Techmeme
September 21, 2023, 3:42 AM

Top News

Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Hands-on with Bard Extensions, which lets the chatbot use data from Gmail, Docs, and Drive: the feature hallucinated emails, made wrong travel plans, and more  —  The chatbot now pulls information from a user's Gmail, Google Docs and Google Drive accounts.  The feature leaves a lot to be desired.
The Verge:
Everything Amazon announced at its product event: Alexa Emergency Assist for $6/month, the Alexa Eye Gaze accessibility feature, the $50 Echo Pop Kids, and more  —  Amazon is kicking off its annual fall product announcements at its HQ2 campus in Arlington, Virginia.
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Ina Fried / Axios:
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Apple's FineWoven accessories and iPhone cases are really bad: they're expensive, quickly show wear, and scratch very easily, leaving seemingly permanent marks  —  Apple's new FineWoven iPhone cases and accessories are bad.  Like, really bad.  I've been puzzling over them for the past week, looking at them from different angles.
Ben Weiss / Fortune:
PayPal says select Venmo users can now purchase its stablecoin PYUSD, with a rollout to more users in the coming weeks, in addition to BTC, ETH, BCH, and LTC  —  PayPal announced on Wednesday that Venmo users will be able to buy PayPal's new stablecoin, PayPal USD, increasing the number …
Keisha Oleaga / nft now:
A look at AI-generated geometric art crafted using Stable Diffusion and ControlNet, a neural network structure that adds extra conditions to diffusion models  —  This past weekend, a new kind of artwork made waves across the Internet: AI-generated spiral art.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
GitHub expands Copilot Chat beta in Visual Studio and VS Code to individual subscribers, after launching the tool for business users in July 2023  —  Three months ago, GitHub launched Copilot Chat, its ChatGPT-like programming-centric chatbot, out of private preview by making it available …
Dana Mattioli / Wall Street Journal:
In its Prime lawsuit, the FTC alleges three Amazon executives played key roles in enrolling customers unwittingly and making it hard to cancel subscriptions  —  Federal agency alleges Amazon executives were aware of enrolling customers unwittingly and erecting intentional hurdles to cancellation
Wired:
Documents show that up to a dozen of Neuralink's primate subjects were euthanized after suffering complications; Elon Musk says no primates died due to implants  —  Elon Musk says no primates died as a result of Neuralink's implants.  A WIRED investigation now reveals the grisly specifics …
Mariam Sunny / Reuters:
Andrew Throuvalas / Decrypt:
The developer behind AstroPepeX details using ChatGPT to name and launch the ERC-20 memecoin, which has raked in $12.9M in trading volume over the past 24 hours  —  An anonymous Ethereum developer has released code that he says instructs artificial intelligence tools to deploy new ERC-20 tokens.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Apple spent billions of dollars developing a modem chip for the new iPhones to cut ties with Qualcomm, but the chip was slow and prone to overheating  —  The company set out to design a silicon chip that would allow it to cut ties with Qualcomm, a longtime supplier and bitter foe
Bloomberg:
Klaviyo closes up 9.2% in its New York Stock Exchange debut, valuing the Shopify-backed e-commerce marketing company at $9.9B on a fully diluted basis  —  - Email software firm closes debut at $9.9 billion valuation  — Founder Bialecki's fortune rises to $3.4 billion with IPO
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
With blistering public attacks against a lesser-known accelerator and investors, Y Combinator appears curiously on the defensive lately  —  Y Combinator has been on the defense as of late.  —  This past weekend, leaders from the popular accelerator were vocal on X (formerly known as Twitter) …
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Uber plans to accept the US food stamps EBT card and health insurance-issued FSA and flex cards for Uber Eats grocery delivery orders, starting in 2024  —  Uber Eats will start accepting food stamps and healthcare benefits as payment for grocery delivery orders, the company announced Wednesday.

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Earlier Picks

Victoria Song / The Verge:
CNBC:
Qianer Liu / Financial Times:
BBC:
Nikkei Asia:
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: