Techmeme
April 30, 2024, 12:35 PM

Top News

Marques Brownlee / Marques Brownlee on YouTube:
Rabbit R1 review: $199 is reasonable but emblematic of a trend of selling unfinished products at full price while vowing to fix the issues later to win a “race”  —  AI in a Box.  But a different box.  R1 provided by Rabbit for review.  So this is the rabbit R1 and it's another AI …
Raymond Wong / Inverse:
Pieter Haeck / Politico:
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says a TikTok ban is “not excluded” and “we know exactly the danger of TikTok”, during a 2024 election debate  —  The remark comes amid a streak of bad news for TikTok in Europe.  —  Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hinted …
Bloomberg:
The EU opens a DSA investigation into Meta over deceptive Facebook and Instagram ad and political content; sources say the probe is about a pro-Kremlin campaign  —  - Probe said to target pro-Putin Doppelganger campaign  — Meta probe is under the EU's tough new Digital Services Act
Timothy B. Lee / Asterisk:
Tech journalism is often characterized by scandals, sensationalism, and shoddy research; publishers hesitate to invest in nuanced reporting without a clear ROI  —  A huge proportion of tech journalism is characterized by scandals, sensationalism, and shoddy research.  Can we fix it?
Mia Sato / The Verge:
Instagram updates its recommendation algorithms to demote aggregator accounts, hoping to promote original content and increase distribution to smaller accounts  —  Instagram is making significant changes to how its system recommends content, with a focus on original content and increased distribution for smaller accounts.
BBC:
A Finnish court sentences hacker Julius Kivimäki to six years and three months, after he breached a healthcare database and attempted to blackmail 33,000 people  —  One of Europe's most wanted cyber criminals has been jailed for attempting to blackmail 33,000 people whose confidential therapy notes he stole.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Beats announces $200 Solo 4 on-ear wireless headphones, with up to 50 hours of battery life, and $80 wireless Solo Buds shipping in June 2024, both without ANC  —  Beats just announced its new Solo 4, its latest in a long line of on-ear wireless headphones.  The latest model, priced at $199.99, offers battery life of up to 50 hours.
Sahil Patel / The Information:
Sources: Google has agreed to pay News Corp $5M to $6M annually to develop new AI-related content and products, as part of the Google News Initiative  —  Google has agreed to pay Wall Street Journal owner News Corp between $5 million and $6 million annually to develop new artificial intelligence …
Michael Acton / Financial Times:
Analysis: Apple has poached at least 36 AI experts from Google since 2018 and has a secretive European laboratory in Zurich to develop AI models and products  —  iPhone maker also recruits generative AI experts into secretive Zurich lab as it prepares fightback against rivals
Sheila Chiang / CNBC:
Samsung reports Q1 revenue up 12.81% YoY to ~$52.3B, vs. ~$51.6B est., operating profit up 932.8% YoY to ~$4.8B, vs. ~$4.3B est., as memory chip prices rebound  —  Samsung Electronics Co. Galaxy S24 smartphones during a media preview event in Seoul, South Korea, on Monday, Jan. 15, 2024.
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Amazon makes its AI assistant Amazon Q generally available and adds an “app creator” in preview to let employees build generative AI apps based on company data  —  Amazon says it will give non-developers the ability to create apps using natural language as part of a new feature for Amazon Q …
Bloomberg:
Microsoft announces plans to invest $1.7B in cloud and AI infrastructure in Indonesia over four years and train 840,000 people with AI skills in the country  —  - CEO Nadella tours Southeast Asia in search for growth markets  — Nvidia, Apple leaders also visited region before Nadella
Maciej Pocwierz:
How an empty, private AWS S3 bucket had ~100M PUT requests in a day, racking up a $1,300+ bill, due to a popular open-source tool using the same bucket name  —  Imagine you create an empty, private AWS S3 bucket in a region of your preference.  What will your AWS bill be the next morning?
Todd Spangler / Variety:
NBCUniversal plans to raise the prices of Peacock Premium by $2 to $7.99/month and Premium Plus by $2 to $13.99/month from July 18, its second hike in a year  —  NBCUniversal is looking to wring more money out of Peacock subscribers, with the streamer set to raise prices this summer …

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Monica Anderson / Pew Research Center:
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Lauren Feiner / The Verge:
Matthias Bastian / The Decoder:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: