Techmeme
May 2, 2024, 4:00 PM

Top News

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Apple adds carveouts to its EU core tech fee, exempting free app developers and giving those with annual global revenue under €10M a three-year “free on-ramp”  —  Apple is tweaking how it applies a new fee that can apply to iOS developers in the European Union as it continues …
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Google says 400M+ Google Accounts have used passkeys since the rollout, logging 1B+ authentications, and expands passkeys to its Advanced Protection Program  —  Google is kicking off World Password Day by updating us on its efforts toward replacing the often hacked, guessed, and stolen form of authentication with passkeys.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft rolls out passkey support for all consumer accounts; Microsoft account owners can generate passkeys across Windows, Android, and iOS  —  Microsoft is fully rolling out passkey support for all consumer accounts today.  After enabling them in Windows 11 last year …
Jem Aswad / Variety:
Universal Music Group and TikTok strike a new music licensing deal to bring UMG music back to the platform, including “improved remuneration” and AI protections  —  The months-long standoff between Universal Music Group and TikTok over royalty payments and AI policies is finally over …
Leah Nylen / Bloomberg:
Senator Scott Wiener / @scott_wiener:
[Thread] California State Senator Scott Wiener defends his AI safety bill, SB 1047, after criticism that it will “crush OpenAI's competitors” and open-source AI  —  AI policy is a new & fast-moving field & it's healthy & important to have a diversity of perspectives. However, this thread contains some extreme inaccuracies — indeed outright fear-mongering — about our AI safety legislation (SB 1047) that need to be corrected: 🧵
Molly White / Citation Needed:
As people yearn for the web's “good old days”, bringing those days back is possible with new tech, the possibility of new protocols, and more internet users  —  Listen to a voiceover of this post, download the recording for later, or subscribe to the feed in your podcast app.
The Verge:
Peloton CEO Barry McCarthy steps down, as the company lays off ~15% of its workforce, or ~400 people, its fifth cut since its 2021 peak, when it had 8,600 staff  —  Peloton's CEO Barry McCarthy is stepping down after announcing yet another round of layoffs, this time affecting about 15 percent …
Saritha Rai / Bloomberg:
Microsoft announces plans to invest $2.2B in cloud and AI services infrastructure in Malaysia over four years and train 200K people in AI skills in the country  —  - Nadella announces plan for more AI infrastructure in Malaysia  — Tech companies are targeting Southeast Asia as new growth area
Vittoria Elliott / Wired:
Ethan Zuckerman sues to stop Meta from blocking his planned Unfollow Everything 2.0 extension that would let Facebook users tune or even turn off their Feed  —  Academic Ethan Zuckerman is suing Meta to win protections for add-ons that help researchers study the platform and give users more control over their feeds.
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Microsoft confirms the April 2024 Windows security updates break VPN connections across client and server platforms on Windows 11, 10, and Server 2008 or later  —  Microsoft has confirmed that the April 2024 Windows security updates break VPN connections across client and server platforms.
Tess Owen / Wired:
Tech Transparency Project: US extremist militias are quietly coordinating across ~200 Facebook groups and profiles, after lying low since the January 6 riot  —  After lying low for years in the aftermath of January 6, exclusive reporting shows, militia extremist groups and profiles …
Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch:
Hyundai invests $475M in self-driving startup Motional and will spend another $448M to buy 11% of Aptiv's common equity interest in Motional  —  Hyundai has agreed to spend nearly $1 billion on Motional, an investment that will give the automaker a majority stake while providing …
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Trend Micro: cybercriminals and nation-state spies are coexisting inside the same compromised name-brand routers, using the devices to disguise their attacks  —  How and why nation-state hackers and cybercriminals coexist in the same router botnet.  —  Cybercriminals and spies working …
Kalley Huang / The Information:
Some developers are releasing longer context windows for Llama 3 thanks to Meta's open-source approach; Llama 3 has a short context window of 8,000+ tokens  —  Developers have been praising Meta Platforms' Llama 3, the latest version of its flagship large language model.
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
LA-based wealth management startup Altruist, whose software and app help with trading and more, raised a $169M Series E led by Iconiq at a $1.5B valuation  —  - Iconiq Growth led investment in competitor to Schwab, Fidelity  — Altruist provides software for registered investment advisers

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Prospect:
A running list of the best startups to join  —  We've analyzed thousands of startups using the same data VCs use and distilled our list down to the top 2%.  Discover and join the next Stripe, Airbnb, or Coinbase today.
Zoho:
Introducing Zoho Sign for Developers: Plug and play with eSign APIs and SDKs  —  It's a no brainer when we say that businesses find it difficult to send and collect signatures on important documents the traditional way …
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Big Technology Podcast:
AI Scaling, Alignment, and the Path to Superintelligence -- With Dwarkesh Patel
The Big Technology Podcast, hosted by journalist Alex Kantrowitz, takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 05/16 - Instagram Founder To Anthropic
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:00 PM ET, May 2, 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

Kyle Chayka / New Yorker:

Earlier Picks

Sofia Barnett / Wired:
Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg:
Hannah Rabinowitz / CNN:
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch:
Umar Shakir / The Verge:
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: