Techmeme
September 17, 2024, 7:30 PM

Top News

New York Times:
Instagram unveils Teen Accounts, a sweeping update to boost privacy and limit intrusive effects for under-18 users, including making accounts private by default  —  The app, which is popular with teenagers, introduced new settings and features aimed at addressing inappropriate online contact and content …
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Snap unveils new Spectacles that it will lease to Snapchat AR lens developers, with a more immersive display, longer battery life, and a more lightweight design  —  Will developers finally help Snap take AR glasses mainstream? … Snap's fifth-generation Spectacles have a richer, more immersive display.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Apple Watch Series 10 review: sleep apnea detection has potential, bigger but not bulky display, and much faster charging, but no blood oxygen feature in the US  —  The Series 10 bets big on a larger display and a more wearable design.  As far as iterative updates go, that's a savvy choice.
Financial Times:
BlackRock, GIP, Microsoft, and MGX announce a new AI fund that seeks to raise $30B+ of private equity capital and $100B+ in total investment when including debt  —  Nvidia and Abu Dhabi-backed MGX will join effort as energy-intensive tech strains power and data grids
Victor Tangermann / Futurism:
OpenAI confirms fixing an issue “where it appeared as though ChatGPT was starting new conversations”, after users reported ChatGPT was reaching out proactively  —  “Did you just message me first?”  —  Over the weekend, a redditor going by the name of SentuBill posted …
Sam Sabin / Axios:
Microsoft: starting in late August, Russian cyber operatives focused on Harris' campaign, with disinfo including videos spread by a site posing as a news outlet  —  - One claimed to show a group of alleged Harris supporters attacking an assumed Trump rally attendee.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Mozilla says it will shut down its Mastodon server, Mozilla.social, giving users until December 17 to export their data and migrate to another instance  —  Mozilla is exiting the fediverse.  Though the concept of the open social web, also known as the fediverse, has been picking …
Bloomberg:
The EU picks veteran Finnish lawmaker Henna Virkkunen to take over from Thierry Breton, pending her confirmation; Virkkunen was instrumental in creating the DSA  —  - Finnish lawmaker Henna Virkkunen was instrumental on DSA  — Virkkunen emphasized importance of European competitiveness
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
IBM acquires Kubecost, a FinOps startup launched in 2019 that helps companies monitor and optimize Kubernetes clusters; Kubecost had raised $30M+ in funding  —  IBM today announced that it has acquired Kubecost, a FinOps startup that helps teams at companies like Allianz, Audi …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Google plans to flag AI-made images with C2PA metadata in “about this image” in Search and integrate C2PA metadata into its ad systems over the coming months  —  Google is planning to roll out a technology that will identify whether a photo was taken with a camera …
Larry Dignan / Constellation Research:
Dreamforce 2024 takeaways: Salesforce upgrades all customers from Einstein Copilot to Agentforce, Slack is positioned as an agentic AI-enhanced work OS, more  —  Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff laid out the company's AI vision, which revolves around autonomous agents working with humans and the end of the “hit or miss” copilot era.
Katie Kilkenny / The Hollywood Reporter:
California Governor Gavin Newsom signs two bills restricting the use of AI replicas of performers, building on protections SAG-AFTRA sought in its 2023 strike  —  In a symbolic move, the governor visited the Los Angeles headquarters of performers' union SAG-AFTRA to greenlight the legislation …
Reuters:
EssilorLuxottica and Meta sign a multiyear deal to keep developing smart eyewear into the 2030s, after creating two generations of Ray-Ban glasses since 2019  —  EssilorLuxottica (ESLX.PA) said on Tuesday it had extended its partnership with Meta Platforms (META.O) by agreeing a 10-year deal to continue developing smart eyewear.
Mackenzie Hawkins / Bloomberg:
The Pentagon will award $269M to 33 chip research projects across the US via Chips Act funding to bolster semiconductor efforts for the military  —  - The funding will support 33 projects across 27 states and DC  — Recent report urged more consolidation of research efforts
More: Proactive and Inc.com

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Earlier Picks

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NBC News:
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Gary Ng / iPhone in Canada Blog: