Techmeme
October 24, 2023, 3:15 PM

Top News

David Pierce / The Verge:
Automattic plans to acquire Texts, a $15-per-month messaging app that works with WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, LinkedIn, Signal, Telegram, and more, for $50M  —  Automattic, the company that runs WordPress.com, Tumblr, Pocket Casts, and a number of other popular web properties …
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple schedules a “Scary Fast” event for October 30 at 5PM PT; in the event teaser, an Apple logo morphs into the macOS Finder icon, suggesting a Mac focus  —  Apple today announced its second fall event of 2023, with the online event set to be held on Monday, October 30 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time.
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
California and 41 other US states sue Meta in federal and state courts alleging that Facebook and Instagram features are addictive and aimed at kids and teens  —  - A bipartisan group of 42 attorneys general is suing Meta, alleging features on Facebook and Instagram are addictive and are aimed at kids and teens.
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch:
California's DMV suspends Cruise's deployment and driverless testing permits, ending the GM self-driving car subsidiary's robotaxi operations in San Francisco  —  The California Department of Motor Vehicles said Tuesday it has immediately suspended Cruise's deployment and driverless testing permits …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple will update tvOS with a redesigned TV app around December and remove some of its dedicated apps on the Apple TV to steer more users to the TV app  —  - Company envisions one place for customers to find video  — Dedicated apps for buying movies and shows will be phased out
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Pebble, the Twitter alternative formerly known as T2, plans to shut down, having maxed out at 3,000 DAUs, despite decent early retention and invite conversion  —  The grip Twitter, now called X, has on the market may be stronger than some believed.  Unfortunately, that's led …
Benedict Evans:
A Twitter user since 2007 on why he left: Elon Musk brought chaos to Twitter and boosts conspiracy theories, white supremacists, and antisemitic dog whistles  —  Twitter always used to look a lot like Craigslist.  It stumbled into something that a lot of people found very useful …
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
A paper from Geoffrey Hinton and other experts warns of AI systems' worrying capabilities and says 33% of companies' AI R&D budgets should go to managing risks  —  Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton, two of the so-called AI godfathers, have joined with 22 other leading AI academics …
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Sources: many people inside Apple do not believe its own AI/ML team can deliver on generative AI, and worry that the company will only use that team's output  —  Speaking of Mark Gurman, he has an interesting bit about Apple's AI efforts in his latest Power On column:
Kenza Bryan / Financial Times:
EU environmental groups criticize Apple branding its new Apple Watches as “carbon neutral” and using credits to cancel out the 7kg to 12kg of emissions per unit  —  iPhone maker flags credentials of its latest Watch products as EU seeks to clamp down on ‘greenwashing’
Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
Spotify Q3: revenue up 11% YoY to €3.4B, MAUs up 26% to 574M, subscribers up 16% YoY to 226M, and €32M operating income, vs. a €44.6M loss est.; SPOT jumps 9%+  —  Spotify Technology SA rose the most since January after the music-streaming giant reported third-quarter results …
David Pierce / The Verge:
A look at POSSE, a decade-old idea that a user should Publish (on your) Own Site and Syndicate Elsewhere, and the challenges of building a system based on that  —  The platform era is ending.  Rather than build new Twitters and Facebooks, we can create a stuff-posting system that works better for everybody.
Marissa Newman / Bloomberg:
Google disables live traffic conditions in Israel and the Gaza Strip for its Maps and Waze apps, a source says at the request of the Israel Defense Forces  —  - Israeli army asked tech giant to limit real-time information  — Google took similar action in Ukraine during war with Russia
Suzanne Smalley / The Record:
Q&A with FTC Commissioner and digital privacy expert Alvaro Bedoya on the agency's plan to hire child psychologists to understand social media's impact on kids  —  I saw and I heard stories from parents about the mental health issues that their children were experiencing and how both the parents and …
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
After Unciphered developed a crack for an old IronKey USB drive to recover 7,002 BTC, the owner declines their help because he agreed to work with other experts  —  Stefan Thomas lost the password to an encrypted USB drive holding 7,002 bitcoins.  One team of hackers believes they can unlock it—if they can get Thomas to let them.

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Earlier Picks

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