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The Verge says we could get GPT-5 by December, but it might be called Orion. The biggest health care data breach in US history. Turns out Americans can actually produce high yield, quality silicon. Or, at least, Arizonans can. And, of course, the weekend longreads suggestions. Here’s what you missed today in the world of Tech.

Sponsors:

• Acorns.com/ride

Links:

• OpenAI plans to release its next big AI model by December (The Verge)
• UnitedHealth says data of 100 million stolen in Change Healthcare breach (BleepingComputer)
• TSMC’s Arizona Chip Production Yields Surpass Taiwan’s in Win for US Push (Bloomberg)
• Bluesky raises $15M Series A, plans to launch subscriptions (TechCrunch)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• The mystifying, acrimonious battle between Arm and Qualcomm (Financial Times)
• Who Gets the TikTok in the Divorce? The Messy Fight Over Valuable Social Media Accounts (WSJ)

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Raspberry PI does AI now too. Apple is cutting iPhone production orders. Microsoft says China, Russia and Iran are still doing the dirt as the election nears. What if Foxconn got into the business of manufacturing cars? And what if surge pricing, but for groceries? New electronic price tags could make that possible.

Sponsors:

• Notion.com/ride

Links:

• Raspberry Pi releases more AI-focused add-ons (TechCrunch)
• Raspberry Pi release higher performance AI HAT+ — 13 and 26 TOPS variants (TomsHardware)
• iPhone 16 orders cut by around 10 million units for 4Q24–1H25; no evidence yet that Apple Intelligence could boost iPhone shipments in the near term (Ming-Chi Kuo)
• Microsoft Warns Foreign Disinformation Is Hitting the US Election From All Directions (Wired)
• Roblox to Enact Child-Safety Changes Giving Parents More Control (Bloomberg)
• What if carmaking went the way of consumer electronics? (The Economist)
• Kroger and Walmart Deny ‘Surge Pricing’ After Adopting Digital Price Tags (NYTimes)

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A huge dispute in the semiconductor space has gone nuclear with implications that are crazy. Anthropic’s new AI app can control your computer for you. Runway’s new model lets you do your own motion capture. And farewell to Foursquare, the OG version at least.

Links:

• Arm to Scrap Qualcomm Chip Design License in Feud Escalation (Bloomberg)
• Anthropic’s new AI can use computers like a human, redefining automation for enterprises (VentureBeat)
• Apple Sharply Scales Back Production of Vision Pro (The Information)
• Runway’s Act-One uses smartphone cameras to replicate facial expression motion capture (Silicon Angle)
• ‘This is a game changer’: Runway releases new AI facial expression motion capture feature Act-One (VentureBeat)
• Farewell to Foursquare’s app (TechCrunch)

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Qualcomm has unveiled its big, next gen Snapdragon SoC which will someday be in all the phones. Except iPhones, of course. Is Netflix pulling back on its gaming strategy? Why a new marketplace from Epic might actually point the way to the metaverse. And how are various people trying to get AI to have a better personality?

Links:

• Snapdragon 8 Elite deep dive: A return to custom CPUs and much more (Android Authority)
• Scoop: Netflix shuts down 'AAA' Team Blue gaming studio, amid gaming shake-up (Game File)
• Netflix has closed its AAA gaming studio (Engadget)
• Hulu and Disney+ No Longer Support Signups and Payment Using App Store (MacRumors)
• Epic’s ambitious digital asset shop is now open (The Verge)
• Biden administration proposes new rules governing data transfers to adversarial nations (The Record)
• How AI groups are infusing their chatbots with personality (Financial Times)

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Google’s strategy of keeping it in the courts is already going to plan. New AI agents from Microsoft. New Open Source models from IBM. Perplexity is looking to raise again. How far behind Apple thinks it is in AI. And what it’s like to use your AirPods as hearing aids.

Sponsors:

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Links:

• Epic judge lets Google keep its Android app store closed to competitors — for now (The Verge)
• Microsoft unveils new autonomous AI agents in advance of competing Salesforce rollout (GeekWire)
• AI Startup Perplexity in Funding Talks to More Than Double Valuation to $8 Billion (WSJ)
• IBM debuts open source Granite 3.0 LLMs for enterprise AI (VentureBeat)
• Apple’s New iPad Mini Highlights the Company’s Secret AI Advantage (Bloomberg)
• Apple’s AirPods Pro hearing health features are as good as they sound (The Verge)

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Did Nintendo try to kill GoldenEye 007 before it was completed? Why did Shigeru Miyamoto keep telling the development team to tone down the violence. And why did the famous multiplayer aspect of the game almost didn’t happen? It’s slappers only on Rad History, because we’re diving into the history of THE game of the late 1990s, GoldenEye 007.

With Special Guest: John Gruber

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Now Amazon is building some modular nuclear reactors. TSMC’s results cheer up the chips industry. Uber but for buying plane tickets. No, I mean, really, use Uber to buy plane tickets. And the controversial reason Meta is reportedly laying off some folks.

Sponsors:

• Lumen.me/ride

Links:

• Amazon goes nuclear, to invest more than $500 million to develop small modular reactors (CNBC)
• TSMC Hikes Revenue Outlook in Show of Confidence in AI Boom (Bloomberg)
• The FTC is finally making it easier to cancel your gym membership (The Verge)
• Uber explored takeover bid for Expedia (FT)
• Meta is laying off employees at WhatsApp, Instagram, and more (The Verge)
• Meta fires staff for abusing $25 meal credits (FT)
• Analogue’s 4K Nintendo 64 launches next year for $249 (The Verge)

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Kindles come roaring back, with significant updates to the Paperwhite and the Scribe, but also, for the first time ever, a Kindle with a color screen. Why has ASML suddenly plunged so much if chips are so hot right now? Android 15 is beginning to roll out. And Sonos is back to releasing new speakers again.

