Network Support Blog

Ash Parrish / The Verge: Twitch changes how it enforces its community guidelines: strikes for some offenses will depreciate over time, users will get more info about strikes, and more  —  Twitch is changing the way it enforces its community guidelines.  In an announcement posted on its website … http://www.techmeme.com/240920/p15?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240920p15

Kalley Huang / The Information: Source: most daily users of Meta AI do so through WhatsApp, followed by Facebook, and few via Instagram; the vast majority of Meta AI's users are outside the US  —  A year after Meta Platforms introduced its artificial intelligence assistant, a picture is emerging of how people are using it … http://www.techmeme.com/240920/p10?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240920p10

Bloomberg: A profile of Xbox President Sarah Bond, who helped mollify the UK CMA concerning the Activision acquisition and is leading a transformation of the Xbox division  —  A relative outsider, Sarah Bond is leading a high-stakes transformation of a company that's lagging behind Sony and Nintendo. http://www.techmeme.com/240920/p9?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240920p9

Benoit Berthelot / Bloomberg: French digital health insurance startup Alan raised €173M led by Belgian bank Belfius Bank at a €4B valuation, bringing its total raised since 2021 to €500M+  —  - French startup to also provide insurance to Belfius employees  — Alan has raised more than half a billion euros since 2021 http://www.techmeme.com/240920/p2?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240920p2

Julia King / Fierce Network: Nvidia launches AI Aerial, which integrates AI into the radio access network and could allow telcos to run third-party AI apps at the network's edge  —  - Nvidia thinks that AI could be the answer to the very problems it is causing  — AI-RAN will leverage billions of data points … http://www.techmeme.com/240919/p38?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240919p38

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Fal.ai, a developer-focused platform for media-generating AI models, raised a $9M seed and a $14M Series A from Kindred Ventures, a16z, First Round, and others  —  Fal.ai, a dev-focused platform for AI-generated audio, video, and images, today revealed that it's raised $23 million in funding … http://www.techmeme.com/240919/p33?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240919p33

Bloomberg: Brazil's Supreme Court orders X to reimpose a block or face a $920K daily fine after a software update made X accessible; X says the restoration was inadvertent  —  - Judge orders $920,000 daily fine if site isn't blocked  — Regulator says it got help from Cloudflare to restrict access http://www.techmeme.com/240919/p24?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240919p24

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Amazon launches an AI-powered video generator, available for some US advertisers in beta, which turns a single product image into a few-seconds-long video clip  —  Like its rival, Google, Amazon has launched an AI-powered video generator — but it's only for advertisers at the moment, and somewhat limited in what it can do. http://www.techmeme.com/240919/p23?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240919p23

Alfred Ng / Politico: A profile of lobbyist Andrew Kingman, who has exerted immense influence on US tech policy by helping large companies that want lax rules on data privacy  —  Lobbyist Andrew Kingman has reshaped American policy on a key tech issue — without ever setting foot on Capitol Hill. http://www.techmeme.com/240919/p10?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240919p10

Alex Konrad / Forbes: Mercor, a jobs marketplace that uses AI to vet and interview candidates, raised a $32M Series A led by Benchmark at a $250M valuation and says it's profitable  —  Led by three 21-year-old Thiel Fellows, Mercor has raised $32 million from Benchmark, Peter Thiel and others for its AI-powered jobs marketplace. http://www.techmeme.com/240918/p46?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240918p46

Katrina Manson / Bloomberg: Sources: the hackers behind the February data breach of drug distributor Cencora received a record ransom of $75M through three bitcoin installments in March  —  - Payment made through three Bitcoin installments in March  — Dark Angels hacking gang pursues high prices and low profile http://www.techmeme.com/240918/p42?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240918p42

Ina Fried / Axios: T-Mobile announces a multi-year partnership with OpenAI that includes building IntentCX, a customer service system powered by AI agents  —  - The companies say that the model is already showing promise in analyzing customer care call transcripts and identifying pain points that could be addressed better. http://www.techmeme.com/240918/p37?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240918p37

Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE: Open-source chip design company SiFive unveils the SiFive Intelligence XM Series, its latest RISC-V-based blueprints to help companies develop AI chips  —  Open-source semiconductor design company SiFive Inc. today unveiled its latest chip design blueprints, the SiFive Intelligence XM Series … http://www.techmeme.com/240918/p36?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240918p36

Washington Post: Researchers: GPT-4 generating a 100-word email uses 1,468ml of water at its Washington data center, 925ml in Arizona, 464ml in Illinois, and 235ml in Texas  —  AI bots generate a lot of heat, and keeping their computer servers running exacts a toll.  —  Roughly a quarter of Americans … http://www.techmeme.com/240918/p18?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240918p18

Rod McGuirk / Associated Press: Australian police say they infiltrated Ghost, a global encrypted communications app developed for criminals, arresting dozens, including the app's alleged admin  —  Australian police said Wednesday they have infiltrated Ghost, an encrypted global communications app developed for criminals, leading to dozens of arrests. http://www.techmeme.com/240918/p2?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240918p2

Emma Roth / The Verge: The GSM Association plans to enable E2EE on messages between Android and iOS; Google is working to bring cross-platform E2EE to RCS chats “as soon as possible”  —  E2EE prevents third parties, like your messaging service or cell carrier, from viewing your texts. http://www.techmeme.com/240917/p35?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240917p35

Emily Flitter / New York Times: The US FDIC proposes rules for banks holding customer funds for money management apps, to track customers' balances, citing harms done when Synapse cratered  —  Banks holding customer funds for money management apps should keep track of customers' identities and balances, the agency says. http://www.techmeme.com/240917/p17?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240917p17

Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: Denver-based Hotel Engine, a hotel booking and management service, now called Engine, raised a $140M Series C at a $2.1B valuation, up from $1.3B in late 2021  —  Elia Wallen never expected this.  —  Wallen started Hotel Engine as a subsidiary of corporate housing company Travelers Haven in 2015 … http://www.techmeme.com/240917/p12?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240917p12

Reuters: EssilorLuxottica and Meta agree a 10-year deal to continue developing smart eyewear, after creating two generations of Ray-Ban glasses since 2019  —  EssilorLuxottica (ESLX.PA) said on Tuesday it had extended its partnership with Meta Platforms (META.O) by agreeing a 10-year deal to continue developing smart eyewear. http://www.techmeme.com/240917/p7?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240917p7

Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security: A look at the activity of some members of The Com, an online community linked to the Scattered Spider hacking group, and their involvement in extortion groups  —  A cyberattack that shut down two of the top casinos in Las Vegas last year quickly became one of the most riveting security stories of 2023. http://www.techmeme.com/240916/p34?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240916p34

Ian King / Bloomberg: Intel and AWS plan to coinvest in making a new AI chip on Intel 18A via a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework”; Intel delays new Germany and Poland plants  —  - Shares jump after Intel announces Amazon win, efficiency plans  — The company says its US factory expansion remains on track http://www.techmeme.com/240916/p24?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240916p24

Flynn Nicholls / Newsweek: Musk posted “no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala 🤔” after Trump's apparent assassination attempt, then deleted the false claim, calling it a joke  —  Elon Musk has faced backlash after writing, “No one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala,” following an apparent http://www.techmeme.com/240916/p16?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240916p16

Emilia David / VentureBeat: Slack unveils Agents for Slack, letting paid users access Salesforce AI agents, third-party agents from Asana, Cohere, Adobe, and others, and users' own agents  —  Workplace messaging app Slack wants to make it easier to build and connect AI agents for clients. http://www.techmeme.com/240916/p10?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240916p10

Reuters: EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, who oversees Big Tech regulation, says he is stepping down over a rift with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen  —  French European Commissioner Thierry Breton on Monday said he would step down as a member of the EU executive body over a rift … http://www.techmeme.com/240916/p2?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240916p2

Matthew Martin / Bloomberg: Groq partners with Aramco to build a data center in Saudi Arabia by 2024, says it will be the world's largest AI inferencing center with 19K Groq's custom GPUs  —  The California-based startup will operate what it has said will be the world's largest AI inferencing center that initially … http://www.techmeme.com/240916/p1?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240916p1

Alexandre Tanzi / Bloomberg: Research based on the US Census Bureau's data from 2008 to 2021 suggests online dating may be partially to blame for a rise in income inequality in recent times  —  - With apps, people increasingly marry someone like themselves  — It helps explain the increase in income inequality since 1980 http://www.techmeme.com/240915/p6?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240915p6

Caroline O'Donovan / Washington Post: How Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta are fighting an Ohio power company's proposal to increase the upfront energy costs they'll pay for their data centers  —  Negotiations between Big Tech and an Ohio power utility could set a national precedent as communities grapple with the energy demands of the data center boom. http://www.techmeme.com/240915/p4?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240915p4

Bloomberg: Some of the largest custodial banks are interested in crypto custody but are hindered by the SEC rule SAB 121, which establishes accounting standards  —  - Coinbase, BitGo have been among the dominant service providers  — SEC rule seen making it impractical for banks to do custody http://www.techmeme.com/240915/p3?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240915p3

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Boston-based AceUp, which offers AI-powered business coaching and performance analytics services, raised a $22.5M Series A led by PJC  —  Is a business coach really worth the investment?  Execs often seek coaches to bolster aspects of their work, like communication skills and their productivity. http://www.techmeme.com/240914/p11?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240914p11

Ionut Arghire / SecurityWeek: Maryland-based Aembit, a non-human identity and access management provider, raised a $25M Series A led by Acrew Capital, bringing its total raised to ~$45M  —  Aembit has raised $25 million in Series A funding to protect non-human identities and minimize attack surface. http://www.techmeme.com/240914/p10?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240914p10

M.G. Siegler / Spyglass: OpenAI should've stuck with the name Strawberry for o1, avoiding user confusion between models named 4o and o1, and helping humanize the tech  —  They're wrong, but there are other, more pressing product questions...  Well, what was coming in “the next couple of weeks” ended up being “the next couple of days” — here's Kylie Robison: http://www.techmeme.com/240914/p7?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240914p7

Financial Times: An overview of California's AI safety bill SB 1047, which easily passed the state's legislature, as it awaits Governor Newsom's signature or veto before Sep. 30  —  California's Gavin Newsom has until September 30 to decide whether to sign legislation that will reach far beyond the state http://www.techmeme.com/240914/p5?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240914p5

Aditya Kalra / Reuters: In reports dated August 9, Indian antitrust regulator CCI found that Amazon and Flipkart violated local competition laws by giving preference to select sellers  —  An Indian antitrust investigation has found U.S. e-commerce giant Amazon (AMZN.O) and Walmart's (WMT.N) Flipkart violated local competition laws … http://www.techmeme.com/240914/p2?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240914p2

Rachyl Jones / Semafor: Some former CrowdStrike employees say they raised concerns about executives rushing deadlines and quality checks, more than a year before the July 2024 outage  —  THE SCOOP  —  Software engineers at the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike complained about rushed deadlines, excessive workloads … http://www.techmeme.com/240913/p30?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240913p30

Daniel Carvalho / Bloomberg: Brazil lifts the block on the bank accounts of X and Starlink after withdrawing ~$3.3M from the accounts to pay for fines imposed by the Supreme Court  —  - Transfer ends Starlink's banking freeze in the country  — But social-media platform X remains banned by judicial order http://www.techmeme.com/240913/p23?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240913p23

Shubham Sharma / VentureBeat: Google debuts DataGemma models that use real world data from Google-created Data Commons to reduce hallucinations in queries revolving around statistical data  —  Google is expanding its AI model family while addressing some of the biggest issues in the domain. http://www.techmeme.com/240913/p18?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240913p18

CNBC: The White House plans to curb the “overuse and abuse” of the de minimis loophole used by Shein and Temu, which exempts packages worth $800 or less from tariffs  —  The Biden administration announced new steps on Friday to curtail what it calls the “overuse and abuse” … http://www.techmeme.com/240913/p8?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240913p8

Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog: OpenAI's o1 models aren't as simple as the next step up from GPT-4o as they introduce major cost and performance trade-offs in exchange for improved “reasoning”  —  OpenAI released two major new preview models today: o1-preview and o1-mini (that mini one is also a preview … http://www.techmeme.com/240913/p1?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240913p1

Sarah McBride / Bloomberg: YC plans to expand to four cohorts per year, adding spring and fall sessions in 2025; each batch will be half the size of the most recent cohort of 256 startups  —  The startup accelerator now will accept four smaller groups of startups instead of two larger ones. http://www.techmeme.com/240912/p38?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240912p38

Vincent Manancourt / Politico: Nick Clegg says Elon Musk turned X into “a sort of one man, sort of hyper-partisan and ideological hobby horse”, contrasting Meta's content moderation with X's  —  The Meta exec and former British deputy PM launched a broadside at X owner Elon Musk.  —  LONDON — Watch out Elon, Sir Nick's out to get you. http://www.techmeme.com/240912/p31?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240912p31

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch: A hacker says he tricked ChatGPT into giving detailed instructions to make a fertilizer bomb, by getting it to “play a game” and create a sci-fi fantasy world  —  An explosives expert said the ChatGPT outpout was too sensitive to be released.  —  If you ask ChatGPT to help … http://www.techmeme.com/240912/p24?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240912p24

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Meta, TikTok and Snap pledge to participate in program to combat suicide and self-harm content  —  In an attempt to prevent suicide and self-harm content from spreading online, the nonprofit Mental Health Coalition (MHC) today announced a new program, Thrive, aimed at encouraging online platforms to share … http://www.techmeme.com/240912/p14?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240912p14

TechCrunch: WhatsApp brings Meta Verified badges to small businesses in India, starting at ~$8/month, and gives them the ability to send customized messages to customers  —  WhatsApp is now letting small businesses in India sign up for a Meta Verified badge and giving them the ability to send customized messages to customers. http://www.techmeme.com/240912/p5?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240912p5

Lily Hay Newman / Wired: A look at Apple's Private Cloud Compute for Apple Intelligence, which Craig Federighi says allows personal data to be “sealed inside of a privacy bubble”  —  Private Cloud Compute is an entirely new kind of infrastructure that, Apple's Craig Federighi tells WIRED … http://www.techmeme.com/240911/p23?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240911p23

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch: Google adds Audio Overview to NotebookLM, letting users turn documents into audio discussions with two AI hosts that summarize and explain the source material  —  Google announced on Wednesday that its AI note-taking and research app, NotebookLM, is adding a new “audio conversations” feature. http://www.techmeme.com/240911/p18?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240911p18

Marie Dealessandri / GamesIndustry.biz: Seoul-based Spoon Labs, which operates an audio streamer called Spoon and a short video app called Vigloo, raised ~$89.3M from PUBG publisher Krafton  —  It's the firm's largest investment in a non-gaming area to date  —  PUBG firm Krafton has invested KRW 120 billion ($89.3 million) in streaming company Spoon Labs. http://www.techmeme.com/240911/p15?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240911p15

Hans Peter Brondmo / Wired: The former CEO of Everyday Robots, Alphabet's AI robotics moonshot that was shut down in January 2023, reflects on its start and efforts to give AI a robot body  —  As the head of Alphabet's AI-powered robotics moonshot, I came to believe many things.  For one, robots can't come soon enough. http://www.techmeme.com/240911/p6?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240911p6

Carl Franzen / VentureBeat: Matt Shumer, who was accused of fraud over HyperWrite's 70B-parameter AI model, says he “got ahead” of himself but doesn't explain why the model underperformed  —  Matt Shumer, co-founder and CEO of OthersideAI, also known as its signature AI assistant writing product HyperWrite … http://www.techmeme.com/240910/p28?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240910p28

Jan-Henrik Foerster / Bloomberg: NYC-based Versana, a two-year-old platform that allows lenders to access data about $2.7T worth of loans, raised $26M from Barclays, Bank of America, and others  —  - British bank participated in Versana's $26 million fundraising  — Versana now has data on $2.7 trillion worth of corporate loans http://www.techmeme.com/240910/p24?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240910p24

Ben Schoon / 9to5Google: Google starts rolling out a Google One “Lite” plan in India that offers 30GB storage for Rs. 59, or ~$0.70, per month  —  Google has started rolling out a “Lite” plan for Google One that has a small storage bump, and an even smaller cost.  —  A Google One subscription grants … http://www.techmeme.com/240910/p20?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger#a240910p20