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June 21, 2023, 12:10 PM
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| Annie Palmer / CNBC: |
The US FTC files a lawsuit against Amazon over allegedly using “dark patterns” to enroll customers in Prime without consent and “sabotaged” attempts to cancel — - The FTC on Wednesday sued Amazon, alleging it tricked customers into signing up for its Prime subscription program …
More: Federal Trade Commission, The Verge, New York Times, PCMag, BleepingComputer, Bloomberg, Gizmodo, Insider, VICE, The Information, The Hill, Engadget, TechCrunch, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, New York Post, Financial Times, Politico, Axios, Cord Cutters News, and WRAL TechWire
LinkedIn: Jeffrey Roberts. Twitter: @kristakbrown, @davenewworld_2, @linakhanftc, @megangra, @eugenekim222, @richardhanania, @ftc, @ftc, @douglaslfarrar, @matthewstoller, @deitaone, @tomgara, @ddayen, @alfredwkng, and @tomwarren
Forums: Hacker News and r/technology
| Will Douglas Heaven / MIT Technology Review: |
A look at the recent debates in the AI industry over existential risks, as what were once considered extreme views have now become mainstream talking points — “Ghost stories are contagious.” — Who's afraid of the big bad bots? A lot of people, it seems.
More: Associated Press, BEUC, TechCrunch, Mashable, Cryptopolitan, and Cointelegraph
LinkedIn: Rob Foster. Mastodon: @TNLNYC@mastodon.social. Twitter: @senschumer, @datasociety, @ieet, @beuc, @fchollet, @phuenermund, @mark_riedl, and @internetdaniel
| Jeremy Diamond / CNN: |
A look at the White House's urgent push for AI regulation, as Biden meets with a group of AI experts for a non-industry perspective on risks and opportunities — President Joe Biden huddled in the Oval Office with several of his top advisers in early April as an aide typed prompts into ChatGPT …
More: Washington Post, The Verge, Silicon Valley Business …, Associated Press, Washington Post, South China Morning Post, The Hill, The Hill, The White House, Los Angeles Times, Reuters, Tech News Outlet, Politico, NBC Bay Area, The White House on YouTube, Cointelegraph, CNBC, NBC News, Metaverse Post, FedScoop, and ChinaTechNews.com
| Josh Dzieza / The Verge: |
A look at the vast and mostly hidden “tasker” underclass, including subject-matter experts, hired by companies like Scale AI to annotate data for AI training — As the technology becomes ubiquitous, a vast tasker underclass is emerging — and not going anywhere.
Bluesky: @sarahjeong.bsky.social, @knguyen.bsky.social, and @yoyoel.com
Mastodon: @stshank@mstdn.social, @alastairmrushworth …, and @mhoye@mastodon.social
Twitter: @jwherrman, @saedelstein, @joshdzieza, @chrisgayomali, @caseyjohnston, @niamh_mcintyre, @beneltham, @cfarivar, @joshdzieza, @bernstein, @lil_mermaid, @nostalgiatrap, @gvsmith, and @dylanmatt. Forums: r/artificial. Thanks:@ants000
| Zosha Millman / Polygon: |
Ali Selim, executive producer of Marvel's Secret Invasion, says Method Studios used AI to create the opening credits — ‘It just came right out of the shape-shifting, Skrull world identity’ — The world of Secret Invasion is decidedly sketchy. With thousands of shapeshifting Skrulls on Earth …
More: Tech Advisor, VentureBeat, Decrypt, Forbes, The Verge, Metro, Mashable, Deadline, GameSpot, Variety, TheGamer, and Dexerto
Bluesky: @saltybretzel.bsky.social. Twitter: @jonlamart, @hairyshortstack, @bobbymiller, and @discussingfilm
Forums: r/MarvelStudios_Rumours and r/television
| Todd Bishop / GeekWire: |
Amazon plans to hold Prime Day on July 11 and July 12 and introduce an invite-only Prime Days deals program; an Indian version will be held “later this summer” — Amazon will hold its 2023 Prime Day sales event on Tuesday, July 11, and Wednesday, July 12, the Seattle-based e-commerce giant announced tonight.
More: About Amazon, MacRumors, XDA Developers, ZDNet, Thurrott, Fortune, TechSpot, iPhone in Canada Blog, SlashGear, iClarified, Engadget, CNBC, Macworld, MobileSyrup, Variety, iMore, Digital Trends, The Verge, Android Police, Tom's Guide, BGR, Engadget, PhoneArena, IGN, Pure Xbox, CNET, TechRadar, Tech Advisor, 9to5Toys, TechCrunch, NBC News, AppleInsider, Polygon, and Cord Cutters News
| Kana Inagaki / Financial Times: |
Masayoshi Son says SoftBank plans to go on the “counteroffensive” soon by resuming AI investments; the group has $35B+ after halting investments in recent years — Billionaire chief talks up AI and reveals he had breakdown in October where he questioned his achievements as an entrepreneur| Sawdah Bhaimiya / Insider: |
In a tweet reply, Elon Musk says Twitter considers “cis” and “cisgender” slurs and “the contemptible creep” who “manufactured” the term “has serious problems” — - Elon Musk said terms like “cisgender” and “cis” are now considered “slurs” on Twitter.
More: Gizmodo, Fortune, New York Post, Transgender World, and Forbes
Bluesky: @lolgop.bsky.social. Twitter: @elonmusk, @jamesesses, @jk_rowling, @internethippo, @jonfavs, @elonmusk, @rvawonk, @marionumber4, @jdcmedlock, @mattgertz, @elonmusk, @walshfreedom, @keffals, @erininthemorn, @csmfht, and @fmanjoo. Forums: r/daverubin
| David Pierce / The Verge: |
Dropbox debuts two AI tools: one for summarizing documents, and Dash, an ambitious universal search engine that aims to be the “Google for your personal stuff” — Dropbox is launching two different but related AI-powered services into its platform.| Jay Peters / The Verge: |
Discord plans to let creators sell “Downloadables”, one-time digital purchases, and rolls out Media Channels in beta, designed for videos, photos, and files — Discord plans to give creators a new way to make money from their communities by selling digital products via one-time purchases.
More: Discord Blog, Music Ally, Dexerto, Eurogamer.net, and PC Gamer
| Maria Streshinsky / Wired: |
Q&A with Christopher Nolan, the director of Oppenheimer, on AI improving images in filmmaking, the parallels between nuclear weapon development and AI, and more — The Oppenheimer director says AI is not the bomb. His new movie might still scare you shitless.| Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: |
Instagram now lets US users download Reels posted by public accounts, adding a watermark logo and the account name for sharing, which TikTok has done for years — Instagram is finally letting users download Reels posted by others so they can share them outside the app.
More: PhoneArena, Mashable, WeRSM, Engadget, Pricebaba.com Daily, Digit, India Today, Livemint, Techlusive, SamMobile, Business Standard, and Neowin
| Jay Peters / The Verge: |
Reddit suspended some moderators after they changed their subreddits to NSFW as “incorrectly marking a community as NSFW” violates its content and mod policies — Reddit has started removing moderator teams managing subreddits that switched the labeling on their communities to Not Safe For Work …
More: VICE, PCMag, New York Times, 9to5Mac, TechSpot, Engadget, Bloomberg, and Kotaku
Twitter: @mattcassinelli. Forums: r/ModCoord, r/technology, r/mildlyinteresting, r/antiwork, r/RedditAlternatives, r/ModCoord, r/ModCoord, r/apolloapp, and r/inthenews
| Financial Times: |
TikTok tests Trendy Beat, a new section selling popular items from videos, in the UK; filings and sources say the products are sold by a ByteDance-owned entity — ByteDance experiments with selling its own products through viral app as it prepares to challenge Shein and Amazon| Rick Porter / The Hollywood Reporter: |
Netflix tweaks its weekly top 10 rankings to sort by “views”, calculated by dividing the time spent watching a film or a show in a week by its running time — The streamer's weekly rankings will now show the most popular titles by number of accounts watching as well as total time.| Kat Bailey / IGN: |
In a major reorganization, EA splits EA Games and EA Sports, and renames the former as EA Entertainment, signaling the company's possible expansion beyond games — EA is undergoing a major internal reorganization, with EA Games being renamed “EA Entertainment.”
