Techmeme
June 20, 2023, 11:10 AM

Top News

Jane Zhang / Bloomberg:
In a surprise move, Alibaba names Eddie Wu as CEO, replacing Daniel Zhang, and Executive Vice Chairman Joseph Tsai as Chairman; Zhang will continue as Cloud CEO  —  Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is replacing eight-year veteran chief Daniel Zhang at the helm of a Chinese e-commerce leader bleeding market share …
Billy Perrigo / TIME:
Documents show OpenAI lobbied for parts of the EU's AI Act to be watered down, including successfully avoiding its general purpose AI being deemed “high risk”  —  The CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, has spent the last month touring world capitals where, at talks to sold-out crowds …
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
The Anti-Meta Fedi Pact, circulated on Mastodon, pledges to block Meta's planned ActivityPub service, a petty and insular move that will keep Mastodon small  —  The Anti-Meta Fedi Pact: … Yours truly, on Bluesky a month ago (which, ironically, is not yet open itself, so here's an open preview):
Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
Source: Spotify plans a more expensive “Supremium” tier with HiFi audio, audiobooks, and more, launching outside the US later in 2023; Premium costs $9.99/month  —  Spotify Technology SA is planning a more expensive subscription option that's expected to include high-fidelity audio …
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Apple expands Self Service Repair to the iPhone 14 range, 13-inch MacBook Air with M2, and 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro and Max, starting June 21  —  Apple today announced that its self-service repair program will be expanding to the iPhone 14 lineup, 13-inch MacBook Air with the M2 chip …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
After complaints about spam by Indian users, WhatsApp adds the ability to automatically silence calls from unknown numbers and a Privacy Checkup feature  —  WhatsApp has introduced a new feature to automatically silence calls from unknown numbers.  This comes after multiple customers in India …
Alexander Osipovich / Wall Street Journal:
Crypto exchange EDX Markets, backed by Citadel, Fidelity, and Charles Schwab, quietly began executing trades in recent weeks, offering a noncustodial service  —  EDX Markets won't directly handle customers' digital assets or directly serve individual investors
Frank Chaparro / The Block:
Binance begins running nodes on the Bitcoin Lightning Network, part of a plan to use the service for deposits and withdrawals to alleviate network congestion  —  - Binance confirmed Tuesday it has started the process of integrating the Lightning Network.  — They would join rivals Kraken and Bitfinex who have already integrated it.
Frank Chaparro / The Block:
Filings: FTX paid $121.8M in legal, consulting, and financial services fees between February 1 and April 30, as some former clients push to reboot the exchange  —  - FTX's bankruptcy estate paid $121.8 million in legal, consulting and financial services fees and expenses between February 1 and April 30 …
New York Times:
GOP lawmakers target Wikimedia, Graphika, and others in a legal campaign, accusing them of colluding with the government to suppress conservative speech online  —  A legal campaign against universities and think tanks seeks to undermine the fight against false claims about elections, vaccines and other hot political topics.
Sabrina Ortiz / ZDNet:
Vimeo announces AI tools, coming on July 17, to automate parts of the video creation process: a script generator, a teleprompter, and a text-based video editor  —  Have you ever had a great video idea that you just never got to because of how much work was involved?

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Earlier Picks

Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Tracy Qu / South China Morning Post:
Jon Pincus / The Nexus Of Privacy: