Techmeme
August 8, 2024, 11:40 AM

Top News

Josh Self / Politics.co.uk:
In a now-deleted X post, Elon Musk reposted a fake Telegraph story shared by a far-right party about the UK opening “Detainment Camps”; the post had 1.8M views  —  Elon Musk has deleted a post on X, the social media platform he owns, in which he spread fake news about …
Financial Times:
Similarweb: active UK Telegram users hit 3.1M on July 29 and 3.7M on July 30 after a stabbing, as rioters used chat apps, up from a ~2.7M average in early 2024  —  Messaging service, known for ‘hands off’ approach to content moderation, faces pressure to tackle extremist groups
Financial Times:
Sources: Google and Meta ran a pilot program in the US in May 2024 to target Instagram ads to teenagers on YouTube, which prohibits targeting ads to under-18s  —  Campaign on YouTube to boost Instagram's appeal to young people skirted search group's rules for marketing to under-18s
Camilla Hodgson / Financial Times:
The UK CMA opens a formal merger inquiry into Amazon's Anthropic investment after getting “sufficient information” about the deal; Amazon is “disappointed”  —  CMA to escalate matter to the first phase after seeking views on tech giant's investment in the AI start-up
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
A researcher details a Windows Update vulnerability that could be exploited to downgrade key components of Windows to older versions that contain known flaws  —  A researcher found a vulnerability that would let hackers strategically downgrade a target's Windows version to reexpose patched vulnerabilities.
Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
Researchers: hackers have used an 18-year-old flaw in how Safari, Chrome, and Firefox on macOS handle queries to a 0.0.0.0 IP address to breach private networks  —  Weaknesses in Chrome, Firefox and Safari gave hackers a route into internal networks, even those protected by firewalls, security researchers warn.
Adam James / The Block:
John Liu / New York Times:
Interviews with 12 TSMC staff detail ongoing culture clashes in Arizona, as well as Japan and Germany; about 50% of the 2,200 Phoenix workers came from Taiwan  —  The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company facility in Phoenix.Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Google says it stopped making the Chromecast after intense competition, shifting to a premium device, and views the Nvidia Shield as something to strive towards  —  The Chromecast is going away after more than a decade in Google's hardware portfolio, with the company phasing it out to make room for the new Google TV Streamer.
Nicholas Sutrich / Android Central:
Meta closes Ready at Dawn Studios, acquired in June 2020 and which produced VR games like Lone Echo and Echo VR, to meet Reality Labs' new budgetary ceiling  —  Echo VR developer Ready at Dawn Studios is now closed for business.  —  Updated 8/17 at 5:19pm ET: The information Android Central …
Lauren Feiner / The Verge:
A group of VCs, including Reid Hoffman and Ron Conway, hosted a “VCs for Kamala” Zoom call to support Harris' campaign with up to 600 attendees, raising $150K  —  It started with a “rage tweet.”  —  “Gonna start ‘VCs for Democracy,’” Leslie Feinzaig, founder and general partner at Graham & Walker, wrote on X in late July.
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
Flyr, which provides software to travel companies, raised $225M in equity and $70M in debt, source says at a $900M valuation, bringing its total raised to $500M  —  Investors valued the startup at $900 million in its latest funding round. … The deal, led by WestCap, values the startup at $900 million …
Richard Nieva / Forbes:
Hugging Face buys XetHub, a collaboration platform started by ex-Apple employees that raised $7.5M to help developers work with and build large-scale models  —  Purchased for an undisclosed sum, XetHub is staffed by a number of former Apple employees.  Hugging Face thinks …
Chris Dolmetsch / Bloomberg:
A US judge orders Ripple to pay a $125M penalty for selling XRP to institutional investors, well below the almost $2B the SEC sought in the case; XRP jumps 20%+  —  - Regulator had sought almost $2 billion in fines, penalties  — Ripple token XRP surges on court ruling but is flat this year
Axios:
Anduril Industries raised a $1.5B Series F co-led by Founders Fund and Sands Capital at a $14B valuation, up from ~$8.5B after raising ~$1.5B in December 2022  —  - Sands Capital and existing investor Founders Fund co-led the Series F round, which is at a 65% post-money premium to where Anduril last raised money in late 2022.
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Ofcom publishes an open letter to social media platforms raising concerns about the use of their tools to incite violence, following days of rioting in the UK  —  The U.K.'s internet regulator, Ofcom, has published an open letter to social media platforms raising concerns about the use of their tools to incite violence.
Financial Times:

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Deep analysis for deep questions  —  Introducing Superagent.  A new research product from Airtable: Subagents deeply interrogate your topic and turn it into boardroom-ready reports, slides, docs, or websites.
Clay:
Turn any GTM idea into reality  —  Clay helps GTM teams combine AI agents, enrichment, and intent data to move faster and turn insights into action.
Zoho:
Why navigation breaks down in unified software—and how QuickNav fixes it  —  In unified software environments, navigation stops being a convenience issue and becomes a structural one.When work spans CRM records …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce 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:
Netflix Walks, Paramount Wins, and the Ellisons Take Hollywood
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:
Is A.I. Eating the Labor Market? + The Latest on the Pentagon, OpenClaw and Alpha School
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.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Valar Atomics' Isaiah Taylor: Solving AI's Energy Crisis With Nuclear 'Gigasites'
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Access:
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on surviving the AI slop-pocalypse
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:
AI is critical for humanity's survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel
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.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
His Excellency Khaldoon Al Mubarak: Investing in an AI-Driven World
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:40 AM ET, August 8, 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.

More News

Drew Harwell / Washington Post:

Earlier Picks

Patrick Clark / Bloomberg:
RTÉ:
Türkiye Today:
Bill Peters / MarketWatch:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Etan Vlessing / The Hollywood Reporter: