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August 15, 2024, 1:40 PM
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Top News

Kenrick Cai / Reuters:
Google expands AI Overviews in Search to Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, and the UK in local languages, and adds links beside the AI-generated answers  —  Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL.O) said on Thursday it was expanding its AI-generated summaries for search queries to six new countries …
Bloomberg:
Some publishers say they can't block the Googlebot crawler that covers AI Overviews without hampering their discoverability, as the crawler also covers Search  —  Publishers say blocking the company's AI bot could also prevent their sites from showing up in search
Joseph Menn / Washington Post:
Google says it will remove Showcase.apk from Pixel devices “out of an abundance of precaution”, after iVerify said hackers could use the dormant app to spy  —  Discovery prompted one intelligence contractor to stop issuing Android phones to employees.
Financial Times:
Sources: SoftBank held talks with Intel about making an AI chip to compete with Nvidia, but Intel couldn't meet the requirements; SoftBank is talking to TSMC  —  Son hopes to put Japanese group at centre of artificial intelligence boom but talks with US chipmaker failed to progress
Reuters:
New Zealand signs an extradition order for Kim Dotcom to the US, where he faces criminal charges related to Megaupload; Dotcom has fought extradition since 2012  —  Kim Dotcom, who is facing criminal charges relating to the defunct file-sharing website Megaupload, will be extradited …
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Unit 42: open-source projects from Google, Microsoft, AWS, Red Hat, and others leaked GitHub auth tokens via GitHub Actions; GitHub chose not to fix the issues  —  Multiple high-profile open-source projects, including those from Google, Microsoft, AWS, and Red Hat, were found …
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Google says Iran-backed hacking group APT42 has targeted the Trump and Biden campaigns, as well as Israeli military, government, and diplomatic organizations  —  APT42, which is believed to work for Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, targeted about a dozen people associated with both Trump …
Joseph De Avila / Wall Street Journal:
Eric Schmidt says he “misspoke” when he said Google was losing the AI race because the company decided that “working from home was more important than winning”  —  Ex-Google CEO had said the tech company's work-life balance was ‘more important than winning’
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Q&A with Google SVP Rick Osterloh on the Pixel 9 devices, Android, the smartphone's history, smartphone integration, AI smartphones, Pixel trade-offs, and more  —  An interview with Google SVP Rick Osterloh about the Made with Google event, and understanding the company's approach …
Danny Gallagher / Engadget:
The US FTC announces a final rule banning the sale of fake reviews and testimonials, including AI-generated ones, with fines as high as $50K per violation  —  The new rules prohibit the selling of fake and AI-generated reviews and testimonials in several forms.
Aisha Counts / Bloomberg:
A survey of 430 first-time US Gen Z voters: 60%+ oppose requiring under-16s to get parental consent to use social media and 85%+ oppose notification time limits  —  - Survey polled 430 first-time voters from across the US  — Lawmakers have criticized Instagram, TikTok over child safety
CNN:
A look at the five-person Gen Z team running Kamala Harris' TikTok account @KamalaHQ, capitalizing on the VP's viral moments and averaging 6M views per post  —  Vice President Kamala Harris, quoting her mother, told a group of newly sworn-in commissioners for a White House initiative …
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Epic v. Google: in the final hearing after Epic's antitrust win, the judge says he'll “tear the barriers down” on the Play Store, but won't “micromanage” Google  —  Judge James Donato just made it crystal-clear: Google will pay.
Emilia David / VentureBeat:
Anthropic adds prompt caching in public beta to its API, letting developers cache often used context between API calls on Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Claude 3 Haiku  —  Anthropic introduced prompt caching on its API, which remembers the context between API calls and allows developers to avoid repeating prompts.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Sources: Sonos is considering relaunching its previous mobile app as it works to improve the redesigned version, which launched in May 2024 to negative feedback  —  Sonos has explored the possibility of rereleasing its previous mobile app for Android and iOS — a clear sign of what an ordeal the company's hurried redesign has become.
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Klarna debuts a checking account-like service and a cashback offering in its app in 12 markets, including the US and across Europe, as it prepares for a US IPO  —  Financial technology firm Klarna is pushing deeper into banking with its own checking account-like product and a cashback offering …
Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:
Alibaba reports Q1 revenue up 4% YoY to ~$34B, below ~$34.9B est., and net income down 27% YoY to ~$3.4B, after aggressive promotions failed to drive spending  —  - Net income dived 27% as spending on promotions ballooned  — Commerce shrank in a worrying sign for Chinese consumption
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Images generated by Grok, like Barack Obama doing cocaine and Donald Trump and Kamala Harris with guns, go viral on X, raising questions about Grok's guardrails  —  xAI's Grok chatbot now lets you create images from text prompts and publish them to X — and so far, the rollout seems as chaotic …

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:40 PM ET, August 15, 2024.

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From Mediagazer

Theodore Schleifer / New York Times:
A look at some of the projects looking to raise money from Democratic megadonors as party strategists try to “find the next Joe Rogan”

Matt Stevens / New York Times:
LA mayor Karen Bass issues an executive directive to streamline city processes, lower filming costs, and ease shoots at well-known city-owned locations

Dan Kennedy / Media Nation:
The Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a supplement featuring an AI-generated guide to summer books that do not exist

More News

Earlier Picks

Reuters:
CFIUS fines T-Mobile a record $60M for allegedly failing to prevent and report unauthorized access to sensitive data after its Sprint merger in 2020
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
A look at Germany-based Black Forest Labs, which recently emerged from stealth with a $31M seed led by a16z and whose FLUX.1 model powers Grok's image generator
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
President Biden speaks at the first White House Creator Economy Conference, with about 100 startup founders, industry stakeholders, and creators in attendance
Ari Levy / CNBC:
Cisco reports Q4 revenue down 10% YoY to $13.64B, vs. $13.54B est., and says it's cutting 7% of its workforce, after cutting 5% in February 2024; CSCO jumps 5%+
Joseph Menn / Washington Post:
Access Now and Citizen Lab: Russian spy agencies are using deep knowledge about opponents, reporters, and human rights groups to target them via phishing emails
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