Techmeme
December 29, 2023, 3:45 PM

Top News

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Apple blocking Beeper Mini, not a service unto itself but an unauthorized client for a proprietary platform that costs a lot to run, is not anticompetitive  —  There's a lot to catch up on since last I wrote about Beeper.  Long story short, they've been playing — and no surprise, losing — the cat-and-mouse game with Apple.
Usama Jawad / XDA Developers:
Microsoft disables Windows App Installer's ms-appinstaller after the URI scheme was used to spread malware; Microsoft disabled and re-enabled the scheme in 2022  —  Microsoft has disabled the ms-appinstaller URI scheme handler by default in the latest version of App Installer due to a rise in cyberattacks.
NBC News:
Sources: US intelligence determined that the Chinese spy balloon that flew across the US in January and February 2023 used a US ISP to communicate with China  —  An American intelligence assessment found that the balloon used a commercially available U.S. network to communicate, primarily for navigation, U.S. officials say.
Benjamin Weiser / New York Times:
Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen says he mistakenly used bogus legal citations from Google Bard in a motion seeking an early end to court supervision  —  Donald Trump's former fixer had sought an early end to court supervision after his 2018 campaign finance conviction.
Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Sources: for months, OpenAI has held talks with major news publishers including Gannett, News Corp, and IAC about the price and terms of licensing their content  —  Several major publishers have been in talks to license content to the creator of ChatGPT, but agreement on the price and terms has been elusive.
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
GitHub launches GPT-4-powered Copilot Chat in general availability for all users, in the sidebar of Microsoft's IDEs, Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio  —  Earlier this year, GitHub rolled out Copilot Chat, a ChatGPT-like programming-centric chatbot, for organizations subscribed to Copilot for Business.
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Apple was up ~50% in 2023 but underperformed its tech peers after Apple suffered four straight quarters of declining revenue, its longest such slide since 2001  —  - In 2023, Apple suffered its longest revenue slide in 22 years, reporting four straight quarters of declining sales.
Amrita Khalid / The Verge:
LG debuts new LG Gram and Gram Pro laptops with NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSDs and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050; the Pro includes Intel's AI Boost NPU for on-device AI tasks  —  If you're in the market for OLED displays and better graphics, take a look at the 2024 LG Gram Pro lineup.
The Indian Express:
Martin Young / Cointelegraph:
Vitalik Buterin proposes requiring only 8,192 validator signatures per slot, down from 28K per slot, to make Ethereum's proof-of-stake “simpler and lighter”  —  The Ethereum co-founder suggested reducing validator signatures to lighten the load and make predicting future loads more accurate.

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Featured Podcasts

The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'A Naughty Citizen', With Quinn Nelson
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
Big Technology Podcast:
2025 In Review, 2026 Predictions — With Reed Albergotti
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Podcast Pioneer PJ Vogt's Second Act: Less Budget, More Control
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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BG2 Pod:
AI Enterprise - Databricks & Glean
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Great Chat:
The stories we told ourselves in 2025
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
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.
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Earlier Picks

Geoffrey A. Fowler / Washington Post:
Reuters:
Eric Bangeman / Ars Technica: