Techmeme
September 29, 2023, 7:15 PM

Top News

Jacquelyn Melinek / TechCrunch:
Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Letterboxd's founders sell a majority stake to Canadian company Tiny; a source says the deal values the film-focused social network with ~10M users at $50M+  —  Two designers from New Zealand built a wildly popular social network for movie buffs.  Now, they're cashing in (and sticking around for the sequel).
William Gallagher / AppleInsider:
Report: Apple uses two microscopic QR codes on iPhone displays to track defects, which has helped cut its suppliers' faulty screen report rates from 30% to 10%  —  Apple spent millions to add a barcode to iPhone displays in order to save being charged hundreds of millions by manufacturers claiming faulty screens that may not have been.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Apple executives met Chinese officials in recent months to discuss new rules forcing Apple to ban apps whose operators are not registered with China  —  Country's push to register foreign apps threatens to remove Facebook, Instagram and X from iPhone App Store in China
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Meta quietly unveils Llama 2 Long, which has been trained with longer sequences, outperforming GPT-3.5 Turbo and Claude 2 when responding to long user prompts  —  Meta Platforms showed off a bevy of new AI features for its consumer-facing services Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp …
Natasha Mascarenhas / The Information:
Sources: Jasper, which offers an AI writing tool for marketers, cut its $140M ARR projections for 2023 by 30%+ and its internal valuation by 20% from $1.5B  —  Jasper AI, an early darling of the generative artificial intelligence boom, has cut the internal value of its common shares 20% …
Jonathan Greig / The Record:
Progress Software, the company behind the widely exploited MOVEit file transfer tool, patches critical vulnerabilities in its WS_FTP Server data transfer tool  —  The company behind a popular file transfer service that was exploited by ransomware hackers has announced a new set of vulnerabilities affecting another file transfer tool.
Elizabeth Pineau / Reuters:
French authorities say they approved Apple's iPhone 12 software update that addresses radiation level concerns; Apple submitted the update on September 26  —  French authorities said on Friday they had approved Apple's AAPL.O software update of its iPhone 12 after a row over radiation levels of the device …
Washington Post:
The Supreme Court agrees to hear two cases concerning whether Florida and Texas can restrict social media companies from removing political posts or accounts  —  The Supreme Court on Friday said it would wade into the future of free speech online and decide whether laws passed in Texas …
Reuters:
Intel begins chip production using extreme ultraviolet lithography machines at its $18.5B Ireland plant, its first high-volume location for its 7nm process  —  Chipmaker Intel (INTC.O) said on Friday it had begun high-volume production using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
BeReal says its app has 25M+ DAUs, up from 20M in October 2022, disputing a Similarweb report estimating that BeReal's MAUs declined to 16.06M in August 2023  —  Just under a year ago, the buzzy new social app BeReal looked to be on the rise, with reportedly 20 million users launching the app every day to snap their candid photos.
More: Gizmodo

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Featured Podcasts

Cheeky Pint:
The world of voice AI, with Mati Staniszewski of ElevenLabs
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
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Scott Nolan - SpaceX, Founders Fund, and Rebuilding American Uranium Enrichment
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz on Sam Altman's Trust Problem
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
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Acquired:
Ferrari
Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.
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Lenny's Podcast:
Hard truths about building in the AI era | Keith Rabois (Khosla Ventures)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ryan Roslansky: Turning AI Anxiety into Skills for the Future of Work
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

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