Techmeme: A profile of Akili, which makes a US FDA-cleared game designed to treat ADHD in children; Akili raised $160M+ after going public via a SPAC deal in August 2022 (Rebecca Heilweil/Vox)

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October 9, 2022, 1:30 AM

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Nitasha Tiku / Washington Post:

An interview with Character.ai's founders, who say they left Google's LaMDA project to let users experiment with the latest in language AI through chatbots — The creators of Google's LaMDA have launched the chatbot startup Character.ai, which is open for anyone to try

More: The Week. Tweets: @tsimonite, @timnitgebru, @damianpaletta, @drewharwell, @catherineflick, @tobywalsh, @memotv, @hypervisible, @deliprao, @nitashatiku, @nitashatiku, and @mlittmancs

Cameron Thompson / CoinDesk:

DappRadar: the most daily active users on Decentraland ever was 675 while The Sandbox has had ~4,503; Messari: each metaverse platform has a ~$1.3B market cap — While metaverse platforms Decentraland and The Sandbox both have below 1,000 daily active users, they each have over $1 billion in valuation.

More: Web3 is going just great and CryptoSlate

Tweets: @jathansadowski, @silvermanjacob, @cardillosamuel, @ahcastor, and @carnage4life

Emma Camp / Reason:

Critics say the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, a digital privacy law for minors, could lead to invasive age verification methods like face-scanning — While the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act was hailed as a victory for digital privacy, critics warn of a litany of unintended consequences.

Tweets: @reason, @reason, and @eff

Andy Chalk / PC Gamer:

Blizzard plans to require Overwatch 2 and Modern Warfare 2 players to use 2FA system SMS Protect to combat toxicity, but won't accept prepaid and VoIP numbers — Just like Overwatch 2, you'll need to attach a phone number to your Battle.net account to play Modern Warfare 2—and prepaid phones aren't allowed.

More: Engadget, Dot Esports, and Fortune

Rebecca Heilweil / Vox:

A profile of Akili, which makes a US FDA-cleared game designed to treat ADHD in children; Akili raised $160M+ after going public via a SPAC deal in August 2022 — The future of video games is about more than just fun. — On the frosty planet of Frigidus, a virtual world full of icy caverns …

Tweets: @gamingthemind, @hallowelltodaro, and @jcalpickard

Ron Miller / TechCrunch:

New York City-based Alkymi, which offers no-code workflow automation tools for business users, raised a $21M Series A led by Intel Capital — Alkymi launched in 2017 with a goal of helping financial services companies automate mundane tasks, a kind of lightweight RPA to grab information …

More: Alkymi, Alkymi, and FinSMEs

Tweets: @work_bench and @alkymi_inc

Lauren Feiner / CNBC:

Biden signs an EO to implement Privacy Shield 2.0, the EU-US data transfer framework seeking to address EU concerns of surveillance by US intelligence agencies — - President Joe Biden signed an executive order to implement a new framework to protect the privacy of personal data shared between the U.S. and Europe.

Natalie Wong / Bloomberg:

A look at business email compromise scams involving US real estate, and the small Secret Service team that helped recover $244M+ in stolen BEC funds since 2019 — For weeks, the Secret Service agent had been trying to identify the scammers moving millions of stolen dollars through banks around the New York tri-state area.

Tweets: @amyokruk, @daniellesacks, @natalexisw, @jeneps, @secretservice, and @joelwebershow

Kyle Alspach / Protocol:

An interview with CEO George Kurtz as CrowdStrike surpasses $2B in annual revenue and looks to become a bigger player in data observability and IT operations — CrowdStrike is finding massive traction in areas outside its core endpoint security products, setting up the company to become …

More: SC Media. Tweets: @kylealspach and @crowdstrike

Wall Street Journal:

How HBO Max, Prime Video, and other streamers are trying to grow in a crowded market, including, sources say, via discounted bundles and deals with rivals — In a crowded marketplace, Amazon, HBO Max and other streamers explore discounted packages and partnerships with rivals

More: The Verge and Mashable

Tweets: @michaelmiraflor, @jstrauss, @bonecondor, @modestproposal1, and @jposhaughnessy

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From Mediagazer

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Trump says Stephen Colbert is a “pathetic trainwreck” and “CBS should, ‘put him to sleep,’ NOW”, after CBS aired a Late Show rerun in which Colbert mocked Trump

Henry Blodget / Regenerator:

Bari Weiss' 60 Minutes decision may have been a way to both signal that she's serious about shifting CBS' sensibility to the right and “improve” a story

Rebecca Rubin / Variety:

Disney crosses the $6B milestone at the box office for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic; no other studio has managed to reach $6B since 2015

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More News

Victoria Song / The Verge:

Fitbit Sense 2 review: superior stress tracking and a great UI, but no Google Assistant or third-party apps, pricey at $300, and it can't be called a smartwatch

More: Tech Advisor and Tom's Guide. Tweets: @vicmsong

Steve Haske / Ars Technica:

A history of consumer VR since 2012, from the first Oculus developer kit and the 2016 hype cycle to the Quest 2, and what mainstream VR success could look like

More: The Future of the Church …. Tweets: @zipbangwow, @zipbangwow, @zipbangwow, @zipbangwow, @aidaakl, @zipbangwow, @ghostm55, and @russ_shilling

Financial Times:

An overview of Parag Agrawal's tenure as Twitter's CEO, struggling with a declining business performance and a plunging morale amid Elon Musk's takeover bid

More: The Verge. Tweets: @martinsfp

Wataru Suzuki / Nikkei Asia:

CB Insights: Vision Fund 2 made just one investment in August 2022 and one in September 2022, as SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son rethinks his strategy

Tweets: @nikkeiasia and @trengriffin

Financial Times:

Sources: Chinese online fast fashion retailer Shein has been valued at $65B to $85B in private markets in recent months, down from $100B+ in an April 2022 round

Tweets: @_inpractise, @eleanorolcott, and @jchengwsj

Casey Ross / STAT:

New US federal rules requiring health care organizations to give patients access to their full health records in a digital format went into effect on October 6

Tweets: @matthewherper, @erictopol, @dradamdangoor, @rasushrestha, and @caseymross

Earlier Picks

Kate Rooney / CNBC:

FTX partners with Visa to offer debit cards linked to users' FTX accounts in 40 countries, focusing on Latin America, Europe, and Asia, after their US rollout

Tim Keary / VentureBeat:

NYC-based Elpha Secure, which offers SMBs cybersecurity software alongside cyber insurance policies, raised a $20M Series A led by Canapi Ventures

More: ReinsuranceNe.ws, Elpha Secure Technology Inc., and SecurityWeek

Leah Nylen / Bloomberg:

Filing: in its case against Meta's Within acquisition, the FTC asks a judge to remove some allegations of anticompetitive effects in the VR fitness app market

More: Wall Street Journal, The Economic Times, and United States District Court, Northern District of California

Tweets: @leah_nylen, @adamkovac, @jeffreywestling, and @matthewstoller

Forbes:

Binance plans to cease most trading pairs involving Helium Network Tokens, or HNT, over the next week and “strongly” advises users to close out their positions

Tweets: @sarahnemerson, @davidjeans2, and @can

Elizabeth Howcroft / Reuters:

Binance says 2M BNB, worth ~$570M, were stolen from its BNB Chain in an exploit; “majority” of BNB are in the hacker's wallet, ~$100M worth were “unrecovered”

More: Wired, BNB Chain Blog, CNBC, Coinmonks, The Guardian, New York Times, Web3 Digest, HackRead, Cryptopolitan, Pandaily, CoinJournal, Security Affairs, Metacurity, Subtle_Crypto, The Record, Politico, Victor's Thoughts, Inside Bitcoins, NBC News, CNN, Gizmodo, Blockworks, PC Gamer, CryptoPotato, The Register, Tom's Hardware, The Daily Hodl, iPhone in Canada Blog, PaymentSecurity.io, Fast Company, NewsBTC, CoinDesk, SiliconANGLE, Tech Monitor, BleepingComputer, PYMNTS.com, TheStreet, Crypto Adventure, WRAL TechWire, Fortune, Protos, Crypto Briefing, Wall Street Journal, TechRadar, Finbold, Reuters, CoinGape, ZyCrypto, Coinpedia Fintech News, TechCrunch, The Block, Crowdfund Insider, International Business Times, Finbold, SecurityWeek, Cryptopolitan, Coinmonks, PYMNTS.com, Cryptonews, Forkast, Blockchain News, The Block, The Verge, Crypto Daily, crypto.news, Infosecurity, CoinGeek, CoinJournal, Coinspeaker, CryptoPotato, Quartz, Ethereum World News, Finextra, Bitcoinist.com, Financial Times, Engadget, Decrypt, Tech News, CryptoSlate, This Week in Web3, Mashable, Fortune, NewsBTC, Decrypt, CoinDesk, BankInfoSecurity.com, Web3 is going just great, The MexicaNFTimes, Blockworks, Tech in Asia, Coinpedia Fintech News, CoinGape, The Great Reset Diary 2022, Bitcoin News, and Bloomberg

Karissa Bell / Engadget:

Meta warns 1M Facebook users that their account info may have been stolen by 400+ apps on the App Store and Google Play that have a “Login with Facebook” button