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June 24, 2023, 2:05 AM
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Mark Matousek / The Information:
Social media startup IRL is shutting down after an investigation by its board concluded that 95% of its claimed 20M MAUs were “automated or from bots”  —  Last year, the CEO of messaging app IRL repeatedly said it had 20 million monthly active users, who chatted about shared interests and planned real-world events together.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
At the FTC v. Microsoft hearing, Phil Spencer says Microsoft bought ZeniMax for $7.5B to stop Starfield and other Bethesda games becoming PlayStation exclusives  —  Microsoft's Xbox chief has revealed one of the key reasons behind the acquisition of Bethesda parent company ZeniMax: potential Starfield PlayStation exclusivity.
The Economic Times:
Sundar Pichai says Google plans to invest $10B in India's digitization fund and announces the opening of Google's fintech operation center in GIFT City, Gujarat  —  Notably, Gujarat International Finance Tec-City is a central business district under construction in Gandhinagar district in Gujarat, India.
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Sources: Meta is planning to release its Twitter competitor in mid-July and is pitching big-name celebrities to join a platform that will be “sanely” run  —  Mark Zuckerberg is the overwhelming favorite to beat Elon Musk in a cage match.  Will it actually happen?
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
A US federal court sentences UK citizen Joseph James O'Connor to five years in prison for his role in the July 2020 Twitter hack affecting high-profile accounts  —  Prosecutors called for the British hacker to serve at least seven years  —  Three years after one of the most visible hacks …
New York Times:
A profile of Michael Kives, a Hollywood agent turned investor, as FTX's bankruptcy lawyers sue his VC firm K5 Global to recover ~$700M that SBF had invested  —  Michael Kives, a former Hollywood agent, connected FTX's founder to Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom, Bill Clinton and others.
Bloomberg:
A mistakenly released FDIC doc lists SVB customers before its collapse: Sequoia with $1B, Beijing-based Kanzhun with $902.9M, Altos Labs with $680.3M, and more  —  When federal regulators stepped in to backstop all of Silicon Valley Bank's deposits, they saved thousands of small tech startups …
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Midjourney adds a “zoom out” feature that builds out a larger scene around images generated within Midjourney, simulating zooming out with a camera lens  —  Midjourney v5.2 features camera-like zoom control over framing, more realism.  —  On Thursday, Midjourney unveiled version 5.2 …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Google adds a Perspectives tab to search results, with information that people have posted on YouTube, Reddit, and more, after announcing the feature in May  —  Google's new search feature that shows you different perspectives (ideally, human ones) in search results will be available on Friday, the company said on Twitter.
Wired:
How military-grade AI, developed by US defense contractors for intelligence, has been repurposed to combat labor organizing, find internal leakers, and more  —  Spycraft developed by defense contractors are now being sold to employers to identify labor organizing.  Regulators must step up to protect workers' privacy.
More: Politico.  Forums: Hacker News
Jay Peters / The Verge:
YouTube is testing Aloud, an AI-powered dubbing tool developed at Google's Area 120, with “hundreds” of creators, starting with English, Spanish, and Portuguese  —  YouTube wants to make it easier to dub your videos in other languages by giving you some help with AI.
Chris Vallance / BBC:
Google plans to update Android's Emergency SOS after UK police blame the feature, activated by repeatedly pressing a side button, for a surge in false 999 calls  —  Police forces across the UK have warned that a new feature on some Android phones is plaguing switchboards with inadvertent “silent” 999 calls.
Nico Grant / New York Times:
NetBlocks: at least five Russian telcos block Google News and several other ISPs are reducing access, as Russia's feud with a mercenary leader intensifies  —  At least five telecommunications companies have blocked the service, which aggregates news from various sources, according to an analysis from NetBlocks, an internet observatory.

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:05 AM ET, June 24, 2023.

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.

From Mediagazer

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Arkansas PBS severs ties with the PBS network, the first state public TV system to do so since Congress cut CPB funds, citing the annual $2M+ membership cost

Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:
Disney's Zootopia 2 surpasses $1B at the global box office, the fastest PG-rated film to do so after just 17 days in release

Sam Roberts / New York Times:
Arthur L. Carter, who started a Connecticut newspaper in 1981, bought and sold The Nation, and founded the New York Observer in 1987, has died at 93

More News

Sandali Handagama / CoinDesk:
Court filing: the US SEC agreed to forego $30M of bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi's $50M fine, for not registering with the regulator, until investors are repaid
Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Internal records undercut claims that Twitter censored pro-Trump views before the Capitol riot and show a reluctance to suspend Trump's account until January 8
Anna Irrera / Bloomberg:
JPMorgan expands its JPM Coin, launched in 2019 for USD transactions, to euro payments; the bank has used the token to process ~$300B in transactions to date

Earlier Picks

Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
A look at the Apple Vision Pro's features in the visionOS SDK, including a “Moving at Unsafe Speed” alert, a “Travel Mode” for airplanes, and a “Guest Mode”
Anand J / Moneycontrol:
Sources: Apple is in talks to launch Apple Card in India, and has met with HDFC and the RBI; a source says Apple is holding Apple Pay discussions with the NPCI
Wall Street Journal:
Thierry Breton says he sees a “strong willingness” from Twitter to comply with the EU's DSA and that the company was the first to undergo the law's stress test
Anja Karadeglija / National Post:
Meta plans to remove news content from Facebook and Instagram for users in Canada after the Online News Act passed Canada's Senate and received royal assent
Rebekah Valentine / IGN:
Filing: Microsoft says Xbox “lost the console wars”, with a 16% share of console sales in 2021, behind Nintendo and PlayStation, and a 21% installed base share
Anton Shilov / AnandTech:
Argonne and Intel say they installed the Aurora supercomputer, announced in 2015, which will come online later in 2023 with 2 FP64 ExaFLOPS of processing power
CoinDesk:
BitGo ends its bid to acquire rival Prime Trust, which in turn halts all deposits and withdrawals; a judge dismissed BitGo's lawsuit over the failed Galaxy deal
Kevin Purdy / Ars Technica:
DuckDuckGo releases its browser in public beta on Windows, over a year after its private beta on macOS, offering Duck Player for YouTube without ads and more
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