Techmeme
August 6, 2024, 2:35 PM

Top News

Chris Welch / The Verge:
Google unveils the $100 Google TV Streamer, with better performance than Chromecast with Google TV, Thread and Matter support, and more, shipping September 24  —  Google isn't waiting for its upcoming hardware event to announce the Chromecast's successor.  Alongside the new, sleeker Nest Thermostat …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google says the Chromecast with Google TV 4K and HD will remain on sale until stock runs out, as the company stops making the Chromecast, first launched in 2013  —  The first Chromecast was announced in July of 2013 with the goal of letting people stream content from phones to televisions.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge:
Lauren Feiner / The Verge:
US v. Google: a judge rules Google has a monopoly in “general search text advertising” and used exclusive agreements to raise prices without any competition  —  A federal judge ruled that Google violated US antitrust law by maintaining a monopoly in the search and advertising markets.
Leah Nylen / Bloomberg:
US v. Google: a federal judge rules that Google illegally monopolized the search market, including through deals to be the default option on phones and browsers  —  Google's payments to make its search engine the default on smartphone web browsers violates US antitrust law, a federal judge ruled Monday …
Jason Del Rey / Fortune:
Steve Lohr / New York Times:
John Schulman / @johnschulman2:
OpenAI co-founder John Schulman departs to join Anthropic and focus on AI alignment, and says “I'm not leaving due to lack of support for alignment research”  —  I shared the following note with my OpenAI colleagues today: I've made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI. This choice stems from my desire to deepen my focus on AI alignment, and to start a new chapter of my career where I can return to hands-on technical work. I've decided
The Information:
OpenAI President Greg Brockman says he's taking a sabbatical through the end of 2024; a source says OpenAI product leader Peter Deng, who joined in 2023, left  —  Greg Brockman, OpenAI's president and one of 11 cofounders of the artificial intelligence firm, is taking an extended leave of absence.
Sara Fischer / Axios:
X sues the World Federation of Advertisers, GARM, and GARM members CVS Health, Mars, Orsted, and Unilever over what Linda Yaccarino calls an “illegal boycott”  —  Members include major tech companies, advertisers, agencies, ad tech firms and advertising coalitions.
Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
Behind the YouTube influencers, WhatsApp and Telegram groups, and services like FewFeed fueling Facebook's problem of creators profiting from viral “AI slop”  —  Gyan Abhishek is standing in front of a giant touch screen, like Jim Cramer on Mad Money or an ESPN talking head analyzing a football play.
Wes Davis / The Verge:
A look at some of Apple's pre-prompt Apple Intelligence instructions, like “Do not hallucinate” and “Do not make up factual information” for the Rewrite tool  —  Apple's latest developer betas launched last week with a handful of the generative AI features that were announced …
Cherlynn Low / Engadget:
Natalie Lung / Bloomberg:
Uber reports Q2 revenue up 16% YoY to $10.7B, Gross Bookings up 19% YoY to $40B, vs. $39.7B est., Mobility Gross Bookings up 23% YoY to $20.6B, and 7.4M drivers  —  - Results driven by better-than-expected growth in ridehailing  — Autonomous rides grew six-fold from year ago through partners
Anton Shilov / Tom's Hardware:
Samsung starts mass production of the world's thinnest LPDDR5X DRAM, claiming it is 9% thinner than most LPDDR5X and improves devices' heat resistance by 21.2%  —  The new package frees additional space.  —  Samsung has started mass production of the world's thinnest LPDDR5X DRAM packages featuring 12 GB and 16 GB capacities.
Doug Bock Clark / ProPublica:
A researcher finds another flaw in Georgia's voter registration cancellation portal, which has had bugs that made submitting requests for any Georgian trivial  —  The flaw would have allowed anyone to submit a voter registration cancellation request for any Georgian using their name …
Ryan Smith / AnandTech:
Intel says its Foundry's lead products on Intel 18A are booting and expects the first external customer chip design tape out in H1 2025  —  Following Intel's painful Q2 earnings call and the announcement of their 2025 cost reduction plan last week, it has become increasingly evident …
Reuters:
ByteDance debuts AI text-to-video app Jimeng AI on iOS in China, after its July 31 Android release; China's Kuaishou released Kling AI in beta globally in July  —  ByteDance has expanded its offering of a software that can generate videos based on text prompts, joining a growing number …
Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Red Ventures sells CNET, an early pioneer of online tech coverage, to Ziff Davis, which owns Mashable, PC Mag, Lifehacker, and others, a source says for $100M+  —  Ziff Davis is acquiring CNET for more than $100 million.  Its chief executive thinks more acquisitions are on the horizon.
Bloomberg:
The US awards South Korea's SK Hynix an initial $450M in grants and $500M in loans under the CHIPS Act to build an advanced chip packaging facility in Indiana  —  - Firm to get $450 million Chips Act grant, $500 million loan  — Indiana facility focused on advanced packaging, research

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Earlier Picks

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
New York Times: