Techmeme
July 21, 2023, 2:55 PM

Top News

Makena Kelly / The Verge:
OpenAI, Meta, Google, Microsoft, and others make voluntary AI governance pledges to the White House, including cybersecurity investment and watermarking systems  —  The White House is bringing in AI's top seven companies Friday to make a series of voluntary promises to protect users.
Lindsey Choo / Wall Street Journal:
Sensor Tower: Threads' DAUs declined to 13M, down 70% from the July 7 peak; Similarweb: average time spend on Threads' app declined to four mins, down from 19  —  Data show user engagement has fallen 70% as executives focus on options such as a chronological feed
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Reddit removes the moderators of r/malefashionadvice, one of the biggest subreddits to close protesting Reddit's API changes, and takes charge of the subreddit  —  Reddit is now in charge of r/malefashionadvice, which for a time was the biggest subreddit still closed in protest of the platform's API pricing changes.
Rich Stanton / PC Gamer:
Troy Hunt: the sensitive info of almost 4,000 Roblox Developer Conference attendees from 2017 to 2020 was leaked in 2021; Roblox disclosed the leak this week  —  This may cost the company a few Robux.  —  The major gaming platform Roblox has suffered a major data breach …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: in recent months, Sergey Brin increased his Google visits to three to four days a week, working with researchers on Gemini, an AI model to rival GPT-4  —  Co-founder is working alongside AI researchers at tech giant's headquarters, aiding efforts to build powerful Gemini system
Steve Dent / Engadget:
Telegram launches Stories, initially for its Premium subscribers, letting users control who can see their stories and how long they last before disappearing  —  You can display them forever or make them disappear at various times up to 48 hours.  —  Telegram's new Stories feature is here as promised …
Kevin Collier / NBC News:
The New York MTA says it has used AI-powered surveillance software at seven subway stations in May to track fare evaders, plans to expand to ~12 more this year  —  An MTA spokesperson said the software doesn't flag fare evaders to New York police but declined to comment on whether that policy could change.
Erin Woo / The Information:
Letter: the US SEC subpoenaed Bolt and sent a notice to former CEO Ryan Breslow in 2022 over their past misleading statements to current and potential investors  —  The Securities and Exchange Commission subpoenaed e-commerce software startup Bolt and sent a notice to co-founder …
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
FTX sues Sam Bankman-Fried, Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, and Nishad Singh for the $1B+ they allegedly misappropriated for “pet projects” before FTX's bankruptcy  —  FTX Trading Ltd on Thursday sued founder Sam Bankman-Fried and other former executives at the cryptocurrency exchange …

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Earlier Picks

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Wall Street Journal:
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Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Hannah Lang / Reuters:
Nikkei Asia: