Techmeme
April 21, 2023, 10:40 AM

Top News

Paul Sawers / TechCrunch:
Email: Twitter tells advertisers that they must have “a verified checkmark or subscribe to either Twitter Blue or Verified Organizations” to keep running ads  —  As Twitter's legacy blue check mark system finally comes to an end, the social network's new paid-for verification system …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Twitter begins removing blue checkmarks from legacy verified accounts, fulfilling one of Elon Musk's long-stated plans; Musk has called the system “corrupt”  —  The change is apparent on Twitter accounts for several Verge writers and other journalists like LA Times reporter Matt Pearce …
More: BBC, Bloomberg, New York Times, PCWorld, Insider, Bloomberg, New York Post, Coinspeaker, Tech.co, Mashable, NBC News, Social Media Today, TweakTown, The Guardian, The Economic Times, Newser, SiliconANGLE, Livemint, Instagram - Kara Swisher, Deadline, TechCrunch, Variety, and Washington Post
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The Verge:
Twitter offered LeBron James a complimentary Blue subscription after he said he wouldn't pay for one; Musk says he's paying for “a few” subscriptions personally  —  Twitter has started getting rid of legacy blue checks for those who don't pay up.  Well, unless you're LeBron James and a couple of other celebrities.
Jahnavi Nidumolu / Reuters:
Twitter dropped the “Government-funded” and “China state-affiliated” labels from accounts of media organizations and journalists, including NPR, BBC, and Xinhua  —  Twitter dropped the “Government-funded” and “China state-affiliated” labels, which implies government involvement …
Mariella Moon / Engadget:
Google gives Bard the ability to generate, debug, and explain code in 20+ languages, including C++, JavaScript, and Python, and export code to Google's Colab  —  Google's Bard chatbot now has the capability to help you with programming tasks.  The tech giant said that coding …
Ina Fried / Axios:
Humane co-founder Imran Chaudhri demoed an AI-powered wearable with a projected display that does not need a nearby phone and uses voice and gestures for input  —  Ex-Apple employee Imran Chaudhri gave TED attendees on Thursday an early glimpse of the AI-powered wearable that his startup, Humane, has been developing.
Aaron Tilley / Wall Street Journal:
Docs: Apple plans an iPhone journaling app to let users compile their daily activities in an expansion of its efforts in the mental and physical health space  —  Daily activities log is set to compete with existing software  —  Apple Inc. is planning an iPhone app to let users compile …
Paresh Dave / Wired:
Stack Overflow CEO says the company plans to charge large AI developers for access to the 50M questions and answers on its service as soon as mid-2023  —  The programmer Q&A site joins Reddit in demanding compensation when its data is used to train algorithms and ChatGPT-style bots
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
After YouTube pulls Heart On My Sleeve due to a UMG copyright notice, a look at the legal dilemma for Google, which claims scraping data to train AI is fair use  —  If young Metro don't trust you, I'm gonna... tie you up in a decade of fair use litigation.  —  The AI Drake track …
Miles Kruppa / Wall Street Journal:
Google announces Google DeepMind, a unit combining DeepMind's team and Google Research's Brain team, to be led by DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis as its CEO  —  Search giant merges AI resources to accelerate progress in technology that is reshaping business
John D. McKinnon / Wall Street Journal:
The White House meets with corporate, government, and academic experts to begin developing strategies for 6G, as the US seeks to build an early lead over China  —  Biden administration aims to reassert U.S. leadership in telecom, an area where China has made gains

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Earlier Picks

David Pierce / The Verge:
Bloomberg:
Michael Kan / PCMag: