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April 18, 2024, 7:30 PM
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Top News

Alex Heath / The Verge:
Meta details Llama 3: 8B- and 70B-parameter models, a focus on reducing false refusals, and an upcoming model trained on 15T+ tokens that has 400B+ parameters  —  Meta's AI assistant is being put everywhere across Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook.  Meanwhile, the company's next major AI model, Llama 3, has arrived.
New York Times:
Meta to add its Meta AI chatbot to Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Facebook in 12+ countries, expanding beyond the US, powered by its new Llama 3 models  —  Users of Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Messenger will be able to turn to the new technology, powered by Meta's latest artificial …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Meta rolls out real-time AI image generation, which changes the image as the user types a prompt, in beta on WhatsApp and Meta AI on the web in the US  —  As soon as you start typing a text-to-image prompt in a chat with Meta AI, you'll see how the image changes as you add more detail about what you want to create.
More: Redmond Pie.  Threads: @mgsiegler, @zuck, and @chriscox
X: @rihardjarc, @jamespearce, @deviparikh, and @deviparikh.  LinkedIn: Jack Hanlon
Emilia David / The Verge:
Meta claims both Llama 3 models beat similarly sized models like Gemini, Mistral, and Claude 3 on certain benchmarks; humans marked Llama 3 higher than GPT-3.5
David Pierce / The Verge:
Google announces a new Platforms and Devices team overseeing Pixel, Android, Chrome, Photos, and more, to integrate AI across its products, led by Rick Osterloh  —  AI is taking over at Google, and the company is changing in big ways to try to make it happen even faster.
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Europol and 19 countries make 37 arrests and disrupt phishing-as-a-service platform LabHost in a year-long operation with help from Microsoft, Intel, and others  —  The LabHost phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) platform has been disrupted in a year-long global law enforcement operation …
Sarah Whitten / CNBC:
Netflix reports Q1 revenue up 15% YoY to $9.37B, vs. $9.28B est., paid users up 16% YoY to 269.6M, vs. 264.2M est., and net income $2.3B, up from $1.3B YoY  —  LOS ANGELES — Netflix reported earnings that beat on the top and bottom line after the bell Thursday.  —  Here are the results:
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Netflix won't report subscriber numbers or Average Revenue per Membership starting in Q1 2025, saying time spent is its “best proxy for customer satisfaction”  —  Netflix will no longer report subscriber numbers — a key metric for streaming services for years — beginning with the first quarter of 2025.
Kris Holt / Engadget:
Meta cuts the price of the base 128GB Quest 2 from $249 to $199, its second permanent price cut in four months, after a drop from $299 to $249 in January  —  The base 128GB headset will cost $199 from now on.  —  For the second time this year, Meta has given the Quest 2 a permanent price cut.
The Information:
Sources: cloud security startup Wiz is in advanced talks to acquire competitor Lacework for $150M-$200M; Lacework raised $1.8B and was valued at $8.3B in 2021  —  Cybersecurity startup Wiz is in advanced talks to acquire Lacework, one of its largest private competitors, according to two people with direct knowledge of the talks.
More: CTech, TechCrunch, and InfoRiskToday.com
X: @gregisenberg and @coryweinberg.  LinkedIn: Alex Burkardt.  Forums: Hacker News
Crystal Kim / Axios:
A US jury finds Avraham Eisenberg, a crypto trader who stole $110M on the Mango Markets exchange in 2022, guilty of fraud despite his “code is law” claim  —  - He used the inflated futures holdings as collateral to borrow other cryptocurrencies on the platform …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
DARPA reveals that an AI-controlled X-62A jet successfully faced a human pilot in an F-16 during an in-air dogfight test carried out in 2023  —  The US Air Force is putting AI in the pilot's seat.  In an update on Thursday, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) …
Sheila Chiang / CNBC:
TSMC reports Q1 revenue up 16.5% YoY to ~$18.87B, vs. ~$18B est., net income up 8.9% YoY to ~$6.97B, vs. ~$6.6B est., and expects strong AI chip demand in Q2
Thomas Barrabi / New York Post:
Google fires 28 employees over their participation in a 10-hour sit-in at the company's New York and Sunnyvale offices to protest its business ties with Israel  —  Google has fired 28 employees over their participation in a 10-hour sit-in at the search giant's offices in New York and Sunnyvale …
Bloomberg:
The US House Speaker plans to bundle the TikTok divestiture bill, with a longer sale deadline, in a Ukraine/Israel aid bill set to clear the House on April 20  —  - Johnson to include measure in aid package for Ukraine, Israel  — Biden has said he would sign bill forcing ByteDance to divest
Bloomberg:
Huawei releases its Pura 70 series, available for ~$760 to ~$1,380; reviewers show high-end models have a Kirin 9010 chip, an update to the Mate 60 Pro's 9000s  —  - Huawei building out portfolio with fresh upgrades and design  — New phones likely to add further pressure on iPhone in China
Amanda Lee / Wall Street Journal:
Apple plans to spend $250M+ on its regional hub in Singapore, including expanding its campus later in 2024, as Tim Cook visits Vietnam and other Asian countries  —  Apple seeks to diversify its supply chain amid rising U.S.-China tensions and global concerns of decoupling trade
Austin Carr / Bloomberg:
A look at Apple's device recycling, including shredding robots and contractor GEEP, which Apple sued in 2020 for ~$22.6M in a case that has not seen any updates  —  Apple touts its network of shredding robots and contractors as a greener way to reuse old gadgets.

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:30 PM ET, April 18, 2024.

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

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
As Democrats take the House and the Senate, David Ellison and other media executives are likely to face inquiries and hearings over their deals and Trump ties

Katie Robertson / New York Times:
NYT adds 420K net digital-only subscribers in Q3, boosting total paid subscribers to 13.8M, keeping it on pace to meet a goal of 15M subscribers by 2027's end

Jeremy Barr / The Guardian:
President Trump says Fox News “bears responsibility” for the GOP's losses after “constantly and consistently putting on the Dumocrat opposition, and worse”

More News

New York Times:
US court documents, mistakenly made public, reveal ByteDance and TikTok's complex origin story, spawning from GOP donor Jeff Yass' failed real estate venture
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Nothing unveils the $149 Nothing Ear and $99 Nothing Ear (a), offering improved sound, personalization, and battery life; Nothing plans to integrate ChatGPT
Wall Street Journal:
Investigation: Amazon sells ~$1M per year in goods on eBay, Shopify, Walmart, and Amazon via its “Big River” arm, to get data on pricing, logistics, and more

Earlier Picks

Molly White / Citation Needed:
An experiment with LLMs: the tools are helpful in mundane ways but users can't build a hundred-billion-dollar industry around a technology that's kind of useful
CNBC:
Amazon discontinues its Snowmobile service, an 18-wheeler truck introduced in 2016 to help customers move large amounts of on-premises data to AWS facilities
Sheena Vasani / The Verge:
TikTok starts rolling out TikTok Notes, its Instagram rival for sharing photo and text content, for limited testing in Australia and Canada on Android and iOS
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