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July 12, 2023, 10:50 PM
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Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
Elon Musk forms xAI, a startup he will lead to “understand the true nature of the universe”; the staff has worked at Google, Microsoft, Tesla, OpenAI, and more  —  Elon Musk announced a new AI company today, xAI. all the team members listed on the website appear to be men.
The Verge:
The FTC files to appeal a US court ruling that cleared the way for Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard; the existing TRO expires at 11:59pm PT on July 14  —  The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says it is appealing a recent US federal court order that cleared the way for Microsoft to purchase Activision Blizzard.
Reuters:
The UK CMA will not accept new Microsoft and Activision Blizzard remedies but says a restructured deal may satisfy its concerns, subject to a new investigation  —  Britain's competition regulator said on Wednesday that a new restructured Microsoft-Activision deal could require a fresh merger investigation.
Colin Lecher / The Markup:
A congressional investigation led by Senator Elizabeth Warren finds popular tax filing tools “recklessly” sent data, like income, to Meta and Google for years  —  The investigation was opened in response to work published last year by The Markup
Ash Parrish / The Verge:
Xbox tests reactive voice chat moderation, letting Xbox Insiders report 60-second audio clips of inappropriate voice messages for the Xbox safety team to review  —  Rolling out today to Xbox Insiders, the new reporting feature will allow players to capture and submit 60-second audio clips …
Toby Bochan / CoinDesk:
In a major policy shift, Google Play now lets developers incorporate tokenized digital assets, such as NFTs, into their Android apps and games  —  The company is opening up the ability for developers to let users buy, sell or earn digital assets in apps as long as they maintain transparency and adhere to other rules.
New York Times:
Microsoft says Chinese hackers gained access to US government email accounts and had access to at least some accounts for a month before the breach was detected  —  The hack, by a Chinese group that the company said was intent on conducting espionage, went undetected for a month.  —  Reporting from Washington
Washington Post:
In June, the US State Department told Microsoft that its emails in the company's cloud were hacked; attackers stole a Microsoft key and hacked ~25 orgs' emails
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Meta says Roblox is coming to Meta's Quest 2, Quest Pro, and Quest 3, starting with an open beta on App Lab “in the coming weeks”, with cross-platform support  —  / It's launching in open beta in the ‘coming weeks.’  —  Roblox will be coming to Meta's Quest VR headsets starting …
Richard MacManus / The New Stack:
A look at Meta's plan to adopt ActivityPub for Threads, how ActivityPub suits Meta's goals, and the technical challenges and social pressure facing the company  —  From a developer point of view, the fact that Meta's Threads app has quickly gone over 100 million sign-ups isn't the most interesting part of this latest Twitter clone.
Shira Ovide / Washington Post:
Travelers can say no to a TSA facial recognition scan, but some TSA agents tell travelers the scan is required or that refusing will cause a significant delay  —  Let's ask two questions about airports' use of facial recognition: Is it truly voluntary?  And is it worth it?
More: New York Post.  Twitter: @greta, @ajlamesa, @pettypropolis, and @evan_greer.  Forums: r/Columbus
Andrew Deck / Rest of World:
A look at the global freelancer labor force on sites like 99designs, some of whom are early generative AI adopters and are most at risk of being replaced by AI  —  The global labor force of outsourced and contract workers are early adopters of generative AI — and the most at risk.  —  R
Chainalysis:
Crypto crime in H1 2023 vs. H1 2022: inflows to known illicit entities fell 65% YoY, scammers took nearly $3.3B less, and ransomware attackers made $175.8M more  —  2023 so far has been a year of recovery for cryptocurrency after a chaotic 2022, with prices of digital assets like Bitcoin up over 80% on the year as of June 30.
Davey Alba / Bloomberg:
Sources reveal how contractors audit Bard's answers in subjects ranging from medication doses to state laws, sometimes with deadlines as short as three minutes  —  Google's Bard artificial intelligence chatbot will answer a question about how many pandas live in zoos quickly, and with a surfeit of confidence.
Jack Schickler / CoinDesk:
The European Securities and Markets Authority issues detailed proposals on crypto companies under the EU's MiCA law; more are due in October 2023 and early 2024  —  Consultations cover authorization and conflict-of-interest rules for crypto companies under the landmark digital assets regulation
Aaron Holmes / The Information:
Cloud security startup Orca sues Israeli competitor Wiz in the US for allegedly illegally copying patented software that monitors data stored on cloud servers  —  Fierce competition between two of the hottest and most highly valued security startups has turned into a legal battle.
Reuters:
Recursion, which uses AI models for drug discovery, plans to use its 23K+ TB datasets to train its models on Nvidia's cloud platform and raised $50M from Nvidia  —  Nvidia (NVDA.O) invested $50 million to speed up training of biotech firm Recursion's (RXRX.O) artificial intelligence models …

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:50 PM ET, July 12, 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.

From Mediagazer

Edward Helmore / The Guardian:
AG Todd Blanche defends the White House ban on CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, saying access is “a privilege” and Trump is “sick and tired” of inaccurate reporting

Scott Nover / Washington Post:
The White House blocked CNN from traveling with President Trump on Air Force One on Saturday to Knoxville, Tennessee, jeopardizing the rotational TV pool

Brian Steinberg / Variety:
NBCUniversal plans to expand the sponsorship model it used for SNL's 50th anniversary in 2025 for the three-hour NBC 100th anniversary special on December 10

More News

Heather Haddon / Wall Street Journal:
Domino's Pizza partners with Uber Eats in the US, the UK, Canada, and 25 other markets, reversing its long-held stance against working with food delivery apps
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
The EU approves Broadcom's $61B VMware acquisition, provided Broadcom adheres to its access and interoperability commitments; UK and US approvals are pending

Earlier Picks

David Kirton / Reuters:
Research: Huawei is plotting a return to the 5G smartphone market by the end of 2023 using its own 14nm+ chip design tools and SMIC's 7nm chipmaking process
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Twitter's best defense against Threads may be to refocus on news and reactions from people users follow, leaving user growth via an algorithmic feed to Threads
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