Techmeme: Australia's PM threatens action against Meta after it said it would stop paying media companies; News Corp says it threatens the viability of small media groups (Nic Fildes/Financial Times)

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March 1, 2024, 10:30 AM

Top News

Candace Cheung / Courthouse News Service:

Elon Musk sues OpenAI and Sam Altman, accusing them of betraying an agreement from OpenAI's founding to develop AI toward the “benefit of humanity” over profits — OpenAI is not so open now, Musk claims, following the closed source release of the company's artificial general intelligence technology under Microsoft.

More: The Guardian, Superior Court of California, The Verge, Bloomberg, CNN, PCMag, Tom's Hardware, Dexerto, BBC, International Business Times, Axios, The Block, Silicon Republic, Reuters, The Information, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Marcus on AI, Coinspeaker, New York Times, Boing Boing, CoinDesk, Ben's Bites, Tech Startups, crypto.news, Financial Times, CoinGape, New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Android Headlines, MSPoweruser, WinBuzzer, Neowin, Interesting Engineering, Cointelegraph, Watcher Guru, Appuals, Analytics India Magazine, and Business Insider

Threads: @reckless1280, @pauloflaherty, @yonetteajoseph, @tenured_radical, @stefancarter66, @hmautomate, @reksveks, @karaswisher, @kfeinleib, @firerock31, and @nixcraft. Mastodon: @cigitalgem@sigmoid.social

Bluesky: @euphemistic.bsky.social and @drewstephenson.bsky.social

X: @andrewrsorkin, @danprimack, @danprimack, @bindureddy, @growing_daniel, @jason_kint, @ericnewcomer, @fakepsyho, @shakeelhashim, @andrewcurran_, @8teapi, @cromwellian, @basedbeffjezos, @luizajarovsky, @zachtratar, @alexandrosm, @carnage4life, and @xdaily

LinkedIn: Tejas Kumar and Sholto Maud

Forums: Hacker News, r/singularity, r/aiwars, r/ArtistHate, r/OpenAI, and r/singularity

Parmy Olson / Bloomberg:

Elon Musk might be suing OpenAI because he is a troll and has a grudge but his lawsuit puts a spotlight on the empty humanitarian posturing by AI businesses — Too many AI startups have seen their noble goals imperiled by Big Tech's gravitational pull. — Call it an epic troll by Elon Musk …

More: PYMNTS.com, Ars Technica, Decrypt, Semafor, South China Morning Post, Maginative, Nairametrics, AI News, TweakTown, Mashable, TechPowerUp, and CryptoPotato

Mastodon: @MisterMoo@mastodon.online and @Kierkegaanks@beige.party

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

Filing: Elon Musk says OpenAI is “not just developing but is actually refining an AGI to maximize profits for Microsoft” and claims GPT-4 constitutes an AGI — Elon Musk has sued OpenAI, its co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman and affiliated entities, alleging the ChatGPT makers …

More: Computerworld, The Hill, Associated Press, Telegraph, Forbes, Business Post, Wired, Benzinga, Barron's Online, Proactive, Business Today, TechSpot, Tech in Asia, The Decoder, NBC News, Fortune, Wccftech, Cryptopolitan, and Deadline

Bluesky: @hamsolo.bsky.social and @niedermeyer.io

X: @tolgabilge_ and @tszzl

Forums: r/technology and Slashdot

Bloomberg:

Meta plans to deprecate the Facebook News tab in the US and Australia in early April 2024 and stop signing deals for traditional news content in those countries — Meta Platforms Inc. is winding down its news feature in the US and Australia, part of a broader shift away from the category for the social media giant.

Nic Fildes / Financial Times:

Australia's PM threatens action against Meta after it said it would stop paying media companies; News Corp says it threatens the viability of small media groups

More: NBC News, The Age, La Prensa Latina Media, The Canberra Times, B&T, Benzinga, RNZ, and 9News. X: @nicfildes

See also Mediagazer

Abner Li / 9to5Google:

Google confirms it is blocking rooted Android phones from using RCS, citing the need to abide by the RCS standard's “operating measures” to stop spam and abuse — In recent weeks, Android users with rooted or bootloader unlocked phones have found that RCS in Google Messages does not work.

More: The Verge, Android Headlines, Forbes, Android Authority, Sam Lover, Phandroid, and Android Police

Mastodon: @bazkie@mstdn.social. X: @mishaalrahman. Forums: r/androidroot, r/GoogleMessages, and r/Android

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

Google pulls 12+ popular apps from the Play Store in India for persistently not complying with billing policies, escalating a three-year dispute in the country — Google began removing some apps from the Play Store in India on Friday after warning earlier in the day that it will be taking actions …

More: Google, Moneycontrol, Entrackr, The Hindu BusinessLine, Reuters, Business Standard, Hindustan Times, The Hindu, Root-Nation.com, The Economic Times, MediaNama, Business Insider, Independent.ie, Inc42 Media, YourStory.com, and NewsBytes. Forums: Slashdot

Abner Li / 9to5Google:

Google adds Photomath, which solves math problems after users take photos, to its Play Store and App Store publisher accounts, after buying the app in May 2022

More: Android Authority, Sammy Fans, Android Headlines, and NewsBytes

Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:

Apple says users and a number of government agencies in the EU raised concerns about the security risks of allowing app sideloading on iOS to comply with DMA — A number of government agencies in the European Union and elsewhere have voiced concerns about security risks as Apple (AAPL.O) …

More: 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, and MacDailyNews

The Guardian:

An investigation into ClothOff, an app being used to make deepfake porn images of underage girls, finds a brother and sister in Belarus are linked to the app — Exclusive: Guardian investigation for podcast series Black Box reveals names connected to app that generated nonconsensual images of underage girls around the world

More: Cybernews.com. Threads: @thebrianpenny. Forums: Hacker News, r/news, and r/technology

Stephanie Kirchgaessner / The Guardian:

A US judge orders the NSO Group to hand over its code for Pegasus and other spyware products to Meta, as part of Meta's ongoing litigation to protect WhatsApp — Israeli company NSO Group is accused in lawsuit by Meta's messaging app of spying on 1,400 users over a two-week period

More: CyberScoop, 9to5Mac, Silicon UK, Benzinga, The Overspill, and Scroll.in

Mastodon: @fj@mastodon.social. X: @shadow0pz, @suarezsmiz, @hackingbutlegal, and @gpaulturner. Forums: Slashdot

See also Mediagazer

Sylvia Varnham O'Regan / The Information:

Source: late last year, Google suggested Meta partner on Android XR, a new software platform for VR and AR, but Meta executives decided against a partnership — Late last year, in a meeting between Google and Meta Platform staffers, Google suggested that Meta partner on Android XR …

More: Channel NewsAsia and The Ghost Howls

Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:

Source: Embracer plans to sell its subsidiary Saber Interactive to private investors in a $500M deal, making Saber a privately-owned company with ~3,500 staff — Saber will continue developing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic — Swedish gaming company Embracer Group AB will sell …

Naman Ramachandran / Variety:

BBC Studios buys British broadcaster ITV's 50% stake in streamer BritBox International for £255M, as ITV focuses on its ad-funded streaming service ITVX — The streamer was founded in 2017 as a joint venture between BBC Studios, which is the commercial arm of the British broadcaster, and ITV.

More: Reuters, Deadline, Broadband TV News, Advanced Television, and Financial Times. Forums: r/television

See also Mediagazer

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From Mediagazer

Rob Wile / NBC News:

President Trump's 2025 financial disclosures show $80M in income from settlements tied to his lawsuits against ABC, CBS, Meta, YouTube, and other companies

Nick Vivarelli / Variety:

The EU says Paramount has committed to exit its United International Pictures distribution JV with Universal as a condition for EU approval of its WBD merger

Kelly McBride / NPR:

NPR's Nina Totenberg misheard a statement about retirements and told editor Krishnadev Calamur that Alito was retiring; Calamur then posted a prewritten story

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More News

Vittoria Elliott / Wired:

In a hearing, a federal judge sounded skeptical of X's claims in its lawsuit against CCDH; an expert says it is “a SLAPP suit disguised as a contractual suit”

More: 9to5Mac, Associated Press, NPR, CoinGape, and Benzinga

X: @ccdhate, @thefawcette, @esqueer_, and @bobbyallyn

Kevin Nguyen / The Verge:

A eulogy for TinyLetter, as Mailchimp shuts down the newsletter tool acquired in 2011 that had a brief run nurturing great personal writing on the internet

See also Mediagazer

Patrick Sisson / New York Times:

The data center industry is struggling to meet its self-imposed sustainability goals as AI's booming growth increases electricity demand and strains power grids

Mastodon: @gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green. X: @nagasravika. LinkedIn: Niklas Sundberg and Tara Kozak Lindsay

Greg Bensinger / Reuters:

Email: GM told Cruise employees that a third party had estimated the self-driving unit's internal share price at $11.80, down from $24.27 just one quarter ago

Forums: r/SelfDrivingCars

Brody Ford / Bloomberg:

HPE reports Q1 revenue down 14% YoY to $6.76B, vs. $7.1B est., Server revenue down 23% YoY to $3.4B, and reduces its FY 2024 outlook for sales growth and profit

More: DatacenterDynamics, Blocks and Files, The Register, CRN, Investor's Business Daily, Associated Press, MarketWatch, Dow Jones Newswires, Investing.com, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Reuters, and Constellation Research. X: @danielnewmanuv

Larry Dignan / Constellation Research:

Dell reports Q4 revenue down 11% YoY to $22.3B, vs. $22.2B est., Client revenue down 12% to $11.7B, and Infrastructure revenue down 6% to $9.3B; DELL jumps 15%+

More: RTÉ, CRN, Thurrott, The Information, Seeking Alpha, Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, Bloomberg, Proactive, CNBC, Barron's Online, and Reuters

X: @danielnewmanuv, @thetranscript_, @patrickmoorhead, @danielnewmanuv, and @ldignan

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:

GitHub enables push protection by default for all public repositories to prevent accidental leaks of secrets, like access tokens and API keys, when pushing code

More: The GitHub Blog, InfoWorld, WinBuzzer, and The Hacker News. X: @github

Earlier Picks

Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:

Alibaba researchers detail EMO, or Emote Portrait Alive, an AI system that creates a realistic talking or singing video from a portrait photo and an audio file

More: EMO, arXiv.org, Mashable, PC Gamer, and CCN.com

X: @minchoi, @_akhaliq, @techpalstalk, @_unwind_ai, @minchoi, @mayfer, @eladgil, @deryatr_, @deliprao, @theaicolony, @petergyang, @hawkinstech, and @stelfiett

LinkedIn: Jennifer Langusch, Ivan Gentile, Bohdan Zabawskyj, Richard Buchanan, and Miguel Perez Guerra

Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:

JFrog finds ~100 malicious PyTorch and Tensorflow Keras models on Hugging Face, some of which can execute code on users' machines to give attackers a backdoor

More: WinBuzzer, JFrog, Security Boulevard, and Dark Reading

Mastodon: @cigitalgem@sigmoid.social. Bluesky: @markmadsen.bsky.social and @fack.bsky.social

X: @mihaimaruseac, @jfrogsecurity, @manpageman, @chirag_mehta, @dcuthbert, @dcuthbert, and @drraid

Forums: Hacker News, r/technology, r/aiwars, r/LocalLLaMA, and Lobsters

Paul Vieira / Wall Street Journal:

Canada's antitrust watchdog expands its four-year probe into Google's online ad practices, with a focus on whether the company engages in predatory pricing

More: Government of Canada, The Register, The Information, Pixel Envy, New York Post, iPhone in Canada Blog, vancouversun, Hindustan Times, Bloomberg, and Channel NewsAsia. X: @compbureau

Jordan Novet / CNBC:

Microsoft launches Copilot for Finance in public preview, helping users reconcile data in Excel, speed up the collections process in Outlook, and more

More: Windows Experience Blog, The Official Microsoft Blog, Microsoft Tech Community, Android Authority, The Verge, Microsoft 365 Blog, Microsoft Tech Community, Benzinga, Windows Report, WinBuzzer, VentureBeat, Finextra, TechRadar, Wall Street Now, Analytics India Magazine, Silicon Republic, Sammy Fans, Microsoft, NBC Bay Area, International Business Times, Watcher Guru, iPhone in Canada Blog, The Information, MSPoweruser, SiliconANGLE, Constellation Research, and Reuters

Mastodon: @csgordon@discuss.systems. X: @yusuf_i_mehdi, @alysataylormsft, @abhymurarka, @microsoft365, @glenngabe, @danielnewmanuv, @jake_joseph, @chirag_mehta, @satyanadella, @microsoft, @clamanna, and @jordannovet

LinkedIn: Georg Glantschnig, John Cable, Christopher Versace, Reshmi Ghosh, Alysa Taylor, and Charles Lamanna

Forums: r/Accounting and r/singularity

Ashley Capoot / CNBC:

Change Healthcare confirms that the ransomware group BlackCat is behind the ongoing attack that has caused widespread disruptions to pharmacies across the US

More: TechCrunch, NBC News, Reuters, The Verge, STAT, The Record, International Business Times, PCMag, Constellation Research, and CRN

X: @brittanytrang, @johnnysaks130, @dp_oneill, @mattjay, and @mattjay

LinkedIn: Blake Sollenberger and Shomik Ghosh

Annie Palmer / CNBC:

Robotics startup Figure AI confirms raising $675M at a $2.6B valuation and is partnering with OpenAI to “develop next-generation AI models for humanoid robots”