Techmeme
October 4, 2024, 11:35 AM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: Ubisoft's founding Guillemot family and Tencent consider options, including a buyout of Ubisoft after it lost 50%+ of its value in 2024; UBI jumps 25%+  —  - Deliberations come after fall in game developer's share price  — Tencent, Guillemot family hold minority stakes in French firm
Reece Rogers / Wired:
Meta announces Movie Gen, a suite of AI models for generating realistic video and audio clips; Movie Gen Video has 30B parameters and Movie Gen Audio has 13B  —  The next frontier in generative AI is video—and with Movie Gen, Meta has now staked its claim.
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Meta Movie Gen can create up to 16-second videos based on a text prompt, available to some staff and external partners; Meta plans to add it to its apps in 2025  —  Movie Gen tool can create short videos from a text prompt  —  Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. debuted a new artificial intelligence tool …
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
The CJEU rules that social networks, such as Facebook, cannot keep using people's data for ad targeting indefinitely, siding with privacy campaigner Max Schrems  —  The European Union's top court has sided with a privacy challenge to Meta's data retention policies.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Google confirms it is “running a small experiment” showing blue verified checkmarks beside official site links for companies like Microsoft, Meta, and Apple  —  Google is experimenting with a new verification feature in search that should make it easier for users to avoid clicking on fake or fraudulent website links.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Matt Mullenweg says 159 Automattic employees, or ~8.4% of staff, took “generous” severance after disagreeing with WordPress' direction and handling of WP Engine  —  Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg said on Thursday that 159 employees (roughly 8.4% of staff) accepted a severance package …
Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
Sources: the iPhone SE 4, coming in spring 2025, will have Apple's first 5G modem, the iPhone 15's rear camera, and an A18 and 8GB of RAM for Apple Intelligence  —  Apple has been working on a new generation of the iPhone SE, and a recent Bloomberg report revealed that it should be introduced …
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple releases iPadOS 18.0.1, bringing iPadOS 18 to the M4 iPad Pro models for the first time since pulling the update for the devices after reports of bricking  —  Apple today released iPadOS 18..1 for the iPad, and it brings iPadOS 18 to the for M4 iPad Pro models for the first time since …
Lucy Craymer / Reuters:
Google says it'll stop linking to news and drop its deals with outlets in New Zealand if the country passes a law forcing digital platforms to pay for content  —  Google said on Friday it will stop linking to New Zealand news articles and ditch the agreements it has with local news organisations …
Katrina Manson / Bloomberg:
The US and Microsoft seize 107 websites used by Russian intelligence agents and their proxies in the US operating under Star Blizzard, a group active since 2016  —  - Russian group Star Blizzard targeted civil society, US says  — Group has conducted election influence operations in UK
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Google rolls out ads in AI Overviews for when a user's question has a “commercial angle”, and identifies the ads with a “sponsored” header, on mobile in the US  —  Google is rolling out ads in AI Overviews, which means you'll now start seeing products in some of the search engine's AI-generated summaries.
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
How Sam Altman concentrated his power as OpenAI's CEO since he was fired and rehired 11 months ago; source: Altman is not looking to hire a CTO for now  —  Five years ago, OpenAI was a scrappy startup run by a handful of executives, with a heavy emphasis on research.
Ina Fried / Axios:

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference  —  Stop preparing for agents.  Start running them.  100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
Automate your scheduling workflows with Zoho Calendar  —  Your calendar can do more than schedule meetings Creating a calendar event takes only a few seconds.  But scheduling is rarely just about creating the event.
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

Grit:
Inside the AI Startup Making Customer Support 65% Cheaper
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord's product chief | Peter Sellis
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
AI Doom Backlash Arrives, Anthropic & OpenAI IPO Outlook, Frontier Business Momentum Slows
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
AI Wants to Shop for You. What Could Go Wrong?
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.
Invest Like the Best:
Michael Moritz - Lessons From 40 Years of Investing and Writing
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Sources:
Baseten's CEO on why every company will want to own its AI
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:35 AM ET, October 4, 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

Pooja Salhotra / The Texas Tribune:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Google Developers Blog:
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer: