Techmeme
March 24, 2023, 1:20 PM

Top News

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Twitter plans to wind down its legacy verified program and remove legacy verified checkmarks starting on April 1, 2023  —  The social network, which the mega-billionaire bought last year in a debt-heavy $44 billion deal, announced on Thursday that starting April 1, it will remove …
The Verge:
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
CMA narrows probe of Microsoft's $69B Activision Blizzard acquisition, saying new evidence “provisionally alleviates” concerns about UK game console supply  —  The UK's antitrust watchdog has narrowed its probe of Microsoft's $68.7 billion bid for video game giant, Activision Blizzard, it said today.
Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
Sources: in 2018, Musk said OpenAI lagged behind Google and cut ties after his offer to run it was rejected; Altman took no equity in OpenAI's for-profit entity  —  After three years, Elon Musk was ready to give up on the artificial intelligence research firm he helped found, OpenAI.
Laura Kayali / Politico:
France plans to use large-scale AI-based video cameras for the 2024 Paris Olympics, potentially becoming the first EU country to legalize AI surveillance  —  PARIS — France's AI-powered array of surveillance cameras for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics cleared a final legislative hurdle on Thursday.
Ava Benny-Morrison / Bloomberg:
US prosecutors in New York charge Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon with eight counts, including securities fraud, commodities fraud, and wire fraud  —  Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon, who presided over a more than $40 billion cryptocurrency implosion last year, was charged with fraud by US prosecutors in New York.
Bloomberg:
Bryan Schott / Salt Lake Tribune:
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signs two bills regulating social media apps, including requiring age verification for all users and permission from parents for minors  —  Gov. Spencer Cox, who signed the bills on Thursday, said the state is prepared for a legal fight over the tech company regulations.
Nathan Grayson / Washington Post:
Current and former Twitch staff describe how the service lost its way: out-of-touch leaders, losing big creators, cost cutting, many irrelevant ads, and more  —  The platform's recent moves have confused and upset creators, fans and staff alike  —  For Twitch, the live-streaming platform watched …
Anna Irrera / Bloomberg:
Nasdaq says it expects its custody services for digital assets to launch by end of Q2, starting with Bitcoin and Ether  —  Nasdaq Inc. expects its custody services for digital assets to launch by the end of the second quarter as it joins a growing pool of traditional financial firms …
Reuters:
Xiaomi reports Q4 revenue down 22.8% YoY to ~$9.6B and net income down 67.3% to ~$651M; 2022 revenue fell 14.7% to ~$40.7B and net income fell 61.4% to ~$1.2B  —  Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp (1810.HK) on Friday posted a 22.8% drop in fourth-quarter revenue to 66.05 billion yuan ($9.6 billion).
More: Reuters
Alexandra Bruell / Wall Street Journal:
Axios HQ, the software business spun off from Axios in 2022, raised a $20M Series A at a $100M valuation to build communication tools with the help of OpenAI  —  Axios HQ to use ChatGPT maker OpenAI to improve tools that help clients write emails, headlines
Rohan Goswami / CNBC:
Binance's public chatrooms show some employees and support volunteers helping customers bypass China's crypto ban, including evading the company's KYC checks  —  - Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has touted the exchange's know-your-customer systems, known as KYC, as a billion-dollar effort.
Bloomberg:
Shou Chew's answers to hostile questioning did little to calm the bipartisan fury aimed at TikTok, instead giving critics more fuel to insist the US ban the app  —  TikTok Chief Executive Shou Chew's appearance in Congress on Thursday did little to calm the bipartisan fury directed at the viral video-sharing service.
Washington Post:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Expedia, Instacart, Kayak, Klarna, OpenTable, Shopify, Slack, Wolfram, Zapier, and others release the first third-party ChatGPT plugins  —  OpenAI's viral AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT, can now browse the internet — in certain cases.  —  OpenAI today launched plugins for ChatGPT …
OpenAI:

Sponsor Posts

ElevenLabs:
ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs  —  You know us for voice.  Now meet ElevenAgents — featuring Expressive Mode, our most human-sounding AI voice technology in 70+ languages with ultra-low latency.  Hear it for yourself.
Intel:
5G's most deployed platform  —  Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN.  That's the power of Intel Inside®
Zoho:
Introducing intelligent document processing with Zoho RPA  —  Documents are a major bottleneck at many organizations.  Invoices, contracts, forms, ID cards, receipts: They all arrive in different shapes and sizes …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Grit:
How Kevin Mandia Built the Most Trusted Name in Cybersecurity
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
Anthropic's $1B to $19B growth run: how Claude became the fastest-growing AI product in history | Amol Avasare
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI buys TBPN, SpaceX's $2 Trillion IPO?, Iran Disables Amazon Infrastructure
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Hard Fork:
The Future of Addictive Design + Going Deep at DeepMind + HatGPT
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Great Chat:
Go touch some grass (but don't tweet about it)
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ryan Roslansky: Turning AI Anxiety into Skills for the Future of Work
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:20 PM ET, March 24, 2023.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

Reuters:
CNBC: