, became erratic and reductive as some PR firms hack its score by paying obscure “critics”  —  In 2018, a movie-publicity company called Bunker 15 took on a new project: Ophelia, a feminist retelling of Hamlet starring Daisy Ridley.
Sandali Handagama / CoinDesk:
An IMF and Financial Stability Board paper warns jurisdictions against blanket bans on crypto, recommending targeted restrictions and sound monetary policy  —  The global standard-setters also warned stablecoins adopted by multiple jurisdictions “may transmit volatility more abruptly” than other crypto.
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Android Security Bulletin for September 2023 patches a privilege escalation zero-day flaw in Android 11-13 that “may be under limited, targeted exploitation”  —  The September 2023 Android security updates tackle 33 vulnerabilities, including a zero-day bug currently targeted in the wild.
Joe Coscarelli / New York Times:
Ghostwriter, the anonymous creator who used AI to mimic Drake and The Weeknd, has met with record labels, Grammy organizers, and more, and releases a new song  —  The anonymous artist, who stirred conversation with the A.I. track “Heart on My Sleeve,” has been quietly consulting with executives, while also gunning for a Grammy.
Vishal Chawla / The Block:
Vitalik Buterin co-authors a paper on “Privacy Pools”, a blockchain protocol to verify the legality of user funds without revealing a full transaction history  —  - Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin co-authored a research paper on a privacy protocol named Privacy Pools.
Wall Street Journal:
Flexport CEO Dave Clark resigns after one year at the company, which he joined from Amazon; sources: Clark is considering a potential run for governor of Texas  —  The former Amazon senior executive is considering a potential run for governor of Texas, according to people familiar with the matter
Jay Peters / The Verge:
YouTube plans to drop some Studio ad controls, limiting creators' control over pre-roll, post-roll, skippable, and non-skippable ads, starting in November 2023  —  YouTube is making some notable changes to the ad controls available to creators.  Beginning in November, YouTube …
Walter Isaacson / TIME:
An excerpt from the new Elon Musk biography details an argument with Larry Page in 2013 over the dangers of AI, how he founded OpenAI and xAI, and more  —  At a conference in 2012, Elon Musk met Demis Hassabis, the video-game designer and artificial—intelligence researcher who had co-founded …
Natasha Singer / New York Times:
UNESCO report: overreliance on online learning during COVID-19 led to “staggering” education inequality and hindered discussion on equitable, lower-tech options  —  Heavy reliance on online remote learning during the pandemic drew attention away from more equitable ways of teaching children at home, a UNESCO report says.
Wayne Ma / The Information:
Source: Apple's budget for training AI is now millions of dollars per day; its conversational AI team Foundational Models has ~16 people led by Ruoming Pang  —  Apple has been expanding its computing budget for building artificial intelligence to millions of dollars a day.
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
OpenAI announces its first developer conference, OpenAI DevDay, on November 6 in San Francisco, and plans to livestream a keynote presentation  —  OpenAI will host its first developer conference this fall, as the ChatGPT-maker looks to bolster interest in its products while facing growing competition …
Alistair Charlton / Forbes:
BMW drops plans to offer subscriptions to activate heated seats or other hardware already fitted to its cars, limiting subscriptions to software-based functions  —  BMW has made a U-turn on a controversial subscription service that saw drivers pay a fee to activate the heated seats already fitted to their car.
More: BMW BLOG

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