Techmeme
November 1, 2023, 6:40 PM

Top News

The Walt Disney Company:
Disney plans to acquire the 33% stake in Hulu held by Comcast's NBCUniversal, giving Disney full ownership; Disney expects to pay NBCU ~$8.61B by December 1  —  The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) announced today that it will acquire the 33% stake in Hulu, LLC held by Comcast Corp.'s (NASDAQ …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
At the UK's AI Safety Summit, the UK releases the Bletchley Declaration, signed by 28 countries and the EU, and the US announces an AI Safety Institute  —  The world is locked in a race, and competition, over dominance in AI, but today, a few of them appeared to come together …
Financial Times:
Bloomberg:
A look at Apple's ambition to revolutionize health care: some breakthroughs marred by philosophical disagreements, a culture of conservatism, and tech realities  —  The company is working on big things, but employees disagree over whether they should be serving people who are healthy or sick.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple plans new health features for 2024's Apple Watch, like an elevated blood pressure sensor, and a paid health coaching service, possibly using AI  —  - AirPods will get hearing-aid capability and hearing tests  — AI health coach in the works, as are Vision Pro health tools
CoinDesk:
The US SEC charges SafeMoon and its executives for selling unregistered crypto securities and misappropriating investors' funds the team promised were “locked”  —  Crypto company SafeMoon's CEO and chief technology officer were arrested, accused of withdrawing more than $200M …
Joe Duball / IAPP:
The EDPB instructs the Irish DPC to ban Meta's use of personal data for behavioral ads on the legal base of contract and legitimate interest in the EU and EEA  —  An unprecedented shakeup in the advertising technology space has arrived in Europe.  Changes are coming to adtech's approach …
David Pierce / The Verge:
US v. Google offers a rare look at Google's top 20 queries by revenue for a week in September 2018: iPhone, insurance, cheap flights, online colleges, and more  —  Not all Google searches make Google money.  Google often says that it only shows ads on about 20 percent of queries, the ones it calls “commercial queries.”
Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
Apple quietly discontinued Apple Music's $4.99/month Voice Plan, which was introduced in 2021 and let users access the Apple Music catalog exclusively via Siri  —  Apple this week held a special event to announce new Macs, but what the company didn't tell is that it has just quietly discontinued the …
Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Shareholder letter: Netflix says its ad tier has 15M+ MAUs globally, accounting for ~30% of new sign-ups where it's available, and plans new ad formats for 2024  —  Netflix is ready to use “The Crown,” “Squid Game” and other signature series to take ad dollars from rival streamers.
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
AI Snake Oil:
RT Watson / The Block:
After securing regulatory approval, Coinbase says that eligible US retail customers can now access BTC and ETH futures contracts via Coinbase Financial Markets  —  - Coinbase's service offering crypto futures trading to eligible retail U.S. customers is now active and includes “nano” bitcoin contracts.
Sam Tobin / Reuters:
Apple loses a bid to block a UK lawsuit over allegedly hiding defective iPhone batteries and “throttling” them via updates; Apple calls the lawsuit “baseless”  —  Apple Inc (AAPL.O) on Wednesday lost a bid to block a mass London lawsuit accusing it of hiding defective batteries …
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Snowflake unveils Snowflake Cortex, a fully managed service designed to help business users and developers work with AI-powered apps on its Data Cloud platform  —  Companies use Snowflake to store their data in the cloud.  With the ever growing interest in generative AI and large language models …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
CRM platform HubSpot plans to acquire B2B data provider Clearbit, which has 400K+ users and 1,500+ business customers, and was valued at $250M in January 2019  —  HubSpot, the Boston-based marketing software maker and CRM platform, announced today it's acquiring the B2B data provider Clearbit …
Joshua Oliver / Financial Times:
A look back at testimony from Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, and Nishad Singh and SBF's counterclaims, as the jury prepares to deliberate which version to believe  —  Former crypto tycoon will soon learn whether he was able to successfully counter his former colleagues' testimony  —  Four people were in the room.
Hayden Field / CNBC:
LinkedIn announces a GPT-4-powered AI chatbot that the company calls a “job seeker coach”, available to Premium users, and says the platform now has 1B+ members  —  - LinkedIn said it surpassed 1 billion members and debuted an AI chatbot billed as a “job seeker coach” and other generative AI tools for Premium members.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Transform ML Experimentation with Tangle  —  Save months of compute time with Tangle, built by Shopify.  Try this open-source platform to simplify ML workflows, ensure reproducibility, and seamlessly share with collaborators.
Zoho:
Contract Signed.  Project Ready.  Tasks Created.  —  Every project begins with a promise; a contract that outlines the deliverables, the timelines, and the terms.  But for most businesses …
Bitrix24:
Bitrix24 powers the next generation of high-performing businesses  —  Chat, projects, CRM, and automation — all in one place.  Replace dozens of tools so your team moves faster, collaborates smarter, and grows effortlessly.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Channels with Peter Kafka:
"Hollywood is Truly Freaked Out." Inside the Netflix/WBD Deal with Lucas Shaw
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Hard Fork:
OpenAI Calls a 'Code Red' + Which Model Should I Use? + The Hard Fork Review of Slop
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Access:
Is Roblox making the internet better or worse? We asked the CEO
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Lenny's Podcast:
Why LinkedIn is turning PMs into AI-powered "full stack builders" | Tomer Cohen (LinkedIn CPO)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Great Chat:
Code red: our favorite tech rivalries
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:40 PM ET, November 1, 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.

More News

Tim Wu / The Atlantic:

Earlier Picks

Nilesh Christopher / Rest of World:
New York Times:
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg: