Techmeme
September 20, 2023, 5:15 PM

Top News

The Verge:
Everything Amazon announced at its product event: Alexa Emergency Assist for $6/month, the Alexa Eye Gaze accessibility feature, the $50 Echo Pop Kids, and more  —  Amazon is kicking off its annual fall product announcements at its HQ2 campus in Arlington, Virginia.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Amazon refreshes its Alexa-powered Echo Frames glasses: enhanced speech processing, better noise isolation, 15% thinner, and a six-hour battery life for $270  —  Amazon today unveiled a new generation of Echo Frames, its Alexa-powered glasses, with enhanced speech processing, better noise isolation and a $269.99 price tag.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Amazon unveils new generative AI features aimed at making Alexa more conversational and personalized, available as a free preview on all Echo devices in the US  —  During a press event this morning at its HQ2 headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, Amazon announced that it'll soon use …
Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Amazon refreshes its $150 Echo Show 8 with a new design, a centered camera, a smart home hub, Spatial Audio, and a home screen that changes based on proximity  —  Amazon kicked off today's Fall Devices Event with an update to its Echo Show 8.  The small smart screen features smart home hub functionality and improved audio quality.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge:
Amazon unveils the $180 Echo Hub, a wall-mountable smart home controller with an 8" touchscreen, and Map View, an Alexa app interface for the user's floor plan  —  Designed specifically as a smart home controller, the Echo Hub is a slimline version of an Echo Show 8 or a shrunken version of a Show 15.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Ina Fried / Axios:
CNBC:
Sources: as equities soared in 2020, Apple and Goldman were working on an iPhone stock trading feature but shelved the project when markets turned south in 2022  —  - Apple was exploring the launch of an iPhone feature that would let users buy and sell stocks, according to three sources familiar with the plans.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 review: Double Tap is great, but Precision Finding requires an iPhone 15, and the Siri and brightness improvements feel minor  —  Iterative updates aren't flashy, but these smartwatches are mainly for folks who don't have Apple Watches yet.
BBC:
After Meta criticized the UK's potential E2EE rules, the UK says Meta “failed to provide assurances” over keeping its platforms “safe from sickening abusers”  —  Facebook's owner Meta has hit back at a new government campaign strongly critical of its plans to encrypt messages.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Meta expands its Meta Verified program to businesses on Facebook and Instagram in select markets, for $21.99/month/page for each or $34.99/month/page for both  —  Meta announced today that it is expanding Meta Verified to businesses after first launching it for creators in March.
Financial Times:
Qianer Liu / Financial Times:
Sources: the Kirin 9000S SoC has four CPUs that use Arm designs, the other four use Huawei-modified Arm designs, HiSilicon developed the GPU and NPU, and more  —  Facing US sanctions, Chinese company emulates Apple by using its own designs in chips for Mate 60 Pro
Ben Weiss / Fortune:
PayPal says select Venmo users can now purchase its stablecoin PYUSD, with a rollout to more users in the coming weeks, in addition to BTC, ETH, BCH, and LTC  —  PayPal announced on Wednesday that Venmo users will be able to buy PayPal's new stablecoin, PayPal USD, increasing the number …
Dana Mattioli / Wall Street Journal:
In its Prime lawsuit, the FTC alleges three Amazon executives played key roles in enrolling customers unwittingly and making it hard to cancel subscriptions  —  Federal agency alleges Amazon executives were aware of enrolling customers unwittingly and erecting intentional hurdles to cancellation
Nikkei Asia:
On WeChat, China's Ministry of State Security says the US, since 2009, has continuously hacked Huawei's servers, stolen critical data, and installed backdoors  —  Beijing says Washington forces tech companies to install backdoors for spying  —  China has accused the U.S. of hacking Huawei's servers continuously since 2009.
WABetaInfo:
WhatsApp releases a beta for iOS via Apple's TestFlight with a companion mode for iPadOS, built using Mac Catalyst, after years of user requests for an iPad app  —  WhatsApp has just submitted a new update through the TestFlight beta Program, bringing the version up to 23.19.1.71.
Mariam Sunny / Reuters:
Neuralink is recruiting for the first human trial of its brain implant for paralysis patients, expected to take about six years, likely for fewer than 10 people  —  Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's brain-chip startup Neuralink said on Tuesday it has received approval from an independent review board …
Bloomberg:
Klaviyo closes up 9.2% in its New York Stock Exchange debut, valuing the Shopify-backed e-commerce marketing company at $9.9B on a fully diluted basis  —  - Email software firm closes debut at $9.9 billion valuation  — Founder Bialecki's fortune rises to $3.4 billion with IPO

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