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Techmeme
August 2, 2023, 3:15 PM
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Top News

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
X now lets X Blue subscribers hide their checkmarks, but warns that “the checkmark may still appear in some places” and “some features may not be available”  —  Social media company X, formerly Twitter, now lets paid users hide their verification checkmarks.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
X renames TweetDeck to XPro; the tweetdeck.twitter.com URL and much of the copy remain unchanged, including a “tool for people who live on Twitter” description
Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
Sources: US DOJ officials are considering fraud charges against Binance, but worry that an indictment could cause a run on Binance like the one that befell FTX  —  U.S. Department of Justice officials are considering fraud charges against crypto exchange Binance, but are concerned about the cost …
Wall Street Journal:
Internal Binance data and current and former employees say Chinese users traded ~$90B in crypto assets on the exchange in May 2023, despite China's crypto ban  —  Retaining its Chinese footprint will be crucial for Binance as it faces a global regulatory crackdown
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Amazon plans to roll out the biggest overhaul to its grocery business since buying Whole Foods in the coming weeks, including one cart for supermarket offerings  —  It's revamping stores, unifying online shopping carts and offering fresh-food delivery to customers who aren't Prime subscribers.
Rest of World:
Interviews with people at Worldcoin booths in Nairobi, Bengaluru, and Hong Kong find many scanned their eyes to receive the sign-up bonuses, an “easy $50”  —  In Nairobi, Bengaluru, and Hong Kong, our reporters found lots of people were eager to take the deal.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft now lets Xbox owners stream gameplay from the console to Discord users, rolling out to all Xbox users in the coming months  —  Microsoft is improving its Xbox and Discord integration with a new streaming gameplay feature.  Xbox owners will soon be able to stream their gameplay …
Emilia David / The Verge:
Meta releases AudioCraft, an open-source AI tool that lets users create music and sounds via text prompts, consisting of MusicGen, AudioGen, and EnCodec models  —  It consists of three AI models, all tackling different areas of sound generation.  MusicGen takes text inputs to generate music.
David Pierce / The Verge:
Google updates its generative AI-powered Search experience with supplementary multimedia, faster responses, and more context for links in its summary box  —  Google's AI-powered Search Generative Experience is getting a big new feature: images and video.  If you've enabled the AI-based SGE feature …
Jen Christensen / CNN:
An early-stage study of 80K+ women in Sweden who underwent a mammogram between April 2021 and July 2022 finds AI-supported screening detected 20% more cancers  —  Artificial intelligence found more breast cancers than doctors with years of training and experience and cut doctors' mammogram …
Bloomberg:
Sources: SoftBank's Arm is targeting an IPO at a valuation of between $60B and $70B as soon as September 2023, looking to raise as much as $10B in its debut  —  - Chip design firm may raise as much as $10 billion in debut  — Nvidia, Intel are in discussions to be anchor investors
Amy Lewin / Sifted:
Hopin, the struggling virtual events startup valued at $7.75B in August 2021, sells its Events and Session units to RingCentral; CEO Johnny Boufarhat steps down  —  UPDATED: The startup, which was once the fastest-growing in Europe, has also sold its flagship product
Charlotte Hughes-Morgan / Bloomberg:
Uber paid £386M, or $490M, to UK tax authorities as part of a dispute over how its ride hailing app applies VAT to UK trips, but plans to appeal the decision  —  - HMRC is challenging Uber's use of Tour Operators Margin Scheme  — Uber said it will appeal the VAT assessment in UK Court
Bloomberg:
China releases draft rules to limit minors' smartphone use, including two-hour limits for teens aged 16 to 18; platforms would be responsible for enforcement  —  - Aims to prevent kids from spending too much time on phones  — Beijing has pursued campaigns to alleviate burden on minors
Charlie Fink / Forbes:
Inworld, which uses AI to help developers create game characters, raised $30M led by Lightspeed at a $500M+ valuation, following a $50M Series A in August 2022  —  Inworld, which makes AI-driven non-player characters (NPCs) for games and other applications has raised approximately $30 in new funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners.

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:15 PM ET, August 2, 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

James Faris / Business Insider:
Sources: Disney is discussing a potential free tier for Disney+; product and tech chief Adam Smith discussed the initiative at a town hall but gave no timeline

Ben Fritz / Wall Street Journal:
As Hollywood looks for its next Obsession-type hit, 11 studios bid on YouTube series The Mandela Catalogue and sources say WBD paid $1M for rights to Siren Head

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Report: Letterboxd's owners have held early talks with potential buyers, including Netflix, Sony Pictures, Paramount, and PE giant TPG

More News

Alex Pasternack / Fast Company:
An interview with Google Jigsaw engineer Lucy Vasserman on how OpenAI, Anthropic, and others use Jigsaw's AI-based Perspective API to flag LLMs' toxic speech
More: Platformer.  Twitter: @pasternack, @pasternack, @dburghart, @max_uf, and @fastcompany.  Forums: Slashdot
Chethan Rao / Android Police:
YouTube asks a small number of viewers to share their feedback on a test that generates AI-based “quick overview” summaries on some English-language videos
Clive Cookson / Financial Times:
University of Glasgow spinout Chemify, which uses a computing process to design new molecules with AI before making them in an automated lab, raised $43M

Earlier Picks

Aidan Ryan / The Information:
Sources: Changpeng Zhao tried to liquidate Binance.US earlier in 2023, before pivoting to attempting to sell the company, holding talks with Gemini and others
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
AMD reports Q2 revenue down 18% YoY to $5.36B, net income down 94% YoY to $27M, Client revenue down 54% YoY to $998M, and Data Center revenue down 11% to $1.3B
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
Halcyon: Cloudzy, a Wyoming-registered web hosting company likely operating out of Tehran, is acting as a command-and-control provider for state-backed hackers
Chavi Mehta / Reuters:
Meta begins the process to end news access on Facebook and Instagram in Canada, in response to a law forcing some companies to negotiate deals to pay publishers
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
In a challenge to TikTok, YouTube releases new Shorts creation tools for remixing, adding effects, going live, as well as an interactive Q&A sticker, and more
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