Techmeme
October 12, 2023, 12:00 PM

Top News

Reuters:
In a letter to Thierry Breton, X CEO Linda Yaccarino says X has removed hundreds of Hamas-linked accounts, labeled tens of thousands of posts, and more  —  The X social media platform has removed hundreds of Hamas-affiliated accounts and taken action to remove or label tens of thousands …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Ashley Capoot / CNBC:
New York Times:
At SBF's trial, the personal dynamics between him and his friends are a vital component of the case, making clear how much his inner circle has turned on him  —  The FTX founder's criminal trial has made clear just how much his inner circle has turned against him.
Zack Abrams / The Block:
Caroline Ellison's well-prepared testimony painted Sam Bankman-Fried as the ultimate decision-maker at FTX and a corrupting influence on his subordinates  —  - Government prosecutors completed their direct examination of former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison on Wednesday in the fraud trial of Sam Bankman-Fried.
Jake Piazza / CNBC:
Microsoft receives Notices of Proposed Adjustment from the IRS for an additional $28.9B tax payment; Microsoft plans to appeal, a process expected to take years  —  Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella arrives at federal court on October 2, 2023 in Washington, DC.  Nadella is testifying …
Noema:
Current advanced LLMs from OpenAI and others have many flaws but they will, decades from now, be recognized as the first true examples of AGI, similar to ENIAC  —  Today's most advanced AI models have many flaws, but decades from now, they will be recognized as the first true examples of artificial general intelligence.
Karen Hao / The Atlantic:
Akash Sriram / Reuters:
Atlassian plans to acquire video messaging platform Loom for around $975M, made up of $880M in cash and the rest in stock, closing in Q1 2024  —  Atlassian (TEAM.O) said on Thursday it had agreed to acquire privately held video messaging platform Loom for about $975 million …
Jacquelyn Melinek / TechCrunch:
Bloomberg:
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Elliptic: the Russia-linked unidentified FTX hackers who stole $415M to $432M in November 2022 started moving the haul in October, the first time in 2023  —  Whoever looted FTX on the day of its bankruptcy has now moved the stolen money through a long string of intermediaries—and eventually some that look Russian in origin.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Automattic expands ActivityPub support to WordPress.com hosted sites, letting blog owners reach 13.3M users across the fediverse, including Mastodon's 1.8M MAUs  —  Earlier this year, WordPress.com owner Automattic acquired a plugin that allowed WordPress blogs to be followed in the fediverse …
Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
Block acquires Hifi, which launched in 2020 as a financial rights organization for artists and recently rolled out Cash Flow to pay artists a bi-monthly salary  —  Block, the Jack Dorsey-founded fintech company previously known as Square, has acquired Hifi, a music-focused fintech startup.
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Google Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro review: useful, if troubling, AI photo editing tools, Face Unlock now works for payments, but the Tensor G3 runs hot occasionally  —  These might just be the Pixel phones we've been waiting for, but it all depends on how much trust you're willing to put into Google.
Victoria Song / The Verge:

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Earlier Picks

Gabe Bullard / Nieman Reports:
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
Tom Ivan / Video Games Chronicle:
Caitlin Huston / Hollywood Reporter: