~techmeme | Bookmarks (999)

Allison Johnson / The Verge: A deeper look at Google's shockingly good Reimagine feature for Pixel 9, which lets users add things to photos via prompts and lacks strong guardrails  —  Google is the latest phone company this year to announce AI photo editing tools, following Samsung's somewhat troubling …

Matthew Green / A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering: A look at Telegram's claims that it's a “secure messenger” despite lacking default end-to-end encrypted messages and any E2E encrypted option for group chats  —  This blog is reserved for more serious things, and ordinarily I wouldn't spend time on questions like the above.

Bloomberg: Telegram says its CEO Pavel Durov has “nothing to hide” and that the messaging app “abides by EU laws”, including the Digital Services Act  —  - Company says it isn't responsible for abuse on messaging app  — Billionaire co-founded taken into custody at a Paris airport

Grant Stoner / IGN: How prominent games accessibility advocate Susan Banks, who worked with studios and raised awareness for accessibility in games, may never have existed at all  —  In 2019, the games accessibility community mourned the death of Susan Banks.  Now, evidence suggests she may have never existed to begin with.

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: A look at Apple's robotics efforts; sources: Meta will unveil prototype “Orion” AR glasses, a cheaper Quest, and new AI features for Ray-Ban Meta at Connect  —  Also: Meta nears the launch of a cheaper Quest; Apple tries a new Vision Pro sales tactic; and the App Store chief is leaving as part of a reorganization.

New York Times: An excerpt from the book Character Limit details the chaotic revamp of Twitter Blue, including Elon Musk's haphazard planning and Esther Crawford's involvement  —  By Nov. 9, 2022, anxiety was high among the Twitter employees gathered at the company's San Francisco headquarters.

Jason Schreier / Bloomberg: The problem with Xbox's new vision isn't that it's moving away from console-exclusive games, but that its release strategy is confusing and inconsistent  —  Hi everyone.  Today we're trying to figure out just what the heck Xbox is doing, but first...  - Vice presidential candidate Tim Walz was really into Dreamcast

New York Times: Some San Francisco city officials say they're not lamenting X's departure from the city, as X bears little resemblance to the company that SF welcomed in 2012  —  The company, founded in the city as Twitter, is moving its headquarters to Texas as a shadow of its former self.

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: Threads says it is testing ephemeral posts that disappear within 24 hours with a limited number of users, but doesn't say if the experiment is region-specific  —  Automatically disappearing posts on social networks could be handy for users who have a habit of deleting their posts through third-party tools …

Reuters: Sources: Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France as part of a probe into allegedly allowing a range of crimes due to a lack of moderators on the app  —  Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire founder and owner of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at Le Bourget airport outside Paris shortly …

Camomile Shumba / CoinDesk: WazirX plans to start allowing limited Indian rupee withdrawals in two phases from August 26, after freezing them in the wake of a $230M exploit in July  —  Users of the Indian crypto exchange will be able to take out up to 66% of their rupee funds in two phases following a suspension instituted …

Connor Jones / The Register: The US DOJ sues Georgia Tech and an affiliate company, alleging failures since at least 2019 to meet the DOD's cybersecurity standards for contract awardees  —  Rap sheet spells out major no-nos after disgruntled staff blow whistle  —  The US is suing one of its leading research universities …

Megan Farokhmanesh / Wired: Some streamers say the Chinese game studio behind Black Myth: Wukong told them to avoid topics like “feminist propaganda” as part of an early access agreement  —  The Chinese studio granted early access on the condition that topics like “feminist propaganda” and “Covid-19” go unmentioned.

Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch: Andrew Ng steps down as CEO of LandingAI, the computer vision startup he founded in 2017, and transitions to executive chairman; ex-COO Dan Maloney is named CEO  —  Andrew Ng is stepping down from his role as CEO at Landing AI, the computer vision platform he founded in 2017.

Shannon Bond / NPR: Meta says a small cluster of WhatsApp accounts linked to the Iran-backed hacking group APT42 targeted people affiliated with the Biden and Trump administrations  —  Meta says Iranian-linked hackers posed as tech support on the WhatsApp messaging app to target people affiliated with the administrations …

The Information: The French AI startup called H, formerly Holistic, says three of its five co-founders are leaving over “operational differences”, after raising $220M in May  —  Three of the five co-founders of buzzy French artificial intelligence startup H, formerly known as Holistic …

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple plans to unveil new iPhones, AirPods, and Apple Watches on September 10; developer logs: Apple has ramped up testing of four new M4 Mac models  —  - Company also ramps up testing of Mac models with M4 processors  —  Apple Inc. is planning to hold its biggest product launch event …

Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg: Q&A with AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio on advocating for AI regulation, his support for California's AI safety bill, AI achieving human-level intelligence, and more  —  “Unfortunately, we may not have a decade to get this right.”  —  One of the most influential academics in the AI field worries …

Kylie Robison / The Verge: Email: Elon Musk says X plans to award stock options based on employees' anticipated impact, and tells them to submit a one-page summary of their contributions  —  Elon Musk sent an email to X staff overnight about their much-anticipated stock grants — but there's a catch.

The Information: Sources: Meta cancels a premium MR headset codenamed La Jolla, in development since November, that was meant to debut in 2027 to compete with Apple's Vision Pro  —  Meta Platforms has canceled plans for a premium mixed-reality headset intended to compete with Apple's Vision Pro, according to two Meta employees.

Jordan Novet / CNBC: Microsoft plans to hold an event on September 10 with CrowdStrike and other cybersecurity vendors to discuss how to prevent incidents like the July 19 outage  —  Microsoft said Friday it will hold a conference in September for cybersecurity firms to discuss ways the industry can evolve following …

Bloomberg: The US DOJ sues RealPage, alleging its software helps property managers collude to drive up rental prices on millions of units, violating antitrust law  —  - Prosecutors allege software drives up prices on rental units  — Company says rent software uses anonymous, aggregated data

Colin Kellaher / Wall Street Journal: US SEC filing: oilfield services company Halliburton says it has taken some systems offline after discovering that an unauthorized party had gained access  —  The company has taken some systems offline to help protect them  —  Oilfield-services company Halliburton has joined the growing ranks of firms hit by cyberattacks.

Andrew Liszewski / The Verge: SpaceX says Starlink satellite internet kits purchased in one of six regions and activated in another are subject to an “outside region fee” of $200 to $300  —  In an effort to stop resellers from buying dishes in one region — where the hardware is cheaper — and selling them in another …