Network Support Blog

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: A look at Apple's future plans: iPhone 16 lineup, a new iPhone SE, a thin “Air” model in the iPhone 17 series, and a Watch SE with a plastic case in bold colors  —  Apple's iPhone 16 will keep sales stable until more innovative models are ready next year. http://www.techmeme.com/240811/p3?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240811p3

Zack Abrams / The Block: Celsius sued Tether on Friday in an attempt to claw back ~40K bitcoins, now worth ~$2.4B, that Celsius claims Tether sold improperly at the bottom of the market  —  - Celsius filed a lawsuit against Tether on Friday in an attempt to claw back Bitcoin worth $2.4 billion that the company … http://www.techmeme.com/240811/p2?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240811p2

Stan Alcorn / Rest of World: A look at the consequences of Spotify's disinvestment in podcasts in Latin America, where one survey found 90% of podcast listeners used Spotify  —  In Latin America, “podcast” and “Spotify” became synonymous; now the audio industry is reckoning with the company's retreat.  —  • BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA http://www.techmeme.com/240810/p12?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240810p12

Alex Isenstadt / Politico: Trump campaign says some of its internal communications were hacked, citing a Microsoft report that Iranian hackers “sent a spear phishing email” to a campaign  —  The campaign suggested Iran was to blame.  POLITICO has not independently verified the identity of the hacker or their motivation. http://www.techmeme.com/240810/p9?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240810p9

Matt Binder / Mashable: X adds the ability to sort replies, letting users choose most relevant, most recent, or most liked replies; it is unclear how the most relevant option works  —  Sorry, blue checks, it seems like you will no longer dominate users' mentions on X.  —  Thanks to a new feature, “blue checks” may no longer dominate reply threads on X. http://www.techmeme.com/240810/p5?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240810p5

Rani Molla / Sherwood News: Q&A with Wikimedia Foundation executives on how AI could make knowledge more accessible to people, the risk that AI may impact its volunteers' engagement, more  —  We spoke with Wikipedia executives who told us AI could jeopardize the encyclopedia's connection with the volunteers who create it. http://www.techmeme.com/240810/p3?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240810p3

Sundar Pichai / @sundarpichai: Unbelievably saddened by the loss of my dear friend @SusanWojcicki after two years of living with cancer. She is as core to the history of Google as anyone, and it's hard to imagine the world without her. She was an incredible person, leader and friend who had a tremendous http://www.techmeme.com/240810/p1?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240810p1

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge: Instagram is testing a Snap Maps-like feature that lets users post text and video updates to a map that can be shared with friends  —  Instagram has starting testing a new feature that looks a whole lot like Snap Maps.  —  This allows Instagram users to post text and video updates to a map based on where they were taken. http://www.techmeme.com/240809/p21?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240809p21

Kaya Yurieff / The Information: TikTok is offering steep discounts on goods to US users who invite friends to the app, expanding a referral scheme from countries like Japan and Thailand  —  TikTok is testing a truism: Money talks.  —  TikTok users in the U.S. who invite their friends to the app can now get steep discounts on goods … http://www.techmeme.com/240809/p18?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240809p18

Bloomberg: Sources: Guangzhou-based robotaxi company WeRide is seeking ~$100M in a US initial public offering and around $200M to $300M in a concurrent private placement  —  - Chinese robotaxi firm granted securities regulator nod in 2023  — Renault Nissan Mitsubishi Alliance agreed to back listing http://www.techmeme.com/240809/p9?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240809p9

Financial Times: Perplexity says its AI search engine answered ~250M queries in July vs. 500M in all of 2023; sources: Perplexity recently raised $250M at a $3B valuation  —  Artificial intelligence app boosts usage and sales despite controversy over its data-gathering techniques http://www.techmeme.com/240809/p3?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240809p3

Washington Post: The Google monopoly ruling dealt a blow to one of Big Tech's arguments against regulation: that 19th-century antitrust laws can't address modern tech innovation  —  The first big tech-sector anti-monopoly ruling in a generation challenges the idea that the internet era has outgrown U.S. antitrust law. http://www.techmeme.com/240808/p40?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240808p40

Bloomberg: Sources: the UK is considering revisiting parts of the Online Safety Act to give authorities more power to force social media companies to curb harmful content  —  - Starmer has few existing levers to curb incendiary content  — Officials consider revisiting key parts of Online Safety Act http://www.techmeme.com/240808/p33?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240808p33

TASS: Putin signs a law legalizing cryptocurrency mining in Russia; only Russian legal entities and individuals included in a register will have the right to mine  —  Only Russian legal entities and individual entrepreneurs included in a register will have the right to mine http://www.techmeme.com/240808/p28?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240808p28

David Ingram / NBC News: Researchers: 50 false or misleading claims about the US election posted on X in 2024 by Elon Musk have generated nearly 1.2B views and none had a Community Note  —  The nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate said that Musk's debunked claims are spreading widely and do not appear … http://www.techmeme.com/240808/p18?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240808p18

Financial Times: Similarweb: active UK Telegram users hit 3.1M on July 29 and 3.7M on July 30 after a stabbing, as rioters turn to chat apps, up from 2.7M average in early 2024  —  Messaging service, known for ‘hands off’ approach to content moderation, faces pressure to tackle extremist groups http://www.techmeme.com/240808/p6?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240808p6

Jared Newman / Fast Company: An interview with Mozilla interim CEO Laura Chambers on investing in Firefox, privacy-preserving ad measurements, becoming less dependent on Google, and more  —  But can it avoid upsetting its most loyal users along the way?  —  Last month, Mozilla made a quiet change in Firefox that caused some diehard users to revolt. http://www.techmeme.com/240807/p38?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240807p38

Evan Gorelick / Bloomberg: Bumble reports Q2 revenue up 3.4% YoY to $268.6M, vs. $273.2M est., and projects 1% to 2% annual revenue growth, vs. 8.4% expected; BMBL drops 28%+ after hours  —  - Company projects 1% to 2% revenue growth, down from 8% to 11%  — Dating firm ties lower outlook to ‘reset’ of growth strategy http://www.techmeme.com/240807/p29?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240807p29

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. http://www.techmeme.com/240807/p25?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240807p25

Jay Peters / The Verge: Instagram is making views the primary metric across all of its formats, letting creators track the same metric across Reels, Stories, photos, and more  —  Instagram is making “views” the primary metric across all of its formats, meaning that creators will be able to track the same metric across Reels, Stories, photos, and more. http://www.techmeme.com/240807/p22?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240807p22

Natalie Lung / Bloomberg: Lyft reports Q2 revenue up 41% YoY to $1.4B, Gross Bookings up 17% YoY to $4.02B, vs. $4.07B est., and projects $4B-$4.1B in Q3 Gross Bookings, vs. $4.14B est.  —  - Outlook miss threatens to overshadow progress to grow margins  — Rideshare company posts quarterly profit for first time http://www.techmeme.com/240807/p8?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240807p8

Forbes: How Les Wexner, Victoria's Secret billionaire owner, made early investments in Atlantic Crypto, which then turned into CoreWeave, netting him a $720M stake  —  A lawsuit reveals that an early bet on the company that would later become $19 billion startup Coreweave has made Les Wexner … http://www.techmeme.com/240806/p42?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240806p42

Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch: Reddit says it plans to test AI-powered search result pages later this year, using a combination of first- and third-party tech to power the feature  —  Reddit users will soon see AI-generated summaries at the top of search results.  —  Reddit CFO Drew Vollero told investors during … http://www.techmeme.com/240806/p34?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240806p34

Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch: Amazon Music debuts Maestro, an AI-powered playlist generator, and Topics, which helps users find podcast episodes by topic and is powered by both AI and humans  —  Amazon Music announced Tuesday the launch of its new AI-powered feature, “Topics,” which allows users to explore podcast episodes … http://www.techmeme.com/240806/p28?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240806p28

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times: Red Ventures sells CNET, an early pioneer of online tech coverage, to Ziff Davis, which owns Mashable, PC Mag, Lifehacker, and others, a source says for $100M+  —  Ziff Davis is acquiring CNET for more than $100 million.  Its chief executive thinks more acquisitions are on the horizon. http://www.techmeme.com/240806/p18?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240806p18

Financial Times: The US NIST is set to publish three security algorithms, put out for comment in 2023, to protect data from quantum hacking, as the agency awaits the sign off  —  Global authorities speed up focus on growing threat to traditional cryptography  —  SPOTLIGHT http://www.techmeme.com/240806/p4?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240806p4

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Riverlane, a Cambridge, UK-based maker of quantum error correction tech, raised a $75M Series C led by Planet First Partners, sources say at a $400M valuation  —  Quantum computing may still largely be in the theoretical domain, but the money that it's attracting is very real. http://www.techmeme.com/240806/p3?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240806p3

Nilay Patel / The Verge: Q&A with Booking CEO Glenn Fogel on the company's Booking.com, OpenTable, Kayak, Priceline, and Agoda brands, using AI to book trips, hotels, and more  —  The head of online hotel and flight giant Booking on how competition, regulation, and AI are changing travel. http://www.techmeme.com/240805/p38?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240805p38

Leah Nylen / Bloomberg: US v. Google: a federal judge rules that Google's payments to make its search engine the default on smartphone web browsers violates antitrust law  —  Google's payments to make its search engine the default on smartphone web browsers violates US antitrust law, a federal judge ruled Monday … http://www.techmeme.com/240805/p30?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240805p30

Aditya Soni / Reuters: Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft stocks led a tech stock sell-off amid US recession fears; AAPL drops 5%, NVDA drops 7%+, and MSFT drops 3%+  —  Apple (AAPL.O) and Nvidia (NVDA.O) led a sell-off in technology stocks on Monday as U.S. recession fears and Berkshire Hathaway's … http://www.techmeme.com/240805/p20?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240805p20

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg: Music streaming has exited its high-growth era, as big streaming services pick up fewer new subscribers, causing revenue shortfalls for music labels  —  Investors worry the industry has peaked.  Label bosses preach patience.  —  Hollywood is warming up to the promise of artificial intelligence. http://www.techmeme.com/240805/p2?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240805p2

Zach Dorfman / Politico: A look at Operation Intering, an FBI-led sabotage campaign in the 1980s to secretly ship millions worth of faulty chips to the Soviet Bloc  —  During the early days of Silicon Valley, a tech industry entrepreneur teamed up with the FBI to ship faulty devices to Moscow. http://www.techmeme.com/240805/p1?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240805p1

Wall Street Journal: Despite a weak earnings report, corporations are still buying from Intel, which continues to dominate market share for non-AI computing workloads on servers  —  Intel remains a go-to for enterprise purchasers of PCs and laptops—even as CIOs say they're watching the company stumble http://www.techmeme.com/240804/p9?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240804p9

Dave Lee / Bloomberg: A look at the flurry of so-called Zoom rallies supporting the campaign to elect Kamala Harris; one Zoom call reportedly attracted 190K people and raised $4M  —  Online rallies give the vice president a platform her opponent can't match.  —  Advancements in technology can play a defining role in how an election cycle plays out. http://www.techmeme.com/240804/p6?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240804p6

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Thoughts on first Apple Intelligence beta, which may arrive after the new iPhones launch, Apple's industrial design team leadership reshuffle, and Q3 earnings  —  The first preview of Apple Intelligence for developers shows just how far the company has to go to live up to the hype. http://www.techmeme.com/240804/p3?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240804p3

Eleanor Olcott / Financial Times: Sources: JD.com founder and chair Richard Liu has been quietly leading the company from overseas, primarily in London, despite stepping down as the CEO in 2022  —  Despite stepping down as chief in 2022, Richard Liu has continued to quietly steer the business from London http://www.techmeme.com/240804/p1?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240804p1

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: Google Chrome warns uBlock Origin may soon be disabled and tells users to switch to other ad blockers before deprecation of Manifest V2 extensions  —  Google Chrome is now encouraging uBlock Origin users who have updated to the latest version to switch to other ad blockers before Manifest v2 extensions are disabled. http://www.techmeme.com/240803/p11?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240803p11

Josh Noble / Financial Times: How YouTube, NBC, Eurosport, and others are enlisting creators to cover the Paris Olympics, to fill in storytelling gaps and captivate a younger generation  —  NBC and Eurosport among those using ‘creators’ to spur interest and reach wider audiences  —  Sandra Kwon's life … http://www.techmeme.com/240803/p10?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240803p10

Jason Schreier / Bloomberg: A look at Bungie's future after it laid off 220 staffers, as current and former employees say it grew too fast and tried to develop too many projects at once  —  The creator of Halo and Destiny laid off more than 200 people this week including several top executives  —  Hi everyone. http://www.techmeme.com/240803/p8?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240803p8

Andy Greenberg / Wired: A look at RayV Lite, an open-source laser hacking tool built by two hackers for less than $500 that can reverse engineer chips and exploit their vulnerabilities  —  The RayV Lite will make it hundreds of times cheaper for anyone to carry out physics-bending feats of hardware hacking. http://www.techmeme.com/240803/p1?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240803p1

Lily Hay Newman / Wired: A security researcher says 4.6M Illinois voter and election records, including Social Security Numbers, were exposed by a contractor's unsecured databases  —  Social Security numbers, death certificates, voter applications, and other personal information was accessible on the open internet … http://www.techmeme.com/240802/p27?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240802p27

Patpicha Tanakasempipat / Bloomberg: Apple apologizes and pulls an ad set in Thailand after backlash from Thai lawmakers and influencers who deemed its portrayal of the country offensive  —  - Short film taints image of Thai tourism industry, critics say  — Apple apologizes for not fully capturing contemporary vibrancy http://www.techmeme.com/240802/p26?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240802p26

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch: Data breach notifications show US pharmaceutical giant Cencora has notified at least 1.43M individuals that their data was compromised in a February data breach  —  Cencora has so far notified over a million people around the U.S. that their personal and protected health information … http://www.techmeme.com/240802/p25?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240802p25

The Information: Character.AI told staff that investors will be bought out at a valuation of ~2.5x its $1B 2023 valuation, and it plans to adopt open-source models for products  —  Google has agreed to pay a licensing fee to chatbot maker Character.AI for its models and will hire its cofounders and many of its researchers, the companies said. http://www.techmeme.com/240802/p19?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240802p19

Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg: A profile of, and interview with, former OpenAI board member Helen Toner, who is building a reputation in Washington, DC, as a trusted expert on AI  —  Helen Toner is building a reputation in the nation's capital as a trusted expert on artificial intelligence. http://www.techmeme.com/240802/p9?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240802p9

Nikkei Asia: Apple's Q3 revenue in Greater China was down 6.5% YoY to $14.7B , up 5.7% YoY to $5.1B in Japan, and up 13.5% YoY to $6.4B in the rest of Asia-Pacific  —  iPhone maker faces heated competition with domestic Chinese players, but grew in other Asian markets  —  PALO ALTO, California … http://www.techmeme.com/240801/p52?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240801p52

Bill Donahue / Billboard: Court filings: AI startups Suno and Udio respond to copyright lawsuits from major music labels, saying their use of proprietary music to train AI is fair use  —  In their first responses to the sweeping copyright lawsuits that could define AI music, lawyers for Suno and Udio don't exactly hold back. http://www.techmeme.com/240801/p51?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240801p51

David Shepardson / Reuters: A US appeals court blocks the FCC's reinstatement of net neutrality rules, saying broadband providers are likely to succeed in a legal challenge  —  A U.S. appeals court on Thursday blocked the Federal Communications Commission's reinstatement of landmark net neutrality rules … http://www.techmeme.com/240801/p50?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240801p50

Jordan Novet / CNBC: Amazon reports Q2 AWS revenue up 19% YoY to $26.28B, vs. $26.02B est., and AWS operating income of $9.33B, vs. $8.51B est., up from $5.37B in Q2 2023  —  Amazon said Thursday that revenue in its cloud division increased 19% in the second quarter, beating analyst estimates. http://www.techmeme.com/240801/p40?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240801p40

Kate Conger / New York Times: Don Lemon sues Elon Musk and X, arguing Musk refused to pay him after a $1.5M/year exclusive X content deal fell apart; Lemon did not sign a formal contract  —  The former CNN reporter said in a lawsuit that X had refused to pay him after a testy interview with its billionaire owner. http://www.techmeme.com/240801/p23?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240801p23