Sponsors:

• Promevo.com/techmeme

Links:

• Amazon’s new seven-inch Kindle Paperwhite is bigger and faster than ever (The Verge)
• Amazon’s new Kindle Scribe takes another step toward pen and paper (The Verge)
• Amazon finally has a color Kindle, and it looks pretty good (The Verge)
• Global Chip Stocks Erase $420 Billion After ASML Sales Warning (Bloomberg)
• YouTube takes a baby step toward labeling authentic video (The Verge)
• Android 15 is now available for Pixels (The Verge)
• Sonos announces ‘breakthrough’ Arc Ultra soundbar and Sub 4 (The Verge)

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The Nuclear Energy sector is clearly getting back in business, thanks to big tech and their AI needs. The latest back and forth in the Wordpress brouhaha. The US is considering caps on the chips Nvidia can deliver to a bunch of countries worldwide. And is Tether getting deeper into the global finance game?

Sponsors:

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Links:

• Google Backs New Nuclear Plants to Power AI (WSJ)
• DHH's Original Post
• Matt Mullenweg's Original Response
• Matt's 2nd Response
• Apple Unveils New iPad Mini With A17 Pro Chip and Apple Intelligence (MacRumors)
• US Weighs Capping Exports of AI Chips From Nvidia and AMD to Some Countries (Bloomberg)
• Crypto Company Tether Talking to Commodity Traders About Lending Them Its Billions (Bloomberg)
• The War on Passwords Is One Step Closer to Being Over (Wired)

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Adobe unleashes its Firefly AI video model broadly. Mark Gurman lays out Apple’s headset strategy going forward. What’s been going on with the Internet Archive. What the heck IS going on with WordPress? VC deals are dropping precipitously. And a review of the Meta Quest 3S.

Sponsors:

• WashingtonPost.com/ride
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Links:

• Adobe’s AI video model is here, and it’s already inside Premiere Pro (The Verge)
• Apple Has a New Smart Home Strategy: Screens Everywhere (Bloomberg)
• The Internet Archive is back as a read-only service after cyberattacks (The Verge)
• In latest move against WP Engine, WordPress takes control of ACF plugin (TechCrunch)
• Venture capital deal activity is slowing down (Axios)
• Meta Quest 3S review: Impressive VR for $300 (Engadget)

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Why was Blockbuster so successful? Was it the DVD that killed Blockbuster? What was the deal with late fees? Is there any way Blockbuster, not Netflix, could have won out in the end?

Special guest: Venture Capitalist and Writer MG Siegler!

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All the headlines from Tesla’s robotaxi event. AMD unveils the chip it wants to use to go toe to toe with Nvidia. Are people actually making money building GPTs or not so much? And in the longreads, rebuilding Notre Dame as period accurately as possible.

Sponsors:

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Links:

• Tesla reveals 20 Cybercabs at We, Robot event, says you’ll be able to buy one for less than $30,000 (TechCrunch)
• Tesla's Cybercab Is Here (Wired)
• Tesla Robovan has something the Cybertruck definitely does not (T3)
• AMD launches AI chip to rival Nvidia’s Blackwell (CNBC)
• Xbox will sell games directly in the Android app next month (The Verge)
• OpenAI’s GPT Store Has Left Some Developers in the Lurch (Wired)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• Google’s Nobel Haul Puts Spotlight on Changing Focus of Scientific Research (Bloomberg)
• The Miraculous Resurrection of Notre-Dame (GQ)

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Apple TV+ finally comes to Prime Video Channels. OpenAI says they’ve been disrupting AI election influence campaigns. But they won’t be profitable until when? How Google plans to beat the regulation rap. And a review of basically the highest end smartwatch you can buy.

Sponsors:

• Notion.com/ride

Links:

• Amazon Adds Apple TV+ to Its Channels Store for Streaming (Bloomberg)
• OpenAI says bad actors are using its platform to disrupt elections, but with little ‘viral engagement’ (CNBC)
• OpenAI Projections Imply Losses Tripling to $14 Billion in 2026 (The Information)
• Apple’s Dan Riccio, Key Executive in Both the Jobs and Cook Eras, to Retire (Bloomberg)
• Competition and the clock: how Google plans to deflect and delay a historic break-up threat (Financial Times)
• Garmin Fenix 8 review: only kind of smart (The Verge)

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The government says it does, in fact, want to break up Google. The Nobel Prize sure does love AI this year. Could Substack win by becoming the default way for creators to monetize? And listen to the end of the show today for a big announcement from me.

Links:

• US Weighs Google Breakup in Historic Big Tech Antitrust Case (Bloomberg)
• Unmasking Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto—Again (Wired)
• Google DeepMind Scientists Share Nobel for AI Protein Work (Bloomberg)
• X Cleared to Return in Brazil After Musk Bows to Judge’s Demands (Bloomberg)
• Substack wants to do more than just newsletters (Semafor)

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Crack… at least for the Google Play store. Two AI scientists have won the Nobel Prize for physics?! Samsung is in a similar boat to Intel, just not quite as severely. And an unfortunate reminder that government mandated back doors are bad doors.

Sponsors:

• Dell.com/deals

Links:

• Google must crack open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge (The Verge)
• Apple Potentially Facing Worst Leak Since iPhone 4 Was Left in a Bar (MacRumors)
• ‘Godfather of AI’ Geoffrey Hinton Among Nobel Prize Winners (Bloomberg)
• Samsung Electronics apologises for disappointing profit as it struggles in AI chips (Reuters)
• The 30-year-old internet backdoor law that came back to bite (TechCrunch)

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We finally have a date for Apple Intelligence. Meta has a new text to video AI model. Google could soon drop under 50% in the search ads market. More hope for level three automated driving. And how AI bots could revolutionize online dating.

Sponsors:

• Miro.com

Links:

• Apple Slowly Moves Away From Its Annual Product Release Strategy (Bloomberg)
• Meta Unveils AI Video Generator, Taking On OpenAI and Google (Bloomberg)
• Google’s Grip on Search Slips as TikTok and AI Startup Mount Challenge (WSJ)
• GM is working on an eyes-off, hands-off driving system (TechCrunch)
• Uber and Lyft drivers use Teslas as makeshift robotaxis, raising safety concerns (Reuters)
• Grindr Aims to Build the Dating World’s First AI ‘Wingman’ (WSJ)

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Google has updated Lens and is taking a page out of Perplexity’s book. OpenAI’s new canvas workspace. Why an upcoming iPhone SE might have some interesting internals. And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

Links:

• Google Lens now lets you search with video (The Verge)
• Google brings ads to AI Overviews as it expands AI’s role in search (TechCrunch)
• OpenAI launches new ‘Canvas’ ChatGPT interface tailored to writing and coding projects (TechCrunch)
• iPhone SE 4 to feature Apple’s first 5G modem, A18 chip, same cameras as iPhone 15 (9to5Mac)
• 159 employees are leaving Automattic as CEO’s fight with WP Engine escalates (TechCrunch)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• Saving Cyberpunk 2077: How CD Projekt Red recovered from one of video games' most disastrous launches (EuroGamer)
• The Flying Car Is Finally Here. It’s Slightly Illegal. (Intelligencer)

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OpenAI raised their round, and it basically broke all the records. The whole Wordpress mess has gotten so crazy that WPEngine is suing. Using Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses to dox people in real time. And you’ll never guess the reason why you’re about to see more ads on streaming video. Hint: you’ll endure it.

Sponsors:

• Lumen.me/ride

Links:

• OpenAI raises $6.6 billion in largest VC round ever (Axios)
• OpenAI asks investors not to back rival start-ups such as Elon Musk’s xAI (Financial Times)
• OpenAI feels competitors breathing down its neck (Financial Times)
• WP Engine sues WordPress co-creator Mullenweg and Automattic, alleging abuse of power (TechCrunch)
• Someone Put Facial Recognition Tech onto Meta's Smart Glasses to Instantly Dox Strangers (404Media)
• Spotify adds a new, automatically updating playlist for offline listening (TechCrunch)
• Amazon to increase number of advertisements on Prime Video (Financial Times)
• Venture Dealmaking Reflects Selective Tastes of Investors (Bloomberg)

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Catching you up on a bunch of other Microsoft announcements we missed yesterday. Is Nvidia trying to break open the black box of AI? It’s absolutely wild that there’s still no viable YouTube app for the Vision Pro. And we were worried about disruption to the semiconductor industry if a typhoon hit Taiwan, but it turns out, a hurricane hitting North Carolina can be bad too.

Links:

• Microsoft is using AI to improve Windows search (The Verge)
• Microsoft starts paying publishers for content surfaced by Copilot (TechCrunch)
• Telegram CEO Downplays Service Term Changes Amid French Probe (Bloomberg)
• Nvidia just dropped a bombshell: Its new AI model is open, massive, and ready to rival GPT-4 (VentureBeat)
• Threads users can now see who follows them from other fediverse servers (TechCrunch)
• Christian Selig’s unofficial YouTube app for the Vision Pro just got taken down (The Verge)
• Hurricane Helene Will Send Shockwaves Through the Semiconductor Industry (Wired)

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Do we have the first IPO of the AI era? Do we have the first AI model beyond the transformer architecture? Microsoft has a bunch of new AI tools inside Windows. We try to explain that whole controversy around PearAI. And what about that NotebookLM feature that lets you create a two-hander podcast out of any text.

Links:

• AI chipmaker Cerebras files for IPO to take on Nvidia (CNBC)
• MIT spinoff Liquid debuts non-transformer AI models and they’re already state-of-the-art (VentureBeat)
• Microsoft Copilot can now read your screen, think deeply, and speak aloud to you (TechCrunch)
• Oura Nears $500 Million in Annual Revenue and Readies New Ring (Bloomberg)
• Y Combinator is being criticized after it backed an AI startup that admits it basically cloned another AI startup (TechCrunch)
• NotebookLM’s automatically generated podcasts are surprisingly effective (Simon Willison's Blog)

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That controversial AI bill in California has been vetoed by Governor Newsom. Is even Apple now thinking that its Vision Pro strategy might need a rethink? What really is OpenAI’s situation right now, and this time I’m talking money-wise? And the strange resurrection of the point and shoot camera.

Links:

• California’s Gavin Newsom Vetoes Controversial AI Safety Bill (WSJ)
• California Passes Law Protecting Consumer Brain Data (NYTimes)
• Meta’s New Headsets Show Apple Has Lost Its Way With the Vision Pro (Bloomberg)
• OpenAI’s Complex Path to Becoming a For-Profit Company (WSJ)
• Songs by Adele, Bob Dylan, Green Day, Many More Blocked by YouTube in Legal Dispute (Variety)
• This Camera Went Viral Two Years Ago. You Still Can’t Buy One (Bloomberg)

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Founder Mode? Not for me, says Sam Altman, but we will see. A few new gadgets from Samsung. Maybe ARM should buy Intel. Are AI startups hitting revenue traction faster than SaaS startups did? And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

Links:

• Sam Altman tells OpenAI staff there’s no plan for him to receive a ‘giant equity stake’ in company (CNBC)
• Samsung Galaxy S24 FE goes official starting at $649 – is it still a ‘Fan Edition?’ (9to5Google)
• Arm Is Rebuffed by Intel After Inquiring About Buying Product Unit (Bloomberg)
• Exponential growth brews 1 million AI models on Hugging Face (ArsTechnica)
• AI start-ups generate money faster than past hyped tech companies (FT)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• McDonald’s touchscreen kiosks were feared as job killers. Instead, something surprising happened (CNN)
• Apple Rolls Back Its Big Plans to Release Movies in Theaters (Bloomberg)
• The 27-Year-Old Economic Adviser for Gen Z (WSJ)

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There’s only two stories really. If you can believe it, more executive departures at OpenAI, as it looks like they’re serious about going for profit. And yes, Meta announced a new Quest headset, but the real headlines are the Orion smartglasses, which you can’t actually buy. What? I’ll explain.

Sponsors:

• Thorne.fit/ridehome

Links:

• OpenAI considering restructuring to for-profit, CTO Mira Murati and two top research execs depart (CNBC)
• Exclusive: OpenAI to remove non-profit control and give Sam Altman equity (Reuters)
• Meta’s cheaper Quest 3S might just be an upgrade (The Verge)
• A Few Brief Thoughts on Meta Connect 2024 (Daring Fireball)
• Meta pitches VR to mobile developers with new support for Android apps on Quest (TechCrunch)
• Meta’s big tease (The Verge)

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Caroline Ellison benefits from being cooperative. Has your company unknowingly hired remote workers from North Korea? What is going on with this WordPress back and forth? Why OpenAI has to let people look at their training data. And why is everyone upset at Marquess Brownlee?

Sponsors:

• Hims.com/ride

Links:

• Caroline Ellison sentenced to two years in prison for her role in FTX scandal (Axios)
• Dozens of Fortune 100 companies have unwittingly hired North Korean IT workers, according to report (The Record)
• The DOJ sues Visa for locking out rival payment platforms (The Verge)
• Automattic sends WP Engine its own cease-and-desist over WordPress trademark infringement (TechCrunch)
• OpenAI Training Data to Be Inspected in Authors’ Copyright Cases (The Hollywood Reporter)
• Marques Brownlee says ‘I hear you’ after fans criticize his new wallpaper app (The Verge)

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Sam Altman has a manifesto. Kinda. Telegram is beginning to walk things back a bit. Cloudflare wants to help you block the AI bots. New streaming device from Roku. And I guess TikTok can’t win at everything.

Sponsors:

• Lumen.me/ride

Links:

• The Intelligence Age (Sam Altman)
• Sam Altman catapults past founder mode into ‘god mode’ with latest AI post (TechCrunch)
• OpenAI CEO: We may have AI superintelligence in “a few thousand days” (ArsTechnica)
• Some Kaspersky customers receive surprise forced-update to new antivirus software (TechCrunch)
• Telegram CEO Durov Says App to Provide More Data to Governments (Bloomberg)
• New Cloudflare Tools Let Sites Detect and Block AI Bots for Free (Wired)
• The new Roku Ultra is faster, has better Wi-Fi, and comes with a backlit remote (The Verge)
• Spotify’s AI playlist builder is now available in the US (The Verge)
• TikTok to Shut Down its Music Streaming Business in November (Bloomberg)

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Qualcomm as a white knight to save Intel? A huge bitcoin heist gets busted for the usual reasons. What if the US bans imports of all cars from China? And why can’t US car makers keep up when it comes, simply, to software?

Sponsors:

• Timeline.com/ride

Links:

• Qualcomm Approached Intel About a Takeover in Recent Days (WSJ)
• Intel Gets Multibillion-Dollar Apollo Offer as Qualcomm Circles (Bloomberg)
• Chip Giants TSMC and Samsung Discuss Building Middle Eastern Megafactories (WSJ)
• Suspects behind $230 million cryptocurrency theft arrested in Miami (BleepingComputer)
• US proposes banning Chinese software and components in vehicles (FT)
• Israel’s Pager Attacks Have Changed the World (NYTimes)
• Toyota and VW fall further behind in the software race (FT)

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You might want to hold off on updating to macOS 15 Sequoia. What, exactly, is Europe trying to get Apple to do? The AI energy crunch means they’re turning Three Mile Island back on. Could AI usage mean we use up all our 5G capacity? And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

Sponsors:

• 1password.com/ride
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Links:

• Apple’s new macOS Sequoia update is breaking some cybersecurity tools (TechCrunch)
• EU to tell Apple how to do interoperability, DMA style (TechCrunch)
• Microsoft AI Needs So Much Power It's Restarting Site of US Nuclear Meltdown (Bloomberg)
• AI is stressing networks out - Nvidia thinks AI can help (Fierce Network)
• Huawei 'super fans' fuming as left empty handed by $2,800 phone launch (Reuters)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• American Vulcan - Palmer Luckey (TabletMag)
• The Death of the Minivan (The Atlantic)

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Looks like they finally got around to suing that Palworld game. Google volunteered to break up some of its businesses but the EU said no. AI is coming to YouTube in a big way. A new social media platform that is ENTIRELY AI. And Amazon wants to get into the Shark Tank business.

Sponsors:

• LinkedIn.com/ride

Links:

• Nintendo and Pokémon are suing Palworld maker Pocketpair (The Verge)
• Exclusive: Google offered to sell part of ad tech business, not enough for EU publishers (Reuters)
• YouTube will use AI to generate ideas, titles, and even full videos (The Verge)
• Apple Gets EU Warning to Open Up iPhone Operating System (Bloomberg)
• Musk's satellites 'blocking' view of the universe (BBC)
• SocialAI offers a Twitter-like diary where AI bots respond to your posts (TechCrunch)
• Amazon’s New ‘Shark Tank’-Style Show Gives Winners Top Billing in Its Store (WSJ)

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Messages between Android and iOS are about to be encrypted. A new XR headset from HTC and new Spectacles from Snap. A big movie studio has signed up to use AI. Neuralink has implants for blindness. And why I’m kinda NOT gonna do a review roundup of the new iPhones.

Sponsors:

• Ramp.com/techmeme

Links:

• RCS texts on the iPhone aren’t encrypted now, but that could change (The Verge)
• Here’s how green bubbles are getting upgraded in iOS (The Verge)
• HTC Vive's Focus Vision is a $999 stab at high-end VR and mixed reality (Engadget)
• Snap’s new Spectacles inch closer to compelling AR (The Verge)
• Instagram, Facing Pressure Over Child Safety Online, Unveils Sweeping Changes (NYTimes)
• Lionsgate, Studio Behind ‘John Wick,’ Signs Deal With AI Startup Runway (WSJ)
• Musk's Neuralink gets FDA's breakthrough device tag for 'Blindsight' implant (Reuters)
• Apple iPhone 16 Pro review: small camera update, big difference (The Verge)

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Intel announces a bunch of ways its hoping to turn its business around sooner rather than later. Is OpenAI about to have its chat bots query you? The whole TikTok divestment case is coming to a head right now. And speaking of turn arounds, darn if Netflix didn’t pull ITS turnaround off perfectly. Hollywood, not so much.

Sponsors:

• Shopify.com/ride

Links:

• Intel stock jumps on plan to turn foundry business into subsidiary and allow for outside funding (CNBC)
• Intel to Make Custom AI Chip for Amazon, Delay German Plant (Bloomberg)
• EssilorLuxottica extends smart glasses partnership with Meta (Reuters)
• OpenAI Says It's Fixed Issue Where ChatGPT Appeared to Be Messaging Users Unprompted (Futurism)
• TikTok is about to get its day in court (The Verge)
• Judges Show Some Skepticism of TikTok’s Fight Against Potential U.S. Ban (NYTimes)
• How Netflix won the streaming wars (FT)

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A bunch of Apple stories today. FDA approval for sleep apnea detection for the watch. Signs of poor pre-order sales for the phone. And a quick review of the new Airpods. Also, how did Intel lose out on making the chips for the next gen Playstation. And are dating apps responsible for income inequality?

Sponsors:

• ArcticWolf.com/register

Links:

• Apple Watch sleep apnea detection gets FDA approval (TechCrunch)
• iPhone 16 first weekend pre-order analysis: estimated total sales of about 37 million units; Pro series demand lower than expected (Ming-Chi Kuo)
• France picks Sejourne as nominee for EU Commission after Breton clash (Reuters)
• Slack now lets users add AI agents from Asana, Cohere, Adobe, Workday and more (VentureBeat)
• Exclusive: How Intel lost the Sony PlayStation business (Reuters)
• Apple AirPods 4 review: defying expectations (The Verge)
• Online Dating Caused a Rise in US Income Inequality, Research Paper Shows (Bloomberg)

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The first of the Strawberry models is here. YC plans to have four cohorts a year, but each one is getting smaller. Waymo is already ready to expand to more pretty big markets. And in the long reads, a deep dive look into the options Intel has at this point in time.

Sponsors:

• HensonShaving.com/ride code ride

Links:

• OpenAI releases o1, its first model with ‘reasoning’ abilities (The Verge)
• Notes on OpenAI’s new o1 chain-of-thought models (Simon Willison's Weblog)
• OpenAI's new models 'instrumentally faked alignment' (TransformerNews)
• Apple AirPods Pro granted FDA approval to serve as hearing aids (TechCrunch)
• Silicon Valley’s Y Combinator to Double Number of Cohorts Per Year (Bloomberg)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• Intel Has Only Tough Options After Its Long and Stinging Fall From Grace (Bloomberg)

Link to the twitter poll about ads

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As expected, OpenAI is in talks for a new capital raise at a $150B valuation. More layoffs in Microsoft’s gaming division. More holes poked in our creaking internet infrastructure. The tiny SpaceX competitor who’s stock has been soaring lately. And a look at what Apple’s recent AirPods announcement could do to the hearing aid industry.

Links:

• OpenAI Fundraising Set to Vault Startup’s Valuation to $150 Billion (Bloomberg)
• The AI Spending Spree, in Charts (WSJ)
• Microsoft Lays Off Another 650 Staff From Its Video Game Workforce, Xbox Boss Phil Spencer Sends Memo to Staff (IGN)
• Rogue WHOIS server gives researcher superpowers no one should ever have (ArsTechnica)
• Adam Neumann’s Climate Company Is Issuing Refunds After Failing To Launch Crypto Token (Forbes)
• SpaceX’s Tiny Rival Soars 1,300%. Now Comes the Satellite Launch (Bloomberg)
• Apple turning AirPods into hearing aids underscores effort to crack massive health market (CNBC)

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Mistral goes multimodal for the first time. Meta admits to scraping the data of every adult Australian. The details on the new PS5 Pro. Wouldn’t it be wild if, through stablecoins, crypto BECOMES the banking system instead of replacing it. And a weird mystery in AI land.

Sponsors:

• Promevo.com/techmeme

Links:

• Mistral releases Pixtral 12B, its first multimodal model (TechCrunch)
• Facebook admits to scraping every Australian adult user's public photos and posts to train AI, with no opt-out option (ABC News)
• The $700 PS5 Pro doesn’t come with a disc drive (The Verge)
• Exclusive Hands-On: I Played Sony's All-New PS5 Pro (CNET)
• Americans used record 100 trillion megabytes of wireless data in 2023 (Reuters)
• Payments in Singapore With Stablecoins Rise to Almost $1 Billion (Bloomberg)
• Reflection 70B model maker breaks silence amid fraud accusations (VentureBeat)

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Apple loses its longest standing regulatory battle in the EU. Some drips and drabs from yesterday’s iPhone event. Would a phone you can fold three times be more enticing than a phone that folds two times? And are we about to see that new Strawberry AI model from OpenAI by the end of the month?

Sponsors:

• Timeline.com/ride

Links:

• Apple must pay 13 billion euros in back taxes, EU’s top court rules (CNBC)
• iPhone 16 battery life: How much better is it? (9to5Mac)
• Huawei launches $2,800 trifold phone hours after Apple debuts iPhone 16 (CNBC)
• Oracle’s Missteps in Cloud Computing Are Paying Dividends in AI (WSJ)
• New Details on OpenAI’s Strawberry; Apple’s Siri Makeover; Larry Ellison Doubles Down on Data Centers (The Information)
• Audible to Start Generating AI Voice Replicas of Select Audiobook Narrators (Bloomberg)
• JPMorgan Plans to Report Customers Who Exploited TikTok ‘Glitch’ to Authorities (WSJ)

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All the headlines from today’s iPhone event. It IS interesting the degree to which Elon’s various businesses have potential synergy. The Times digs into the content on Telegram and says, it ain’t pretty. And e-bikes seem to be back. In London, at least, anyway.

Links:

• Apple Announces iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max with Larger Displays, New Camera Control, and More (MacRumors)
• Apple announces iPhone 16: camera button, new colors, AI features (9to5Mac)
• AirPods Pro 2 adds ‘clinical grade’ hearing aid feature (9to5Mac)
• Musk’s xAI Has Discussed Deal for Share of Future Tesla Revenue (WSJ)
• How Telegram Became a Playground for Criminals, Extremists and Terrorists (NYTimes)
• London e-bike boom leads to clashes with councils (Financial Times)

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Pavel Durov speaks, and Telegram blinks, both for the first time since the French arrest. Are XR glasses tethered to smartphones the next big product category? What if your smartphone could cure your vision problems? And in the longreads, if Waymo is about to scale, what, exactly, is the business model, long-term?

Links:

• Pavel Durov: Telegram founder says France arrest is ‘misguided’ (The Guardian)
• Exclusive: Qualcomm explores acquiring pieces of Intel chip-design business (Reuters)
• Qualcomm says it’s working on mixed reality smart glasses with Samsung and Google (CNBC)
• Review: Honor Magic V3 (Wired)
• Exclusive: Honor's latest devices use AI to try to reverse nearsightedness (Android Central)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• Waymo’s Robot Taxis Are Almost Mainstream. Can They Now Turn a Profit? (NYTimes)
• When the Bitcoin Scammers Came for Me (The Atlantic)
• Among the Idlers (Curbed)

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The DOJ says it has taken down a big election influence campaign allegedly directed by Russia. The Internet Archive loses a big case. Android 15 is here. And two really interesting new gadgets, one I probably need to buy and one I want to buy but probably won’t.

Sponsors:

• LinkedIn.com/ride

Links:

• Biden administration announces major actions to tackle Russian efforts to influence 2024 election (CNN)
• The Internet Archive Loses Its Appeal of a Major Copyright Case (Wired)
• Android 15 will be available on supported Pixel devices in the coming weeks (TechCrunch)
• DJI Neo hands-on: A powerful and lightweight $200 drone (Engadget)
• The Remarkable Paper Pro is as outrageous as it is luxurious (The Verge)

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SpaceX has agreed to block access to X, in Brazil, on Starlink. Looks like YubiKeys are hackable. Who is the mystery platform looking to expand AI datacenters at an historic scale? And the Catch 22 that Intel is in. They need CHIPS Act money, but can their troubles mean the CHIPS Act money shouldn’t be spent on them?

Sponsors:

• Ramp.com/techmeme
• Lumen.me/ride

Links:

• Starlink backtracks, complies with order blocking X in Brazil, says regulator (Reuters)
• No X in Brazil? No problem, Brazilians say. (Washington Post)
• Microsoft to announce ‘next phase of Copilot’ on September 16th (The Verge)
• YubiKeys are vulnerable to cloning attacks thanks to newly discovered side channel (ArsTechnica)
• Nvidia Gets DOJ Subpoena in Escalating Antitrust Probe (Bloomberg)
• Two AI Developers Are Plotting $125 Billion Supercomputers (The Information)
• Exclusive: Intel manufacturing business suffers setback as Broadcom tests disappoint (Reuters)
• Intel’s Money Woes Throw Biden Team’s Chip Strategy Into Turmoil (Bloomberg)

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We missed a pretty big story this weekend. X getting banned in Brazil. I’ll try to catch you up on all the contours of this. Canva’s raising prices and it’s pissing people off because, I mean, they are REALLY raising prices. And the two pretty big success stories in crypto this year that we haven’t spoken about yet.

Sponsors:

• DataTribe.com/challenge
• Hims.com/ride

Links:

• Brazil’s Most Powerful Judge Is in the Spotlight—Again (Americas Quarterly)
• How Brazil’s Experiment Fighting Fake News Led to a Ban on X (NYTimes)
• Canva says its AI features are worth the 300 percent price increase (The Verge)
• HP to Pursue $4 Billion Damages After Mike Lynch Yacht Death (Bloomberg)
• Pump.fun surpasses $100 million in revenue as Polymarket outshines NFTs in August (The Block)

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At this point it would be quicker to name the big tech company that’s NOT investing in OpenAI’s latest round. Amazon’s new Alexa service is just going to be Anthropic’s Claude in drag disguise I guess. I’m starting to get really worried about Intel y’all. And, of course, The Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

Links:

• OpenAI Funding Round Tempts Nvidia as Big Tech Leans on ChatGPT (Bloomberg)
• Apple, Nvidia Are in Talks to Invest in OpenAI (WSJ)
• Ask Claude: Amazon turns to Anthropic's AI for Alexa revamp (Reuters)
• ChatGPT’s weekly users have doubled in less than a year (The Verge)
• Intel Weighs Options Including Foundry Split to Stem Losses (Bloomberg)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• Sunk cost (the Open Sea story) (The Verge)
• The secret inside One Million Checkboxes (eieio.games)
• I Watched Footage of Jerry Lewis’s Unreleased 1972 Holocaust Film (The New Republic)
• End of the Road: An AnandTech Farewell (AnandTech)

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Nvidia’s earnings were huge but because they didn’t manage to beat the biggest expectations out there, it’s kind of a miss? Pavel Durov has been formally charged by France. Does TikTok fall outside of Section 230 protection? And it seems like the effort by the car companies to wean themselves off of smartphone tech is… not going great.

Links:

• Nvidia’s CEO Says New Chip Will Have ‘Lots and Lots’ of Supply (Bloomberg)
• Telegram CEO Charged in France for Crimes Committed on His App (Bloomberg)
• TikTok must face lawsuit over 10-year-old girl's death, US court rules (Reuters)
• OpenAI in Talks for Funding Round Valuing It Above $100 Billion (WSJ)
• Top Movie Piracy Ring Taken Down, Major Studios’ Enforcement Group Claims (The Hollywood Reporter)
• GM's 'Google Built-In' Is Glitchy, Requires A Subscription To Use Google Maps (Jalopnik)

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I explain why everyone has been posting strawberries in AI circles. It’s cause of a potential new breakthrough at OpenAI. Cerebras launches the first new AI chip competition to Nvidia. China has reportedly burrowed into US ISPs. And continuing interesting details pouring out of that Pavel Durov situation.