More: Electronic Arts Inc., Game Developer, Bloomberg, Pocket Gamer.biz, KitGuru, TechPowerUp, PCMag, TrueAchievements, TechSpot, Gameranx, Video Games Chronicle, Push Square, Pure Xbox, Press Start, Game Rant, Destructoid, TheGamer, GamingBolt, Eurogamer.net, Gamereactor UK, Appuals.com, GamesIndustry.biz, Stevivor, GameSpot, The Hollywood Reporter, Dexerto, and PC Games Insider
LinkedIn: Laura Miele and David Tinson
Forums: r/PS4, r/pcgaming, r/Madden, r/PS5, and r/Games
| Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch: |
Twitch plans to require that streamers add new content labels for streams with sexual themes, graphic violence, drug use, gambling, or “significant” vulgarity — Twitch is rethinking the way it flags mature content, swapping its existing toggle for a more granular set of topic-specific labels.
More: Twitch, Neowin, Engadget, Eurogamer.net, GamesIndustry.biz, The Verge, PC Games Insider, and Dexerto
| Yonhap News Agency: |
Sources: YouTube plans to launch its first official shopping channel for live commerce, set to open in South Korea on June 30 with content from ~30 brands — YouTube will launch its official shopping channel in South Korea for live commerce later this month for the first time in the world … | Lulu Yilun Chen / Bloomberg: |
Ant is developing LLM tech for ChatGPT-style services under “Zhen Yi”, a project by a dedicated unit using in-house research; Ant invested ~$2.8B in R&D in 2022 — Jack Ma-backed Ant Group Co. is developing large-language model technology that will power ChatGPT-style services … | Kate O'Keeffe / Wall Street Journal: |
Sources: during the Trump administration, the US tracked Huawei and ZTE workers in Cuba, suspecting the companies were helping China expand its spying abilities — Intelligence bolstered suspicions telecom giants might be playing role in expansion of China's capabilities on island| Xinghui Kok / Reuters: |
Memo: Grab CEO Anthony Tan tells staff the company plans to cut 1,000+ jobs, or 11% of its workforce, citing costs and ensuring “even more affordable services” — Singapore-based Grab Holdings (GRAB.O), Southeast Asia's leading ride-hailing and food delivery app …
More: Grab SG, Bloomberg, Livemint, International Business Times, CNBC, The Register, Associated Press, Nikkei Asia, Tech Xplore, Tech in Asia, and PYMNTS.com
Twitter: @luxentx, @xinghui_kok, @chairman_glc, and @tevanraj
| Associated Press: |
Bernie Sanders opens a Senate investigation into Amazon's warehouse safety practices and writes to Andy Jassy about “egregious health and safety violations” — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has opened a Senate investigation into Amazon's warehouse safety practices … | Bloomberg: |
The US, the EU, Japan, and India have committed $100B+ combined for chip subsidies; chipmakers argue inflation, energy, and tech advances increased plant costs — The global race to build domestic factories and sever dependency on overseas suppliers for these critical components is spurring a spending boom … | Connie Loizos / TechCrunch: |
Q&A with Jason Del Rey, the author of Winner Sells All, on how Walmart plays catch up to Amazon, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon's tenure, Amazon's missteps, and more — Jason Del Rey has spent the last 15 years reporting on e-commerce businesses, including Walmart and Amazon.
More: GeekWire
| Mia Sato / The Verge: |
Patreon adds a free membership tier for the first time and plans to let creators sell one-off downloadable products such as videos and podcasts, taking a 5% cut — Patreon built a user base with creators who wanted to charge a fee for the content they create.
More: TechCrunch
| Brad Stone / Bloomberg: |
In his new book, The Coming Wave, DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman proposes a “modern Turing test” to measure if an AI is “artificial capable intelligence” — A new book floats a provocative idea for testing whether machines are capable of human-like intelligence.| Dylan Tokar / Wall Street Journal: |
Google Cloud launches Anti Money Laundering AI, an API used by HSBC, Banco Bradesco, and Lunar that relies on AI instead of the industry's rules-based system — The company is looking to set itself apart from a crowded field of surveillance platforms by reducing the amount of human input …
More: Metaverse Post and Finbold
| Tom Warren / The Verge: |
Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Activision's Bobby Kotick, and Sony's Jim Ryan plan to testify in court over the US FTC's bid to block Microsoft's Activision deal — Microsoft is sending CEO Satya Nadella, Xbox chief Phil Spencer, and many other Xbox executives to defend against its Federal Trade Commission …
More: WinBuzzer, Push Square, Metro, Gameranx, Wccftech, Gamereactor UK, Pure Xbox, Bloomberg, and Reuters
Twitter: @tomwarren, @stephentotilo, @tatianaking, @bdsams, @senninsage, @kiraafter_dark, and @tomwarren
Forums: r/xboxone and r/XboxSeriesX
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