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Techmeme
August 2, 2023, 1:45 PM
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Top News

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
X now lets X Blue subscribers hide their checkmarks, but warns that “the checkmark may still appear in some places” and “some features may not be available”  —  Social media company X, formerly Twitter, now lets paid users hide their verification checkmarks.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
X renames TweetDeck to XPro; the tweetdeck.twitter.com URL and much of the copy remain unchanged, including a “tool for people who live on Twitter” description
Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
Sources: US DOJ officials are considering fraud charges against Binance, but worry that an indictment could cause a run on Binance like the one that befell FTX  —  U.S. Department of Justice officials are considering fraud charges against crypto exchange Binance, but are concerned about the cost …
Wall Street Journal:
Internal Binance data and current and former employees say Chinese users traded ~$90B in crypto assets on the exchange in May 2023, despite China's crypto ban  —  Retaining its Chinese footprint will be crucial for Binance as it faces a global regulatory crackdown
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Amazon plans to roll out the biggest overhaul to its grocery business since buying Whole Foods in the coming weeks, including one cart for supermarket offerings  —  It's revamping stores, unifying online shopping carts and offering fresh-food delivery to customers who aren't Prime subscribers.
Rest of World:
Interviews with people at Worldcoin booths in Nairobi, Bengaluru, and Hong Kong find many scanned their eyes to receive the sign-up bonuses, an “easy $50”  —  In Nairobi, Bengaluru, and Hong Kong, our reporters found lots of people were eager to take the deal.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft now lets Xbox owners stream gameplay from the console to Discord users, rolling out to all Xbox users in the coming months  —  Microsoft is improving its Xbox and Discord integration with a new streaming gameplay feature.  Xbox owners will soon be able to stream their gameplay …
Bloomberg:
Sources: SoftBank's Arm is targeting an IPO at a valuation of between $60B and $70B as soon as September 2023, a sign of bullish interest in AI chips  —  - Chip design firm may raise as much as $10 billion in debut  — Nvidia, Intel are in discussions to be anchor investors
Jen Christensen / CNN:
An early-stage study of 80,000 women in Sweden who underwent a mammogram in 2021 and 2022 finds AI-supported screening increased breast cancer detection by 20%  —  Artificial intelligence found more breast cancers than doctors with years of training and experience and cut doctors' mammogram …
Bloomberg:
China releases draft rules to limit smartphone use by minors, including two hour limits for those age 16 to 18, although enforcement remains unclear  —  - Aims to prevent kids from spending too much time on phones  — Beijing has pursued campaigns to alleviate burden on minors
Emilia David / The Verge:
Meta releases AudioCraft, a new open-source AI model that lets users create music and sounds via prompts, consisting of MusicGen, AudioGen, and EnCodec models  —  It consists of three AI models, all tackling different areas of sound generation.  MusicGen takes text inputs to generate music.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Hopin, the struggling virtual events startup valued at nearly $7.7B in June 2021, sells its Events and Session units to RingCentral for an undisclosed sum  —  Hopin, the virtual events startup that saw its star (and valuation) rise quickly during the Covid-19 pandemic, is most definitely coming down to earth.
Charlie Fink / Forbes:
Inworld, which uses AI to help developers create game characters, raised $30M led by Lightspeed at a $500M+ valuation, following a $50M Series A in August 2022  —  Inworld, which makes AI-driven non-player characters (NPCs) for games and other applications has raised approximately $30 in new funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Reuters:
Senegal blocks TikTok amid protests over arrest of its opposition leader, after restricting access to internet services on July 31  —  Senegalese authorities on Wednesday blocked access to social media app TikTok, widening a clampdown on dissent days after they dissolved the country's main opposition party …
Aidan Ryan / The Information:
Sources: Changpeng Zhao tried to liquidate Binance.US earlier this year, before pivoting to attempting to sell the company, holding talks with Gemini and others  —  Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao attempted to shut down the crypto exchange's U.S. offshoot earlier this year …

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:45 PM ET, August 2, 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

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Memo: Skydance offers certain employees a voluntary buyout in a “one-time offer” and moves to a mandatory five-days-per-week in-office policy

Etan Vlessing / The Hollywood Reporter:
Lionsgate and Steven Paul's SP Media form a JV to invest in new businesses and indie film production; a source says Paul is leading an investment of ~$100M

John Jurgensen / Wall Street Journal:
How Martin McDonagh maintains rare full creative and contractual control over his scripts and productions via an ongoing partnership with Searchlight Pictures

More News

Alex Pasternack / Fast Company:
An interview with Google Jigsaw engineer Lucy Vasserman on how OpenAI, Anthropic, and others use Jigsaw's AI-based Perspective API to flag LLMs' toxic speech
More: Platformer.  Twitter: @pasternack, @pasternack, @dburghart, @max_uf, and @fastcompany.  Forums: Slashdot
Helene Braun / CoinDesk:
GameStop plans to shut down its iOS and Chrome crypto wallet extensions on November 1 due to “regulatory uncertainty”, after rolling out the service in May 2022
Chethan Rao / Android Police:
YouTube asks a small number of viewers to share their feedback on a test that generates AI-based “quick overview” summaries on some English-language videos
Clive Cookson / Financial Times:
University of Glasgow spinout Chemify, which uses a computing process to design new molecules with AI before making them in an automated lab, raised $43M

Earlier Picks

Steven Church / Bloomberg:
A Voyager Digital lawyer says the crypto lender's user data may have been stolen when the company started letting customers recover their funds in June 2023
Reuters:
Match Group reports Q2 revenue up 4% YoY to $830M, vs. $811M est., paying users down 5% YoY to 15.6M, and forecasts Q3 revenue above estimates
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
AMD reports Q2 revenue down 18% YoY to $5.36B, net income down 94% YoY to $27M, Client revenue down 54% YoY to $998M, and Data Center revenue down 11% to $1.3B
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
Halcyon: Cloudzy, a Wyoming-registered web hosting company likely operating out of Tehran, is acting as a command-and-control provider for state-backed hackers
Chavi Mehta / Reuters:
Meta begins the process to end news access on Facebook and Instagram in Canada, in response to a law forcing some companies to negotiate deals to pay publishers
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
In a challenge to TikTok, YouTube releases new Shorts creation tools for remixing, adding effects, going live, as well as an interactive Q&A sticker, and more
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