Techmeme
August 31, 2023, 9:45 PM

Top News

Walter Isaacson / Wall Street Journal:
An excerpt from Walter Isaacson's new Elon Musk biography details Musk's decision to buy Twitter and how his moods fluctuated wildly before the official closing  —  In an exclusive excerpt from his new biography ‘Elon Musk,’ Walter Isaacson offers a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most surprising …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Meta begins testing keyword search on Threads in Australia and New Zealand, and plans a rollout to more English-speaking countries before adding more languages  —  Threads launched one of the most anticipated features, a web version of the platform, last week.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
New York Times:
A look at Starfield, a game by Microsoft's Bethesda with 1,000 explorable planets, set for September 6 after a 10-month delay, as Microsoft needs an Xbox hit  —  The stakes are high for Bethesda's newest role-playing game.  Microsoft needs an Xbox hit, and players are hungry for an expansive and satisfying space adventure.
Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg:
Microsoft plans to unbundle Teams from Microsoft 365 and Office 365 in Europe on October 1, discounting the suites by €24/year and selling Teams for €60/year  —  - Company offers to unbundle Teams from other business software  — EU investigating if Microsoft's bundling broke antitrust law
Charlotte Hughes-Morgan / Bloomberg:
Elon Musk says X users will be able to make video and audio calls without sharing a phone number, as X “is the effective global address book”, but gives no date  —  Users of X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, will be able to make video and audio calls through …
Aisha Counts / Bloomberg:
Ashley Belanger / Ars Technica:
A US district judge grants a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking the enforcement of a Texas law that requires age verification to access porn sites  —  Texas was supposed to start enforcing the law tomorrow.  —  The day before a Texas antiporn law that requires age verification …
Camomile Shumba / CoinDesk:
Swift and Web3 services startup Chainlink send tokenized value across private and public blockchains using Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol  —  The interbank messaging system Swift announced in June it was collaborating with Chainlink and dozens of financial institutions to test connecting blockchains.
Jamie Crawley / CoinDesk:
Binance plans to “gradually” end support for its BUSD stablecoin by February 2024, as “Paxos halted minting of new BUSD” after an NYDFS order in February 2023  —  The move follows Paxos' decision to halt minting of new BUSD.  —  Cryptocurrency exchange Binance said it will …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
YouTube Music redesigns its Now Playing screen on Android and iOS with larger cover art and a comments section, after launching real-time lyrics last week  —  After pulling a variant at the start of this year, YouTube Music is rolling out the latest redesign of Now Playing on Android and iOS, adding a comments section.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Meta releases FACET, an AI benchmarking tool for evaluating the “fairness” of AI models that classify and detect things in photos and videos, including people  —  Continuing on its open source tear, Meta today released a new AI benchmark, FACET, designed to evaluate the “fairness” …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Bumble updates its community guidelines to crack down on bots, spam, ghosting, and doxxing, and says the company blocked 8.2M+ accounts in 2023, mostly using AI  —  Dating app company Bumble has released its updated community guidelines with an aim to crack down on bots, spam, ghosting and doxing.
More: Mashable
David Heaney / UploadVR:
Magic Leap tells customers the Magic Leap 1 AR headset, which launched in August 2018, and its apps will “cease to function” from December 31, 2024  —  Magic Leap 1 AR headsets will “cease to function” from 31 December 2024, the company announced.  —  Magic Leap sent an email to all customers containing the following:
Morgan Park / PC Gamer:
Activision partners with Modulate to test ToxMod, an AI-based voice moderation tool, across Modern Warfare 2, Warzone 2, and other games, in North America  —  There's a new AI-powered sheriff in town, and its name is ToxMod.  —  Call of Duty is joining the growing number …
James Hunt / The Block:
A US judge dismisses a lawsuit against Uniswap, founder Hayden Adams, a16z, and others over scam token sales, as software cannot be held liable for user losses  —  - Uniswap founder Hayden Adams hailed the court's comments as “based” after a class action lawsuit alleging liability for scam token sales was thrown out.
Andrew DeMillo / Associated Press:
A US district judge temporarily blocks an Arkansas law requiring parental consent for minors to open social media accounts that was set to take effect on Sep. 1  —  A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked Arkansas from enforcing a new law that would have required parental consent …
Wired:
A monthslong investigation exposes the secrets of Russian ransomware gang Trickbot, which thrives despite global disruption efforts, and a key member's identity  —  A WIRED investigation into a cache of documents posted by an unknown figure lays bare the Trickbot ransomware gang's secrets, including the identity of a central member.

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More News

Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
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Earlier Picks

Bloomberg:
Joseph Cox / 404 Media:
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Emma Roth / The Verge: