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Techmeme
August 2, 2023, 5:05 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 weighing fraud charges against Binance but worry that an indictment could cause a run on the exchange 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: China-based 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
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft lets Xbox Insiders stream gameplay from their console to Discord users, available to all Xbox Series X, Series S, and One owners in the coming months  —  Microsoft is improving its Xbox and Discord integration with a new streaming gameplay feature.
Rest of World:
Interviews with people at Worldcoin sign-up booths in Nairobi, Bengaluru, and Hong Kong find many scanned their irises to receive the WLD bonuses, an “easy $50”  —  In Nairobi, Bengaluru, and Hong Kong, our reporters found lots of people were eager to take the deal.
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Amazon plans to roll out its biggest grocery business overhaul since acquiring Whole Foods, in the coming weeks, including merging its various supermarket carts  —  It's revamping stores, unifying online shopping carts and offering fresh-food delivery to customers who aren't Prime subscribers.
David Pierce / The Verge:
Google updates its generative AI-based Search Generative Experience with more multimedia, faster responses, and additional context for links in its summary box  —  Google's AI-powered Search Generative Experience is getting a big new feature: images and video.
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple says Apple Card's savings account, which has had a 4.15% interest rate since its April 2023 launch with partner Goldman Sachs, has topped $10B in deposits  —  Apple today announced that its high-interest savings account for Apple Card has topped over $10 billion in deposits.
Emilia David / The Verge:
Meta releases AudioCraft, an open-source AI tool that lets users create music and sounds via text 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.
Amy Lewin / Sifted:
Hopin, the struggling virtual events startup valued at $7.75B in August 2021, sells its Events and Session units to RingCentral; CEO Johnny Boufarhat steps down  —  UPDATED: The startup, which was once the fastest-growing in Europe, has also sold its flagship product
Jen Christensen / CNN:
An early-stage study of 80K+ women in Sweden who underwent a mammogram between April 2021 and July 2022 finds AI-supported screening detected 20% more cancers  —  Artificial intelligence found more breast cancers than doctors with years of training and experience and cut doctors' mammogram …
Bloomberg:
Sources: SoftBank's Arm is targeting an IPO at a valuation of between $60B and $70B as soon as September 2023, looking to raise as much as $10B in its debut  —  - Chip design firm may raise as much as $10 billion in debut  — Nvidia, Intel are in discussions to be anchor investors
Nelson Wang / CoinDesk:
Robinhood reports Q2 revenue up 10% QoQ to $486M, crypto trading revenue of $31M, down 18% QoQ, and ~$11.5M worth of crypto in assets under custody, same as Q1  —  In June, the trading platform ended support for all tokens named as securities in the SEC lawsuits against crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase.
More: Blockworks
Charlotte Hughes-Morgan / Bloomberg:
Uber paid £386M, or $490M, to UK tax authorities as part of a dispute over how its ride hailing app applies VAT to UK trips, but plans to appeal the decision  —  - HMRC is challenging Uber's use of Tour Operators Margin Scheme  — Uber said it will appeal the VAT assessment in UK Court
Reuters:
PayPal reports Q2 revenue up 7% to $7.3B, total payment volume up 11% YoY to $376.5B, and operating margin at 21.4%, below its 22% forecast; PYPL drops 7%+  —  Payments firm PayPal Holdings (PYPL.O) forecast third-quarter revenue above estimates on Wednesday, expecting consumers to remain resilient in the face of a tough economy.
More: Bloomberg and PayPal

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:05 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

Isabella Simonetti / Wall Street Journal:
A profile of Fortune editor Nick Lichtenberg, who uses AI to research and write articles; AI-assisted stories made up ~20% of Fortune's web traffic in H2 2025

New York Times:
Sources: Versant is one of multiple suitors in talks to buy Vox Media's podcast network as it seeks to diversify its revenue; NBCU invested $200M in Vox in 2015

Gene Maddaus / Variety:
The Writers Guild Staff Union, on strike for almost six weeks, has offered a contract proposal to WGA West management, seeking a response by Monday at midnight

More News

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
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
Bloomberg:
China releases draft rules to limit minors' smartphone use, including two-hour limits for teens aged 16 to 18; platforms would be responsible for enforcement

Earlier Picks

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
Aidan Ryan / The Information:
Sources: Changpeng Zhao tried to liquidate Binance.US earlier in 2023, before pivoting to attempting to sell the company, holding talks with Gemini and others
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
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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