Techmeme
August 1, 2024, 12:40 PM

Top News

Meta:
Meta reports Q2 revenue up 22% YoY to $39B, net income up 73% to $13.5B, and family daily active people up 7% to 3.27B on average for June 2024; META jumps 5%+  —  Meta Platforms, Inc. (Nasdaq: META) today reported financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2024.
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Google unveils AI features for Chrome on desktop, including support for Google Lens and searching history via natural language queries, rolling out in the US  —  Google Thursday said that it is introducing new Gemini-powered features for Chrome's desktop version, including Lens for desktop …
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.1 beta hands-on: meaningful Siri language understanding improvements and Siri text input is nice, but few other notable features  —  In iOS 18's latest developer preview, Siri gets a glow-up.  Like, the whole phone actually glows around the edges when you invoke Siri.
Kate Conger / New York Times:
Don Lemon sues Elon Musk and X, arguing Musk refused to pay him after a $1.5M/year exclusive X content deal fell apart; Lemon did not sign a formal contract  —  The former CNN reporter said in a lawsuit that X had refused to pay him after a testy interview with its billionaire owner.
Brian Steinberg / Variety:
WBD, Disney, and Fox plan to launch their joint sports streaming venture Venu for $42.99 per month initially, with a seven-day free trial, expected in fall 2024  —  Streaming sports on a stand-alone basis won't be cheap. … The service is expected to debut in the fall in conjunction with the start of the next NFL season.
Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg:
OpenAI tells US lawmakers that it is “dedicated” to “rigorous safety protocols at every stage of our process” and is working with the US AI Safety Institute  —  OpenAI, responding to questions from US lawmakers, said it's dedicated to making sure its powerful AI tools …
Andrew Romero / 9to5Google:
Telegram rolls out a Mini App Store to help users find apps, a new in-app browser that supports multiple tabs, and says mini apps have 500M+ out of 950M MAUs  —  Telegram is refining the in-app expereince, adding a new way to interact with the browser and a Mini App Store for native applications.
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman says Microsoft, Anthropic, and Perplexity need to pay to scrape Reddit's data, and blocking them has been “a real pain in the ass”  —  After striking deals with Google and OpenAI, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is calling on Microsoft and others to pay if they want to continue scraping the site's data.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Discord on Xbox gets the ability to watch friends' Discord streams whether they're sharing from a PC, a phone, or an Xbox, rolling out over the coming weeks  —  Microsoft and Discord are greatly improving the integration of the communication platform into Xbox consoles.
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
Protect AI, which develops software to help enterprises secure AI models and applications, raised $60M led by Evolution Equity Partners at a $400M valuation  —  The funding round, led by Evolution Equity Partners, values the startup at $400 million.  New investors in the deal include 01 Advisors …
More: GeekWire
Bloomberg:
Investigation: 2020 to 2023 data shows how thousands of middlemen game the H-1B program and companies farm out IT workers to exploit the US visa lottery system  —  Each year in April, the US government conducts a lottery that shapes the lives of hundreds of thousands of people — and America's future as an economic power.
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
The EU's AI Act takes effect, triggering staggered compliance deadlines for various AI developers and apps; most provisions will be fully applicable by mid-2026  —  It's official: The European Union's risk-based regulation for applications of artificial intelligence has come into force from Thursday, August 1, 2024.
Tales Azzoni / Associated Press:
The Premier League, Bundesliga, DAZN, Sky, UEFA, CONMEBOL, and others write to X CEO Linda Yaccarino demanding more action against illegal soccer content on X  —  Some of Europe's main broadcasters and top soccer leagues have sent a letter to the CEO of social media platform X, Linda Yaccarino …
Reuters:
UAE-based G42 is working with the US and Emirati government “to comply with the highest global standards” in AI, after US lawmakers questioned its China ties  —  UAE-based artificial intelligence company G42 is actively working with U.S. partners and the Emirati government to comply …
More: Politico
Jonathan Kemper / The Decoder:
Google unveils updates to its Gemma family of open models, including Gemma 2 2B, which it claims surpasses GPT-3.5 and Mixtral 8x7B on the LMSYS Chatbot Arena  —  Google has unveiled updates to its Gemma 2 family of open-source language models, focusing on improved performance, safety, and transparency.
Bloomberg:
A look at Baidu's driverless taxi experiment in Wuhan, which became China's biggest proving ground for Baidu's taxis partly due to a relaxed regulatory approach  —  Wuhan's experiment with driverless taxis could help China lead the world on the emerging technology.  It also risks putting thousands of people out of work.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26  —  Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Zoho:
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control  —  Picture this: It's Monday morning.  You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's 2026 Priority, Disney's AI Play, Datacenter Buildout Trouble
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.
Hard Fork:
Australia Kicks Kids Off Social Media + Is the A.I. Water Issue Fake? + Hard Fork Wrapped
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Access:
Why the next AI frontier is phone calls, with Beside CEO Maxime Germain
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Great Chat:
So what happens after AGI?
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.
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.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Lachlan Cartwright Started in Tabloids. Now He's a Must-Read Media Gossip.
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.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:40 PM ET, August 1, 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

Anna Washenko / Engadget:
Ian King / Bloomberg:
Ian King / Bloomberg:
Wesley Yin-Poole / IGN:
Krisztian Sandor / CoinDesk: