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Politico: Google and the state of California strike a deal to jointly contribute $125M+ over five years to support local news; it also includes support for an AI project  —  The agreement includes funding for artificial intelligence, a technology many journalists fear could replace their jobs.

Brody Ford / Bloomberg: Zoom reports Q2 revenue up 2.1% YoY to $1.16B, vs. $1.15B est., enterprise revenue up 3.5% YoY to $682.8M, and a Q3 revenue forecast beating estimates  —  - Software company gains ground with larger enterprise clients  — Consumer unit reported lowest churn rate ever, CEO says

Tom Warren / The Verge: Microsoft says Recall will be available to Windows Insiders in October; it delayed the launch of the AI feature in June after security concerns were raised  —  Microsoft says it's planning to allow Windows testers to try out its controversial Recall AI feature in October.

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple App Store VP Matt Fischer is leaving in October; App Store group will split into two teams, one for its own store, one for alt app distribution  —  - Longtime App Store vice president Fischer to exit in October  — Company makes changes in response to regulatory environment

Meduza: Users in Russia report outages affecting Telegram, WhatsApp, and other services; Roskomnadzor blames a DDoS attack, while activists suspect Kremlin interference  —  Internet users in Russia reported outages affecting a wide range of online services on Wednesday, including Telegram, WhatsApp, and Skype.

Allison Johnson / The Verge: Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL review: great build quality, brighter screens, faster fingerprint sensors, but the AI features are inconsistent and all over the place  —  The AI is inconsistent, but the hardware is oh so good. … Google finally got the hardware right.

Tom Warren / The Verge: Microsoft announces the $30 Xbox Adaptive Joystick, a wired companion to other Xbox controllers, for players with limited mobility, launching in early 2025  —  Microsoft is launching a new $29.99 Xbox Adaptive Joystick early next year that's designed for players with limited mobility.

Newley Purnell / Bloomberg: Business groups including Asia Internet Coalition, which includes Amazon, Google, and Meta, criticize Hong Kong's new cyber rules, calling them “unprecedented”  —  - Business groups call proposal too broad in flurry of letters  — Comes months after city censored politically sensitive videos

Sankalp Phartiyal / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple plans to make the most expensive iPhone models in India for the first time as Foxconn rushes to produce iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max in the country  —  - Plan shows Apple making further progress with India assembly  — Company is shifting output to India to diversify beyond China

Digbijay Mishra / The Economic Times: PhonePe and Google Pay accounted for over 85% share of 14.4B UPI transactions in July; PhonePe led with 5.9B transactions, Google Pay 5.3B, and Paytm 1.1B  —  The 30% market share cap in the UPI segment was considered improbable with only a few months left until the deadline.

Connor Jones / The Register: Cisco Talos: eight vulnerabilities in Microsoft's macOS apps could be abused by attackers to record video/sound from a user's device, log user input, and more  —  Windows giant tells Cisco Talos it isn't fixing them  —  Cisco Talos says eight vulnerabilities in Microsoft's macOS apps …

Associated Press: Ex-Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch, who was acquitted on US fraud charges in June, is among six missing after a yacht sank off Sicily, according to Italian authorities  —  A luxury superyacht carrying foreign tourists capsized and sank off the Italian island of Sicily in bad weather early Monday.

Nick Robins-Early / The Guardian: Donald Trump shared AI-generated images on Truth Social that show Taylor Swift and her fans vowing their support for his campaign; Swift hasn't endorsed Trump  —  Presidential nominee shares AI-generated images, contributing to spread of online election disinformation

Perry Stein / Washington Post: The FBI, ODNI, and CISA say they are “confident” that Iran was responsible for recent attempted hacks into the Trump and Biden-Harris campaigns  —  In a joint statement with intelligence agencies, the bureau said the attempted hacks also were directed at the Democratic campaign.

Jaspreet Singh / Reuters: Palo Alto Networks reports Q4 revenue up 12% YoY to $2.2B, vs. $2.16B est., FY 2025 revenue guidance above est., and increases its share buyback by $500M to $1B  —  Palo Alto Networks (PANW.O) forecast fiscal 2025 revenue and profit above Wall Street estimates on Monday …

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Gemini Live is not too useful as a premium feature as it lacks many integrations that text-based Gemini supports and cannot yet interpret images or video  —  What's the point of chatting with a human-like bot if it's an unreliable narrator — and has a colorless personality?

Ian Bogost / The Atlantic: University professors still face the seemingly impossible task of detecting AI-fueled cheating, which continues unabated on both small and large assignments  —  Kyle Jensen, the director of Arizona State University's writing programs, is gearing up for the fall semester.

Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security: A week after data broker NPD confirmed a breach, which reportedly impacted 272M+ people, a review of NPD property Records Check shows exposed admin credentials  —  New details are emerging about a breach at National Public Data (NPD), a consumer data broker that recently spilled hundreds …

Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac: Apple debuts a web app for Podcasts, letting users log in to listen to podcasts, view the Up Next queue and library, and browse new shows, at podcasts.apple.com  —  Apple Podcasts is expanding to the web, starting today.  You can access the new web app version at podcasts.apple.com …

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority: Google will end the Google Play Security Reward Program, introduced in 2017 to incentivize researchers to find bugs in popular Android apps, on August 31  —  - Google has announced that they are winding down the Google Play Security Reward Program.  — The program was introduced in late 2017 …

Bradley Keoun / CoinDesk: Fabric Cryptography, a startup working on a “verifiable processing unit” chip for cryptography, raised a $33M Series A co-led by Blockchain Capital and 1kx  —  The fundraising, co-led by Blockchain Capital and 1kx, will be used to “build computing chips, software and cryptographic algorithms,” the company said.

CNBC: Waymo unveils its cheaper “generation 6” self-driving tech that's integrated with Geely Zeekr vehicles, with 13 cameras and 4 lidar sensors, down from 29 and 5  —  Alphabet-owned Waymo revealed details about its newest “generation 6” self-driving technology on Monday.

Matthew Ball / MatthewBall.co: Roblox has grown rapidly and consistently since 2018 and now sees an estimated average of 80M+ daily and 380M+ monthly users, over 2x that of Steam or Minecraft  —  Everyone knows Roblox is huge.  But as COVID receded into memory, Roblox shifted from “new” to “familiar,” …

Camilla Hodgson / Financial Times: FOI docs: water consumption by data centers in Virginia, home to world's largest cluster of data centers, reached 1.85B+ gallons in 2023, up from 1.13B in 2019  —  Usage has increased by almost two-thirds since 2019 in the world's largest concentration of computing infrastructure