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June 26, 2023, 7:25 PM
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James Vincent / The Verge:
AI is killing the web with spam sites, mass article producing “AI editors”, AI-generated junk on Etsy, Reddit, and Wikipedia that exhausts moderators, and more  —  In recent months, the signs and portents have been accumulating with increasing speed.  Google is trying to kill the 10 blue links.
NewsGuard:
Analysis: in May and June 2023, 141 major brands ran ads, mostly via Google Ads, across 55 low-quality sites with AI-generated articles, some posting ~1,200/day  —  NewsGuard identified 141 brands that are feeding programmatic ad dollars to low-quality AI-generated news and information sites operating with little to no human oversight
Brian Fung / CNN:
A look at how the $42.5B US broadband infrastructure plan will be allocated: Texas leads with $3.3B+, California gets $1.8B+, Missouri gets $1.7B+, and more  —  The Biden administration on Monday outlined how states across the country will be receiving billions of dollars in federal funding …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Meta announces Quest+, a VR subscription service that gives Quest 2, Quest 3, and Quest Pro users access to two games every month for $7.99/month or $59.99/year  —  Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg just announced Quest Plus, the company's new “virtual reality subscription” that gives users access to “the best titles on the platform,” he said.
Will Knight / Wired:
DeepMind co-founder and CEO Demis Hassabis details Gemini, an upcoming ChatGPT rival meant to combine the strengths of AlphaGo-type systems and those of LLMs  —  Demis Hassabis says the company is working on a system called Gemini that will tap techniques that helped AlphaGo defeat a Go champion in 2016.
David Meyer / Fortune:
A last-minute amendment to an Irish bill would let the Data Protection Commission declare some info in privacy complaints as confidential, sparking an uproar  —  European privacy advocates are hopping mad at what they see as an attempt by the Irish government to draw a veil over the activities …
Wall Street Journal:
Databricks plans to acquire generative AI startup MosaicML in a ~$1.3B deal set to close by July 31; MosaicML debuted in 2021, raised $64M, and has 62 employees  —  The deal aims at connecting businesses' data with services to help them build their own, cheaper language models, Databricks CEO says
Jesse Hamilton / CoinDesk:
FTX's bankruptcy team says the exchange owed its customers ~$8.7B after commingling and misusing their deposits, and has recovered ~$7B in liquid assets so far  —  Commingling and misuse of customer and corporate funds occurred from the inception of FTX, says current CEO John J. Ray III.
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Google Pixel Fold review: landscape-first is great for videos and the outer display feels natural, but it's heavy, pricey, and has limited multitasking features  —  If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission.  See our ethics statement.  —  The Google Pixel Fold is a lot of phone.
The Verge:
A survey of 2,000+ US adults finds 57% know of ChatGPT, 46% for Bing Chat, 45% for My AI, and 38% for Bard; only ~33% have used the tools, with Gen Z dominating  —  We polled 2,000 people about how they're using AI, what they want it to do, and what scares them about it the most.
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Decentralized social media app Damus says Apple rejected an app update and asked it to either remove its tipping feature or use Apple's in-app purchase system  —  Damus, a decentralized social networking app backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, will be removed from the App Store due to Apple's strict payment rules.

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More News

Financial Times:
A profile of South Korean engineer Choi Jin-seok, who set out to become a star in China's chip industry after his career stalled and now faces IP theft charges
Hope King / Axios:
Amazon plans to build a local delivery network in 23 states by recruiting thousands of small US businesses, from bodegas to florists, to deliver its packages

Earlier Picks

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
IBM plans to acquire Apptio for $4.6B in cash from Vista Equity Partners, which paid $1.94B to take the cloud IT management startup private in November 2018
Yuval Mann / Ynetnews:
An interview with early Waze investors Yahal Zilka and Ehud Levy on why they invested, the impact of Google's acquisition on Israel's tech industry, and more
Phoebe Liu / Forbes:
A profile of Christina Cacioppo, the co-founder and CEO of data security compliance startup Vanta, which has an ~$80M ARR, a $1.6B valuation, and raised $203M
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