Techmeme
September 24, 2024, 6:40 PM

Top News

Larry Dignan / Constellation Research:
Google Cloud debuts Gemini 1.5 Flash and 1.5 Pro with a 2M context window, twice as big as before, “grounding” for better Google search accuracy, and new agents  —  Google Cloud launched a series of updates including new Gemini 1.5 Flash and 1.5 Pro models with a 2 million context window …
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
New York Times:
Sources: Mark Zuckerberg wants to get away from politics, pulling back from charitable causes that may seem partisan, tamping down employee activism, and more  —  It was only a little more than a decade ago that Mark Zuckerberg had few qualms about airing his politics.
Brady Dale / Axios:
Caroline Ellison, a star witness in the prosecution of FTX founder and former boyfriend SBF, is sentenced to two years in prison for her role in the FTX scandal  —  - “I've seen a lot of cooperators in 30 years. … - She talked to the government prior to Bankman-Fried's arrest …
Gaby Del Valle / The Verge:
The US DOJ sues Visa, alleging it has an illegal monopoly over debit network markets and has tried to unlawfully crush competitors, including PayPal and Square  —  The financial service company reportedly tried to ‘smother’ competitors and feared Apple as an ‘existential threat.’
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Spotify rolls out its AI Playlist feature in beta to Premium subscribers in the US, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, after launching in the UK and Australia  —  Spotify is expanding an AI feature that creates customized playlists from your text descriptions to additional English-speaking regions.
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Marques Brownlee says “I hear you” after criticism of his new freemium wallpaper app Panels, over privacy concerns, a $50/year price for full access, and more  —  Marques Brownlee, the YouTuber known as MKBHD, has responded to backlash over the launch of his new wallpaper app, called Panels.
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
OpenAI adds five voices to Advanced Voice Mode, which is now rolling out to ChatGPT Plus and Teams users and, next week, to enterprise and education users  —  OpenAI announced it is rolling out Advanced Voice Mode (AVM) to an expanded set of ChatGPT's paying customers on Tuesday.
Katie Kilkenny / The Hollywood Reporter:
SAG-AFTRA calls a strike against League of Legends, formerly strike exempt, filing an NLRB complaint and saying Formosa Interactive also refuses “fair AI terms”  —  The union charges one of the multiplayer game's producers, Formosa Interactive, with attempting to work around …
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Google updates Google Photos' mobile video editor for Android and iOS, adding editing tools and AI presets that should make trimming and tweaking clips easier  —  Features coming to Android devices include a new “Speed” tool for creating slo-mo or sped-up videos, a new “Auto enhance” …
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
TikTok says it plans to shut down TikTok Music on November 28 and delete user data; originally called Resso, the app launched in 2019 and was in five countries  —  TikTok Music will go offline on Nov. 28 and customer data will be deleted, the music division said in a post on its website.
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Stability AI says filmmaker James Cameron has joined its board of directors  —  The director says that “the intersection of generative AI and CGI image creation is the next wave” of film technology, as he joins the company behind the popular Stable Diffusion AI model.
Rohan Goswami / CNBC:
Collaboration software maker Smartsheet agrees to be acquired by Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners for ~$8.4B, or $56.50/share, set to close in January 2025  —  Collaboration software maker Smartsheet on Tuesday announced Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners will acquire it in an all-cash deal valuing …
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
The world's second largest money transfer company, MoneyGram, blames an unspecified “cybersecurity issue” for an ongoing days-long outage affecting its users  —  U.S.-based money transfer giant MoneyGram has blamed an unspecified “cybersecurity issue” for an ongoing days-long outage affecting the company and its users.

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