~techmeme | Bookmarks (1014)

David Ingram / NBC News: TikTok permanently removes accounts associated with the parent organizations of Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik, citing “covert influence operations”  —  Social media rivals Meta and YouTube have announced similar suspensions of Russian state media accounts this month.

Joseph Menn / Washington Post: US intelligence officials say Russia, Iran, and China are using AI tools to boost US election influence efforts, with Russia's efforts being the most aggressive  —  American intelligence officials say Moscow's efforts, aimed mostly at undermining Harris, are the most aggressive.

Mackenzie Hawkins / Bloomberg: The US House approves a bill exempting some chipmaking projects from federal permitting requirements after Senate approval in 2023, sending it to Biden's desk  —  - Bill would limit NEPA requirements for projects by Intel, TSMC  — Republicans had killed earlier attempts at chips carve-out

New York Times: California Governor Gavin Newsom signs the Phone-Free Schools Act, which will require schools to restrict cellphone use during school hours by July 1, 2026  —  Calls for crackdowns have mounted with reports of cyberbullying and studies indicating that smartphones are harmful to children's mental health.

Cade Metz / New York Times: Harmonic, a startup co-founded by Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev that aims to build AI better at math than humans, raised a $75M Series A at a $325M valuation  —  Chatbots like ChatGPT get stuff wrong.  But researchers are building new A.I. systems that can verify their own math — and maybe more.

Katie Paul / Reuters: Source: Meta plans to launch the voices of Judi Dench, Kristen Bell, John Cena, Awkwafina, and Keegan-Michael Key for its Meta AI chatbot at Connect this week  —  Facebook owner Meta Platforms (META.O) is planning to announce this week that it has secured deals with actors including Judi Dench …

Ryan Christoffel / 9to5Mac: Apple says Apple Intelligence will require 4GB of storage on compatible iPhones, and the storage requirement “will increase as more features roll out”  —  Apple Intelligence is releasing soon as part of iOS 18.1.  When it does, you may need to free up some additional storage on your iPhone.

Tony Romm / Washington Post: Analysis: major crypto companies, executives, and investors have spent $38M+ recently to help Ohio Republican Bernie Moreno's campaign for the US Senate  —  The industry has spent over $38 million on ads touting Bernie Moreno, the GOP candidate, as it looks to send new allies to Washington in 2024

The Information: Source: Anthropic has started talking to investors about a future capital raise, floating a $30B-40B valuation, around double its valuation from earlier in 2024  —  Anthropic, OpenAI's largest startup competitor, has started talking to investors about raising capital in a deal that could value …

Umar Shakir / The Verge: What to expect from Meta Connect 2024 keynote on September 25 at 1pm ET: new AI features powered by Llama 3.1, cheaper Quest 3S headset, and more  —  Meta is holding its annual Connect developers conference next week, and it's going to showcase a bunch of expected and perhaps some surprise …

Dan Milmo / The Guardian: Google says the UK risks being “left behind” in the AI race without more data centers and should relax laws barring AI models being trained on copyrighted works  —  Exclusive: Tech company wants Labour to relax laws that prevent AI models being ‘trained’ on copyrighted materials

Gabriel Gatehouse / BBC: A look at Balaji Srinivasan's Network State concept, which envisions online communities acquiring land via crowdfunding, with the goal of becoming new countries  —  Do you look at the possibility of political turbulence ahead of November's US presidential election and think: democracy could be in trouble?

Bloomberg: Sources: US Commerce Department plans to reveal proposed rules that would ban Chinese- and Russian-made hardware and software for smart cars as soon as Monday  —  - Bans stem from an investigation into cybersecurity risks  — Restrictions would be enforced by the Commerce Department

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch: At the UN Summit of the Future, Sundar Pichai says Google will create a $120M fund to provide AI education globally, calls for “smart product regulation”, more  —  Speaking Saturday at the UN Summit of the Future, Google CEO Sundar Pichai described AI as “the most transformative technology yet” …

Brody Ford / Bloomberg: Memo: Zoom plans to cut back on stock-based compensation, saying equity has been issued at a rate that is “not sustainable”, joining peers like Salesforce  —  - Equity awards are ‘not sustainable,’ CEO Yuan writes in memo  — Tech investors and executives concerned about share dilution

Cristina Criddle / Financial Times: Docs: in Perplexity's new ad model, brands will be able to bid for a “sponsored” question, which features an AI-generated answer approved by the advertiser  —  AI search start-up develops ‘sponsored’ question system in effort to gain share of $300bn digital ads industry

Kali Hays / Fortune: Sources: many OpenAI staff were taken aback by a proposed ChatGPT logo with a simple, large black “O”, which struck some as ominous and lacking in creativity  —  A black ring can represent many things - simplicity, a new phase, a void.  Whatever its meaning …

New York Times: X capitulates in Brazil and could return next week, as the company's lawyers say it took down some accounts, paid fines, and named a new formal representative  —  In an abrupt reversal, the social network's lawyers said it was complying with court orders that it had previously defied.

Tripp Mickle / New York Times: A look at Jony Ive's work with LoveFrom; Ive bought a city block in SF's Jackson Square and could raise ~$1B with Sam Altman by end of 2024 for an AI device  —  Many people have wondered what Jony Ive has been up to since he left Apple five years ago.Carolyn Fong for The New York Times

Bloomberg: A Google threat analyst says the hacker behind the Snowflake breach recently broke into a “handful” of new orgs and is likely a male based in Canada in his 20s  —  Cyber investigators are tracking alleged scammer in connection with a string of compromises

Taryn Luna / Los Angeles Times: California Gov. Newsom signs Senate Bill 976 to protect minors, banning “addictive feeds”, barring social media notifications from 12am to 6am, and more  —  California took a major step in its fight to protect children from the ills of social media with Gov. Gavin Newsom's signature …

Joanna Chiu / Rest of World: A look at GFWeb, which tracks millions of domains to uncover the Great Firewall's domain blocklists; GFWeb data reveals China blocked ChatGPT on March 2, 2023  —  Rest of World received exclusive access to a platform that tracks patterns and timing of Chinese online censorship.

Feliz Solomon / Wall Street Journal: A profile of Santa Clara County Deputy DA Erin West, whose team clawed back ~$3M stolen from 26 US pig butchering victims, as she works to improve enforcement  —  Prosecutor Erin West has been one of the few to have any success against the criminals perpetrating a new type of fraud

Politico: Nick Clegg criticizes the then PM Rishi Sunak's doomerism during November 2023's AI safety summit, saying UK “wasted a huge amount of time” focusing on AI risks  —  The Meta exec and former deputy PM said Britain had “wasted a huge amount of time” focusing on the gloomy risks of artificial intelligence.