Techmeme
July 19, 2023, 12:20 PM

Top News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft and Activision Blizzard agree to extend their merger agreement to October 18, pending the outcome of negotiations with UK regulators  —  Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have agreed to extend their merger agreement pending the outcome of negotiations with UK regulators.
Or Goren / Cord Busters:
Netflix removes its $10 Basic tier, its most affordable ad-free tier, in the US and UK for new and rejoining members  —  This post may contain affiliate links*  —  Breaking: In a major shakeup of its pricing model, Netflix, the global streaming giant, has abandoned its low-cost ‘Basic’ tier …
Todd Haselton / CNBC:
Microsoft's stock closed up 4% at $359.49 on July 18, an all-time high, after announcing pricing for Microsoft 365 Copilot service; MSFT is up ~50% in 2023  —  - Microsoft shares rallied to an all-time high after the company announced pricing for its new Microsoft 365 artificial intelligence subscription service.
Will Shanklin / Engadget:
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
Sources: Google is internally piloting an opt-in program where some employees will be restricted to internet-free PCs to reduce the risk of cyberattacks  —  - Google is enlisting employees for a pilot program to work without internet access.  — The search giant, which is undergoing …
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Hands-on with Framework Laptop 16, a modular gaming laptop that lets you replace and upgrade the whole GPU, for pre-order starting at $1,399 for the DIY edition  —  Four layers of modular components — including a swappable discrete GPU — right at your fingertips.
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Rapid7: threat actors have exploited zero-day RCE flaws in Adobe ColdFusion and Citrix NetScaler; Citrix patched its flaw but Adobe issued an incomplete fix  —  The exploited code-execution flaws are the kind coveted by ransomware and nation-state hackers.  —  Organizations big and small …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Review of $350 Beats Studio Pro headphones: nice transparency mode, lossless USB-C audio, native iOS and Android support, but subpar build quality for the price  —  They look like a lazy refresh from the outside, but the noise-canceling Studio Pros include a ton of new features like transparency mode and lossless USB-C audio.
Gene Park / Washington Post:
A look at “non-playable character” TikTok creators, like Pinkydoll, who livestream themselves doing robotic and repetitive actions for digital tips  —  On TikTok, a woman named Pinkydoll with a thousand-yard stare faces you, undulating just enough to let you know she's alive.
Axios:
Sources: Vox Media plans to stop using Chorus, its CMS that the company licensed to external publishers from 2018 to 2022, and move its websites to WordPress  —  Vox Media, the parent company to websites such as New York Magazine, Eater and SB Nation, will no longer use Chorus …
Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Unity launches PolySpatial, announced in conjunction with Vision Pro at WWDC to help developers port and create a 3D experience for Apple's visionOS, in beta  —  Unity this morning announced that it has opened the beta version of its development platform for visionOS.
Matthew Humphries / PCMag:
Intel grants Asus a non-exclusive license to its NUC designs; Asus will make and sell 10th to 13th gen NUC systems and can develop new system designs  —  The agreement covers existing NUCs and allows Asus to design new models. … , Asus is granted a non-exclusive license to Intel's NUC designs …
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Over 8,500 authors sign an Authors Guild letter asking AI leaders to get consent and fairly compensate writers when using copyrighted material for generative AI  —  If you ask GPT-4 to do a passage in the style of Carmen Machado or Margaret Atwood or Alexander Chee, it will do a fair job at it …
Ryan Smith / AnandTech:
Samsung says it has completed the development of its first generation GDDR7 DRAM, slated for 2024, with a 32Gbps data transfer rate, up ~33% from GDDR6's 24Gbps  —  Samsung has announced this evening that they have completed development on their first generation of GDDR7 memory.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Unstructured.io, which offers a service to extract and stage enterprise data in a way that LLMs can understand, raised $25M across a Series A and seed  —  Large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI's GPT-4 are the building blocks for an increasing number of AI applications.
More: Newcomer
Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
Jon Gertner / New York Times:
A look at the Wikipedia community's debates about AI, including threats and potential benefits to the site, knowledge creation, truthfulness, and legal recourse  —  Can the online encyclopedia help teach A.I. chatbots to get their facts right — without destroying itself in the process?
Brian Fung / CNN:
The DOJ and the FTC release draft updates to US merger guidelines, introducing potentially comprehensive changes to reviews for the first time in over a decade  —  The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday released a set of long-anticipated draft updates …

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Alex Barinka / Bloomberg:
The Verge:
Andy Maxwell / TorrentFreak:
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Natasha Mascarenhas / The Information: