~techmeme | Bookmarks (999)

Angus Berwick / Wall Street Journal: How Worldcoin is building its World ID identity system, trying to assuage government and privacy activists' concerns about its iris scanning tech and data usage  —  More than a dozen jurisdictions have either suspended the project's operations or looked into its data processing

Tabby Kinder / Financial Times: Arize AI: 56% of Fortune 500 companies cited AI as a “risk factor” in their recent annual reports, up from 9% in 2022; 86% of software firms cited AI as a risk  —  Study finds more than half of Fortune 500 groups cited new technology as a potential hazard in their latest annual reports

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: A look at Apple's work on its in-house modem chip, set to replace Qualcomm's, which may debut in select models in 2025, with the full rollout taking a few years  —  Apple's move to drop Qualcomm modem chips won't have a payoff at the outset, but it could set the stage for bigger things later.

Marilen Martin / Bloomberg: A survey of 2,012 people in Germany finds ~50% wouldn't use the digital euro over privacy fears; the European Central Bank will decide on a rollout in late 2025  —  - ECB officals to decide on rollout by end of next year  — Half of people in Germany can't imagine using e-euro

Jeremy Stern / Tablet: A profile of Palmer Luckey, who sold Oculus to Facebook, was fired after donating to a pro-Trump troll group, and now imagines a new age of warfare at Anduril  —  The facts of Palmer Luckey's life are so uniquely bizarre—combining elements of fantasy with lunacy and also world-altering change …

Financial Times: South Korea's plan to introduce tablets with AI features in schools faces backlash from parents and academics concerned about children's overexposure to devices  —  South Korea's plan to introduce artificial intelligence-powered digital textbooks in schools has provoked a backlash from parents …

Joyce Lee / Reuters: South Korean AI chip makers Rebellions and Sapeon agree to merge; Rebellions has raised $225M+ and Sapeon's shareholders include SK Telecom and SK Hynix  —  South Korean artificial-intelligence chip makers Rebellions Inc and Sapeon Korea Inc have signed a definitive merger agreement, the privately held companies said on Sunday.

Edward Helmore / The Guardian: Dating apps are struggling as users seek organic ways to meet; Match Group reported a decline in the total number of paying users for seven straight quarters  —  Online dating industry in crisis as shares fall and nearly half of all users report negative experiences on the apps

Maureen Dowd / New York Times: An interview with Palantir CEO Alex Karp on co-founding the company, autonomous weapons systems, AI, supporting Kamala Harris, Silicon Valley critics, and more  —  · 41:48 min Learn more  —  Alex Karp never learned to drive.  —  “I was too poor,” he said.  “And then I was too rich.”

Carl Franzen / VentureBeat: Runway debuts Gen-3 Alpha Turbo, a faster and cheaper model than Gen-3 Alpha, capable of generating 5- or 10-second-long video clips, available for all plans  —  After showing it off in preview late last month, Runway has officially released Gen-3 Alpha Turbo, the latest version …

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch: X says it's closing its operations in Brazil, claiming a judge threatened arrest if X didn't comply with “censorship orders”; the service remains available  —  X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, said today that it's ending operations in Brazil …

Representative Nancy Pelosi: Nancy Pelosi issues a statement in opposition to California's AI safety bill, saying it's “well-intentioned but ill-informed” and “more harmful than helpful”  —  San Francisco - Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi issued this statement in opposition to California Senate Bill 1047:

Jackson Ryan / New York Times: A profile of Anthony Tan, the solo developer of Way to the Woods, a game that received Epic Games funding and remains unreleased nine years after its conception  —  Anthony Tan was 16 when his idea for a video game about a deer caught the industry's eye.  Nine years later, he's still working on it.

Lynn Doan / Bloomberg: Ericsson to sell its network portability and data exchange services unit Iconectiv to Koch Equity Development for $1B; the deal is expected to close in H1 2025  —  - Ericsson has been working to cut costs amid challenging market  — Koch Industries has long been a huge investor in tech firms

Justin Bachman / Legal Dive: A YouTuber files a proposed class action against Nvidia, accusing it of scraping his content without consent to train AI models, weeks after also suing OpenAI  —  A video creator alleges that the companies scraped his videos, and millions of others, without permission to help train their generative AI learning models.

PYMNTS.com: Amount, which provides digital lending services for credit unions and banks, raised $30M from Curql, Goldman Sachs, WestCap, Hanaco Ventures, QED, and others  —  Banking technology firm Amount has raised $30 million to expand into the credit union sector.  —  Amount announced …

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica: Filing: AT&T and Verizon ask the FCC to deny SpaceX's request to waive rules, claiming Starlink's service with T-Mobile would interfere with existing networks  —  Carriers allege Starlink/T-Mobile will interfere with existing mobile networks.  —  AT&T and Verizon are urging telecom regulators …

Victoria Song / The Verge: Google says it “missed the mark” after leaked screenshots showed a Team Pixel program agreement threatened influencers who didn't showcase the Pixel over rivals  —  The tech review world has been full of murky deals between companies and influencers for years, but it appears Google finally crossed a line with the Pixel 9.

Cristiano Lima-Strong / Washington Post: A US appeals court largely upholds a ruling blocking the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, finding parts of the law likely violate the First Amendment  —  The court found key parts of the landmark law probably violate the First Amendment, largely siding with an industry challenge.

Bloomberg: A US judge temporarily blocks the launch of Venu Sports, the streaming service from Fox/WBD/Disney, a week before rollout, after Fubo filed an antitrust lawsuit  —  US District Judge Margaret Garnett on Friday issued a preliminary injunction blocking the $42.99-a-month service, Venu Sports …

Cade Metz / New York Times: OpenAI removed a cluster of Iranian accounts using ChatGPT for an influence campaign targeting the US elections, and says the effort didn't gain much traction  —  The company said the Iranian effort, which used ChatGPT, did not gain much traction.  —  OpenAI said on Friday that it had discovered …

Ionut Ilascu / BleepingComputer: Background check service National Public Data confirms a breach after hackers leaked a stolen database with millions of SSNs and other sensitive personal info  —  Background check service National Public Data confirms that hackers breached its systems after threat actors leaked a stolen database …

Dan Primack / Axios: FanDuel founders and other early shareholders sue KKR and Shamrock Capital over the 2018 Paddy Power Betfair merger that wiped out the value of their holdings  —  - The case has gone through several travails, including being dismissed and having that dismissal successfully appealed.

Joann Muller / Axios: Walmart and DroneUp end drone delivery in all 18 Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Tampa hubs to focus on Dallas-Fort Worth; DroneUp cuts 70, or ~17% of its staff  —  - The three cities were part of a splashy rollout in 2022 that was described as the first large-scale drone delivery operation in the U.S.