Techmeme
August 27, 2024, 9:40 AM

Top News

New York Times:
French prosecutors: Pavel Durov's arrest is part of a probe “against person unnamed” into CSAM, drug sales, and more on the app and not working with authorities  —  A case was opened last month to investigate child pornography, drug sales, fraud and other criminal activities on the platform.
New York Times:
A profile of Pavel Durov, a devout techno-optimist who trolled authorities online, started social network VKontakte in 2006, and left Russia in 2014 for Dubai  —  Pavel Durov's anti-establishment streak helped him create one of the world's biggest online platforms, which emphasizes free speech.
Politico:
In France, Telegram is avidly used within political and media circles, including by President Emmanuel Macron, who has used the app for nearly a decade  —  PARIS — Open the Telegram chat of anyone in the French political orbit and you'll notice lawmakers, cabinet members and presidential advisers online or recently connected.
Victor Goury-Laffont / Politico:
Siobhan Hughes / Wall Street Journal:
In a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan, Mark Zuckerberg says he regrets Meta wasn't more outspoken about Biden administration pressure to restrict some COVID-19 content  —  Meta CEO also says he won't repeat 2020 efforts to fund local elections, which Republicans criticized as ‘Zuckerbucks’
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority:
Android 14 downgrade OTA release notes confirm Google has delayed the Android 15 roll out to Pixel devices from September to October, possibly around October 15  —  - The Android Beta Exit update screen has been updated to mention that the Android 15 update will be available in October.
Elon Musk / @elonmusk:
Elon Musk says that, “all things considered, I think California should probably pass the SB 1047 AI safety bill”, and saying so is “a tough call”  —  This is a tough call and will make some people upset, but, all things considered, I think California should probably pass the SB 1047 AI safety bill. For over 20 years, I have been an advocate for AI regulation, just as we regulate any product/technology that is a potential risk
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Anthropic publishes a changelog for the system prompts of its Sonnet, Opus, and Haiku models, the first major AI vendor to do so  —  Generative AI models aren't actually human-like.  They have no intelligence or personality — they're simply statistical systems predicting the likeliest next words in a sentence.
Caroline O'Donovan / Washington Post:
Docs: Amazon plans to launch its delayed overhaul of Alexa in October for as much as $10/month, with AI-generated news summaries, a chatbot for kids, and more  —  The revamp of the voice assistant, which documents say will include a daily AI-generated news summary, would come just weeks before the U.S. presidential election.

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More News

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

Earlier Picks

Apple:
Jesse Hamilton / CoinDesk:
Anna Tong / Reuters:
Juli Clover / MacRumors: