Techmeme
March 26, 2024, 10:10 AM

Top News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Memo: Microsoft names Pavan Davuluri as its Windows and Surface chief; Microsoft split its Windows and Surface groups after Panos Panay left in September 2023  —  Microsoft is naming Pavan Davuluri as its new Windows and Surface chief today.  After Panos Panay's surprise departure to Amazon last year …
Olivia Poh / Bloomberg:
Canva acquires the Affinity creative suite, popular with Mac users; COO Cliff Obrecht says the cash-and-stock deal is valued at “several hundred million pounds”  —  - Australian unicorn buys British team behind Affinity art suite  — Affinity offers alternative tools to Adobe's flagship products
Timmy Shen / The Block:
The US OFAC sanctions 13 entities, including Netex24, and two individuals for aiding Russian nationals' potential sanctions evasion by building crypto services  —  - The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned 13 entities and two individuals for helping sanctioned entities to evade sanctions in Russia.
Chris Plante / Polygon:
An interview with Phil Spencer on bringing Xbox to handhelds via hardware or software, how Valve, Lenovo, and Asus “innovated in a new form factor”, and more  —  A handheld Xbox could be hardware, an app, or both  —  Phil Spencer has tried all of the new PC gaming handhelds …
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
OpenAI releases seven Sora videos from select filmmakers, artists, ad agencies, and musicians; Fairly Trained CEO Ed Newton-Rex calls the move “artistwashing”  —  OpenAI has been releasing a steady drip of videos generated by its new highly realistic AI model, Sora, but the text-to-video …
Chris Dolmetsch / Bloomberg:
Ripple says the SEC plans to release a public brief on Tuesday seeking $2B in fines and penalties in its case against Ripple over sales of the XRP crypto token  —  The regulator is slated to release a public brief on Tuesday, Stuart Alderoty, Ripple's chief legal officer, said in a separate post on X on Monday.
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
The US and the UK sanction a Wuhan-based company linked to the Chinese state-backed hacking group APT31 for targeting critical infrastructure organizations  —  The U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned a Wuhan-based company used by the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) …
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Telegram rolls out its Peer-to-Peer Login Program, giving some Android users a Premium sub for volunteering their phone numbers to relay SMS OTPs to other users  —  Telegram is offering a new way to earn a premium subscription free of charge: all you have to do is volunteer your phone number …
Bloomberg:
An investigation details the growing black market for Starlink kits being traded and activated illegally, including in regions subject to US sanctions  —  Starlink's effectiveness as a communications tool makes the satellite internet service a target for a growing black-market trade worldwide.
More: CNN and iTnews
Edward Ludlow / Bloomberg:
Internal Tesla memo: Elon Musk tells staff to perform a “short test ride” with customers to demonstrate Full Self-Driving, a “hard requirement” from now on  —  - New requirement will slow delivery process, Musk says in memo  — Full Self-Driving, other features have generated controversy
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Meta started rolling out its new opt-out political content settings on Instagram and Threads last week to “limit political content from people you don't follow”  —  Meta's executives have been saying for a while that they don't want to boost posts about politics in their apps.
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
A US judge dismisses X's lawsuit against CCDH, saying the suit had been brought as a means toward “punishing the defendants for their speech”; X plans to appeal  —  A U.S. judge on Monday dismiss X Corp's lawsuit against a nonprofit group that has criticized a rise in hate speech …
Josh Koehn / The San Francisco Standard:
How Ripple's Chris Larsen became a gravitational force in San Fransisco politics, donating millions to local causes, as he helps Mayor London Breed's reelection  —  On a recent Friday afternoon, Chris Larsen sat behind the wheel of a gunmetal Porsche 918 Spyder, zipping through the Broadway Tunnel.

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work  —  Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.
Zoho:
Labels that build themselves: Simplified Label Automation in Zoho Writer  —  Anyone who ships every day knows this feeling.  Forty orders, each with a different number of items, and every item needs its own label.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
WebBrain:
WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser  —  Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox.  Use local models or your preferred AI provider.  Get started free.

Featured Podcasts

The Social Radars:
Blake Scholl, Founder & CEO, Boom Supersonic: Part 2
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
Subscribe to The Social Radars.
Machine Gods:
The purple tsunami against data centers
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
Subscribe to Machine Gods.
Invest Like the Best:
Ramtin Naimi - The State of Venture
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
The Upstarts Podcast:
How Ramp Built A $60B AI Product Factory Off A Corporate Card | Co-CEO Eric Glyman
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Great Chat:
Would you let a robot do it?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Training Data:
A Model For Everyone: How Ronak From Trajectory Is Building Products For Continual Learning
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:10 AM ET, March 26, 2024.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

Max A. Cherney / Reuters:
Kalley Huang / The Information:
Lauren Feiner / The Verge:
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Javier Espinoza / Financial Times: