X now lets X Blue subscribers hide their verified checkmarks, although “the checkmark may still appear in some places” and some features “may not be available”
Social media company X, formerly Twitter, now lets paid users hide their verification checkmarks.
X renames TweetDeck to XPro; the URL remains tweetdeck.twitter.com and much of the copy is unchanged, including the “Tweet like a pro” tagline
Abner Li / 9to5Google :
Internal Binance data and current and former employees say Chinese users traded ~$90B in crypto assets on the exchange in May 2023, despite China's crypto ban
Retaining its Chinese footprint will be crucial for Binance as it faces a global regulatory crackdown
Amazon plans to roll out the biggest overhaul to its grocery business since buying Whole Foods in the coming weeks, including one cart for supermarket offerings
It's revamping stores, unifying online shopping carts and offering fresh-food delivery to customers who aren't Prime subscribers.
An early-stage study of 80,000 women in Sweden who underwent a mammogram in 2021 and 2022 finds AI-supported screening increased breast cancer detection by 20%
Artificial intelligence found more breast cancers than doctors with years of training and experience and cut doctors' mammogram …
Interviews with people at Worldcoin booths in Nairobi, Bengaluru, and Hong Kong find many scanned their eyes to receive the sign-up bonuses, an “easy $50”
In Nairobi, Bengaluru, and Hong Kong, our reporters found lots of people were eager to take the deal.
Microsoft rolls out spatial audio for Teams on Windows and macOS after a few months of testing; the audio of each person on a call now has a distinct position
After a few months of testing the feature, Microsoft has widely rolled out spatial audio for its Teams desktop app on Windows and macOS.
Microsoft now lets Xbox owners stream gameplay from the console to Discord users, rolling out to all Xbox users in the coming months
Microsoft is improving its Xbox and Discord integration with a new streaming gameplay feature. Xbox owners will soon be able to stream their gameplay …
Halcyon: Cloudzy, a Wyoming-registered web hosting company likely operating out of Tehran, is acting as a command-and-control provider for state-backed hackers
A little-known cloud company provided web hosting and internet services to more than two dozen different state-sponsored hacking groups …
Meta releases AudioCraft, a new open-source AI model that lets users create music and sounds via prompts, consisting of MusicGen, AudioGen, and EnCodec models
It consists of three AI models, all tackling different areas of sound generation. MusicGen takes text inputs to generate music.
Sources: SoftBank's Arm is targeting an IPO at a valuation of between $60B and $70B as soon as September 2023, a sign of bullish interest in AI chips
- Chip design firm may raise as much as $10 billion in debut — Nvidia, Intel are in discussions to be anchor investors
Sources: Changpeng Zhao tried to liquidate Binance.US earlier this year, before pivoting to attempting to sell the company, holding talks with Gemini and others
Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao attempted to shut down the crypto exchange's U.S. offshoot earlier this year …
China releases draft rules to limit smartphone use by minors, including two hour limits for those age 16 to 18, although enforcement remains unclear
- Aims to prevent kids from spending too much time on phones — Beijing has pursued campaigns to alleviate burden on minors
Hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow plans to detail P2P protocol Veilid, to encrypt social media and apps, at Def Con next week, its biggest release in 10 years
Cult of the Dead Cow is a hacker collective whose members at one time included Texas politician Beto O'Rourke Mastodon: @neurovagrant@masto.deoan.org . Twitter: @retweetablen14 and @veilidnetwork . Fo...
A look at Amazon Fresh's challenges, including lawsuits, layoffs, and halted projects; a former employee says staff were told 2023 could be “make or break”
Lawsuits and layoffs now litter Amazon's years-long path to conquering the brick-and-mortar grocery store. Bluesky: @glinden.bsky.social . LinkedIn: Brittain Ladd Bluesky: Greg Linden / @glinden.bsky....
Hopin, the struggling virtual events startup valued at nearly $7.7B in June 2021, sells its Events and Session units to RingCentral for an undisclosed sum
Hopin, the virtual events startup that saw its star (and valuation) rise quickly during the Covid-19 pandemic, is most definitely coming down to earth.
X sues the Center for Countering Digital Hate, alleging CCDH researchers violated Twitter's terms of service and the CFAA while studying hate speech on the site
After iTunes failed to save classical music, Apple Music Classical seems an oddly clumsy point of entry, offering some good features but falling short of rivals
As classical listeners shift to streaming, Apple's bespoke app falls short of its smaller-scale competitors. Twitter: @ajdoug , @artsjournalnews , @ionarts , and @scurve Twitter: Douglas McLennan / @a...
Inworld, which uses AI to help developers create game characters, raised $30M led by Lightspeed at a $500M+ valuation, following a $50M Series A in August 2022
Inworld, which makes AI-driven non-player characters (NPCs) for games and other applications has raised approximately $30 in new funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Analysts and executives say the UK risks becoming an also-ran in the race to roll out 5G, despite starting in 2019, due to limited investment and the Huawei ban
Expansion of high-speed mobile networks hit by factors including limited investment and disruption from ban on Huawei kit
YouTube asks a small number of viewers to share their feedback on a test that generates AI-based “quick overview” summaries on some English-language videos
Chethan Rao / Android Police :
Bernstein analysts estimate that nearly 10% of servers worldwide are powered by Arm SoCs and 40% of those are in China
The rise of Arm-based servers us clear and consistent, Bernstein says. — Due to increasing difficulty in obtaining high-performance x86 servers …
GameStop plans to shut down its iOS and Chrome crypto wallet extensions on November 1 due to “regulatory uncertainty”, after rolling out the service in May 2022
following meme-stock madness—won't include crypto wallets, which it's ending amid ‘regulatory uncertainty’ Sarah Jansen / crypto.news : GameStop to withdraw crypto wallets amid ‘regulatory uncertainty...
AMD reports Q2 revenue down 18% YoY to $5.36B, net income down 94% YoY to $27M, Client revenue down 54% YoY to $998M, and Data Center revenue down 11% to $1.3B
lower graphics rev, but semi-custom up. Mark Hachman / @markhachman : Just to be clear, since Wall St. seems to sometimes fixate on non-GAAP: analysts expected $0.57 EPS, and AMD's non-GAAP EPS is $0....
Meta begins the process to end news access on Facebook and Instagram in Canada, in response to a law forcing some companies to negotiate deals to pay publishers
Here's Why Jose Antonio Lanz / Decrypt : Meta Bets Big on AI to Revive Facebook and Instagram Business Post : Meta begins to cut off news access in Canada ChinaTechNews.com : Evening Update: Meta begi...
University of Glasgow spinout Chemify, which uses a computing process to design new molecules with AI before making them in an automated lab, raised $43M
Clive Cookson / Financial Times :
An interview with Google Jigsaw engineer Lucy Vasserman on how OpenAI, Anthropic, and others use Jigsaw's AI-based Perspective API to flag LLMs' toxic speech
AI for flagging toxic human speech—to detoxify their large language models But like all AI classifiers, it brings its own problems. Says Jigsaw: we “have to be a little bit careful..."https://www.fast...
Slack launches Slack Sales Elevate, offering deeper integration with Salesforce's Sales Cloud for $60 per month on top of existing Slack and Salesforce fees
- More Slack editions coming for customer service, marketing — New Slack CEO Lidiane Jones focuses on product updates
3AC co-founder Kyle Davies tells a US court he is not subjecting himself to or accepting the jurisdiction of US courts since he renounced citizenship in 2020
Colin Wilhelm / The Block :
Google delists its AI Test Kitchen app, which let users test AI-powered tools, on Android and iOS, moving the service to the web to receive faster updates
Once a miniature playground for the public to test Google's blossoming AI-powered tools, the AI Test Kitchen app has been delisted …
In a challenge to TikTok, YouTube releases new Shorts creation tools for remixing, adding effects, going live, as well as an interactive Q&A sticker, and more
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch :
EA reports Q1 revenue up 9% YoY to $1.92B, vs. $1.59B est., net income up 29% YoY to $402M, and net bookings up 21% YoY to $1.58B
Robert Carnevale / The Wrap :
A Voyager Digital lawyer says the crypto lender's user data may have been stolen when the company started letting customers recover their funds in June 2023
but customer data might've been stolen instead Mike Dalton / CryptoSlate : Voyager may have suffered hack, data leak during reopened withdrawal period Aditya Anand / Ethereum World News : Voyager Digi...
Pinterest reports Q2 revenue up 6% YoY to $708M, vs. $699M est., MAUs up 8% YoY to 465M, and expects “Q3 revenue to grow in the high single digit range” YoY
Eari Nakano / Bloomberg :
A look at Katie Haun's $1.5B crypto fund, launched in spring 2022 just before the crypto crash, which has now deployed ~30% of its cash to ~24 startups
On a sunny morning in April, Katie Haun trudged up a winding path around the Stanford Dish in the hills over Palo Alto. Twitter: @leomschwartz Twitter: Leo Schwartz / @leomschwartz : In March 2022, DO...
Match Group reports Q2 revenue up 4% YoY to $830M, vs. $811M est., paying users down 5% YoY to 15.6M, and forecasts Q3 revenue above estimates
Earnings Preview Claudia Assis / MarketWatch : Match Group stock rallies 14% after company swings to profit, revenue rises 4% Jesse Levine / Bloomberg : Match Surges After Revenue Beats Estimates on T...
Socket, which sells a scanning tool for detecting vulnerabilities in open-source code, raised a $20M Series A led by a16z, taking its total funding to $24.6M
Open source is the bedrock upon which all modern applications are built. FinSMEs : Socket Raises $20M in Series A Funding Twitter: Wei Lien Dang / @weiliendang : Congrats @feross on @SocketSecurity's ...
Apple removes many generative AI apps from its China App Store, supposedly over 100, ahead of China's new generative AI rules set to take effect on August 15
Putin signs a Russian law requiring that internet platforms verify new users' identities via state-approved systems during registration, effective December 2023
A look at the nascent scene of generative AI chatbots trained for phishing and malware attacks, including WormGPT, FraudGPT, DarkBART, and DarkBERT
Inside Apple's plans to move more of its supply chain to India, catalyzed by Foxconn protests in Zhengzhou, as Apple aims to build 20%+ of all iPhones in India
Nikkei Asia :
Sources: some top ad agency executives plan to commit at least 10% to 20% more with YouTube this fall than in 2022; traditional TV ad commitments are down 15%
Sahil Patel / The Information :
A US federal judge dismisses an industry group lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a Utah law requiring adult websites to verify the age of their users
Sam Metz / Associated Press : Forums: r/politics Forums: r/politics : Utah law requiring age verification for porn sites remains in effect after judge tosses lawsuit
How illicit data brokers on Telegram, WeChat, WhatsApp, and Facebook peddle internal Amazon market data and services like attacking rivals' product listings
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26
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Protecting your Cloud Applications Data
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