Sponsors:

• Timeline.com/ride

Links:

• OpenAI Shows ‘Strawberry’ AI to the Feds and Uses It to Develop ‘Orion’ (The Information)
• OpenAI Races to Launch ‘Strawberry’ Reasoning AI to Boost Chatbot Business (The Information)
• Cerebras Systems throws down gauntlet to Nvidia with launch of ‘world’s fastest’ AI inference service (SiliconAngle)
• Chinese government hackers penetrate U.S. internet providers to spy (Washington Post)
• Google Meet’s automatic AI note-taking is here (The Verge)
• Instagram adds what photos have always needed: words (The Verge)
• Telegram Founder Was Wooed and Targeted by Governments (WSJ)
• Can Tech Executives Be Held Responsible for What Happens on Their Platforms? (NYTimes)

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As more details come out about the arrest of the founder of Telegram, a deeper look at Pavel Durov himself. We have the date of the iPhone event. We have a new record gaming number from Steam. And are Apple’s experiment with big budget Hollywood movies losing them bucket loads of money?

Sponsors:

• DataTribe.com/challenge
• Thorne.fit/ridehome

Links:

• Telegram Founder’s Arrest Part of Broad Investigation, French Prosecutors Say (NYTimes)
• Macron loves Telegram. French judges hate it. (Politico)
• How Telegram’s Founder Went From Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg to Wanted Man (NYTimes)
• Steam surpasses 37 million concurrent users for the first time ever thanks to Black Myth: Wukong (PC Gamer)
• Anthropic publishes the ‘system prompts’ that make Claude tick (TechCrunch)
• Apple Rethinks Its Movie Strategy After a String of Misses (NYTimes)

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French authorities have arrested Telegram CEO Pavel Durov. Chinese tech companies are spending like crazy on AI too, btw. What are the smart glasses and VR gear Meta is poised to give us next month? And Nvidia might make you rich, but it still seems like a bear of a place to work at.

Sponsors:

• Lumen.me/ride

Links:

• Telegram CEO Held Over Alleged Child Protection Failures on App (Bloomberg)
• Telegram messaging app CEO Durov arrested in France (Reuters)
• Is Telegram really an encrypted messaging app? (Matthew Green)
• China’s tech giants splash out on AI despite US restrictions (Financial Times)
• Apple Explores Robotics in Search of Life Beyond the iPhone (Bloomberg)
• Nvidia Rally Mints Millionaires Too Busy to Bask in New Wealth (Bloomberg)

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Breaking down the Crowdstrike outage with Overmind.tech

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Microsoft deprecating a feature that it launched back in 1985. There’s a pretty big loophole that is still letting China use H100 chips. The weird saga evolving over at Bolt. And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

Links:

• Microsoft finally officially confirms it's killing Windows Control Panel sometime soon (Neowin)
• Exclusive: Chinese entities turn to Amazon cloud and its rivals to access high-end US chips, AI (Reuters)
• AI-powered coding pulls in almost $1bn of funding to claim ‘killer app’ status (Financial Times)
• Bolt investors baffled by massive new deal proposal (Axios)
• Ryan Breslow’s ‘Lead Investor’ Blindsided By $450 Million Bolt Fundraise: ‘We Were Never In This Deal’ (Forbes)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• New Breed of EV Promises 700 Miles per Charge (Just Add Gas) (Bloomberg)
• Popping the Bubble of Noise-Cancelling Headphones (The New Yorker)

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As Mike Lynch’s body is recovered off Sicily, a deeper look at what was a roller coaster of a life. More cross posting for Meta’s apps. We have a date for the re-release of Recall. Interesting executive shuffle at Apple. And more data showing the degree to which free streaming is upending the Streaming Wars.

Sponsors:

• QualiaLife.com/ride

Links:

• Bodies of Mike Lynch and four yacht guests pulled from Bayesian wreck (Financial Times)
• Mike Lynch’s journey from tech founder to long legal battle (Financial Times)
• Meta lets you cross-post from Instagram and Facebook to Threads. Here’s how to do it. (TechCrunch)
• Microsoft’s Recall AI feature won’t be available for Windows testers until October (The Verge)
• Neuralink Says Second Brain Device Implant ‘Went Well’ (Bloomberg)
• Apple’s App Store Head to Leave in Reorganization Amid Global Scrutiny (Bloomberg)
• Report: “FAST correcting issues that VoD created” (Advanced Television)

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AI news has been a bit quiet for a little while now, but the headlines came roaring back today. More evidence Waymo might be having some sort of tipping point. Can we really get 3D without the need to wear glasses? And the the interesting raise startup that is actually, literally, going to the moon, not in a figurative sense.

Sponsors:

• LinkedIn.com/ride

Links:

• Gemini in Gmail can now help polish up your drafts (The Verge)
• Microsoft releases powerful new Phi-3.5 models, beating Google, OpenAI and more (VentureBeat)
• OpenAI makes fine-tuning for GPT-4o customization generally available (SiliconAngle)
• Waymo says it has doubled its weekly paid robotaxi trips to 100,000 since May (CNBC)
• Samsung’s new Odyssey monitor lets you play games in glasses-free 3D (The Verge)
• Microsoft Teams’ new single app for personal and work is now available (The Verge)
• Big Tech’s bid to rewrite the rules on net zero (Financial Times)
• Starpath accelerates moon water mining plans with $12M in funding (TechCrunch)

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New Raspberry Pi 5. Waymo’s rolling out its new self-driving tech. A major developer draws plaudits for going anti-AI. The tragic and odd story of that tech exec who is missing after his yacht sank. And after six months, how is the Apple Vision Pro evolving? What if it kind of isn’t?

Sponsors:

• TakeThesis.com code RIDE

Links:

• Raspberry Pi 5’s new 2GB model benchmarked: Do you need 2, 4 or 8GB? : We test against the 4 and 8GB versions (Tom's Hardware)
• Waymo is developing a roomier robotaxi with less-expensive tech (CNBC)
• Procreate’s anti-AI pledge attracts praise from digital creatives (The Verge)
• Search continues for British tech magnate and 5 others after luxury superyacht sinks off Sicily (AP)
• Apple Vision Pro review: six month stasis (Apple Insider)

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Is X closing up shop in Brazil? Remember how Apple is trying to make their own modems? How’s that going? Why is the online dating sector suddenly struggling? And could the next big advertising platform actually be Walmart?

Sponsors:

• ArcticWolf.com/techmeme

Links:

• X says it’s closing operations in Brazil (TechCrunch)
• AMD Buys AI Equipment Maker for Nearly $5 Billion, Escalating Battle With Nvidia (WSJ)
• Apple Is Playing the Long Game With Switch From Qualcomm Modems (Bloomberg)
• ‘Bumble fumble’: online dating apps struggle as people swear off swiping (The Guardian)
• How Walmart became a force in a $54bn retail advertising industry (Financial Times)

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The Epic saga has reached a sort of conclusion. Epic saga. See what I did there? That California AI safety bill has been pruned a bit. You can now add you California drivers license to your smartphone wallet. And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

Links:

• Fortnite Maker Epic Games Challenges Apple’s Dominance With New iOS App Store (Wired)
• California weakens bill to prevent AI disasters before final vote, taking advice from Anthropic (TechCrunch)
• Exclusive: Apple, Google wallets to carry California driver's licenses (Axios)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• Inside the Snowflake-Databricks Rivalry, and Why Both Fear Microsoft (Bloomberg)
• The Little Streamer That Could (NYTimes)
• Your Air Conditioner Is Lying to You (The Atlantic)

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The new version of Grok will pretty much let you make an AI image of anything or anyone. More rumors of an iPad/robot/smart home hybrid from Apple. Masa Son wanted Intel to spin up a competitor to Nvidia, but Intel reportedly couldn’t hack it. And is Sonos going to just say, heck with it, and re-release their old app that actually worked?

Sponsors:

• Acorns.com/ride
• Greenlight.com/ride

Links:

• X’s new AI image generator will make anything from Taylor Swift in lingerie to Kamala Harris with a gun (The Verge)
• Apple Pushes Ahead With Tabletop Robot in Search of New Revenue (Bloomberg)
• Apple is finally going to open up iPhone tap-to-pay (The Verge)
• The FTC finalizes its rules clamping down on fake online reviews (Engadget)
• SoftBank discussed AI chips tie-up with Intel to rival Nvidia (Financial Times)
• Sonos considers relaunching its old app (The Verge)

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All the details from yesterday’s pixel event, but especially the AI features that show how far ahead Google is. At least when it comes to putting AI on phones. We have official post quantum computing cryptography standards. And why they’re using iPhones to make offsides calls in soccer this season.

Sponsors:

• DataTribe.com/challenge
• Hims.com/ride

Links:

• The Google Pixel 9’s AI Camera Features Let You Reshape Reality (Wired)
• Google Gemini’s voice chat mode is here (The Verge)
• Apple relents and approves Spotify app with EU pricing (The Verge)
• The first post-quantum cryptography standards are here (TechCrunch)
• The English Premier League Will Ditch Its Hated VAR Offside Tech for a Fleet of iPhones (Wired)

Fantasy League Links:

https://fantasy.premierleague.com/leagues/auto-join/s5r9c8

 Code: s5r9c8

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 Code: 8znkcc

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Patreon is forced to change how it does things because Apple finally came to claim their vig. Have basically all our social security numbers been leaked? Crowdstrike owns its mistakes in person. And even if you build it, the chip factories might not come if nobody shows up to work.

Sponsors:

• HensonShaving.com/ride and code ride
• Shopify.com/ride

Links:

• Apple says Patreon must switch to its billing system or risk removal from App Store (TechCrunch)
• ‘Apple’s Requirements to Hit Creators and Fans on Patreon’ (Daring Fireball)
• Hackers leak 2.7 billion data records with Social Security numbers (BleepingComputer)
• FBI probing alleged Iran hack attempts targeting Trump, Biden camps (Washington Post)
• CrowdStrike Exec Shows Up to Accept 'Most Epic Fail' Award in Person (PCMag)
• TikTok comes for messaging apps with the addition of group chats (TechCrunch)
• Chipmakers face a labour crisis (Financial Times)

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Hey, want to know the iPhone product road map for the next year or so? I wonder why that’s coming out today? Instagram is copying something it forgot to copy from Snapchat. Celsius wants a ton of bitcoin back from Tether. Flux continues to wow, and is Iran the biggest cyber threat of this election year.

Sponsors:

• Ramp.com/techmeme
• WashingtonPost.com/ride

Links:

• Apple’s iPhone 16 Will Keep Sales Stable Until Bigger Changes Arrive (Bloomberg)
• Instagram is testing its own take on Snap Map (The Verge)
• Amid Layoffs and CPU Controversy, Intel Postpones Innovation Event (PCMag)
• Celsius targets Tether, Badger DAO, Compound, and Netanyahu's niece and nephew in lawsuits (The Block)
• Forget Midjourney — Flux is the new king of AI image generation and here’s how to get access (Tom's Guide)
• Iran Emerges as the Most Aggressive Foreign Threat to U.S. Election (WSJ)

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Apple’s new EU rules still aren’t acceptable to Spotify and Epic. Could we be getting a new, smaller Mac Mini this year? Perplexity AI is showing some real numbers in its effort to unseat Google Search. And, of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.

Links:

• Apple announces new fee structure for apps in the EU that link out to the web for purchases (9to5Mac)
• Spotify and Epic Games call Apple’s revised DMA compliance plan ‘confusing,’ ‘illegal’ and ‘unacceptable’ (TechCrunch)
• Apple’s Mac Mini With M4 Chip Will Be Its Smallest Computer Ever (Bloomberg)
• ChatGPT now lets free users generate up to two images per day made by DALL-E 3 (The Verge)
• Perplexity’s popularity surges as AI search start-up takes on Google (Financial Times)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• Why are so many car YouTubers quitting? (The Verge)
• Moscow’s Spies Were Stealing US Tech — Until the FBI Started a Sabotage Campaign (Politico Magazine)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

TikTok launches Spotlight. Meta’s budget kills a VR studio. Why did everyone think Logitech was going to create a mouse you had to pay a subscription to use? And did you know how big Anime is? I did not.

Links:

• TikTok adds in-app hubs for videos about movies and TV shows (The Verge)
• Exclusive: Meta is closing a beloved first-party Quest studio (AndroidConnect)
• UK regulator launches formal probe into Amazon’s $4bn Anthropic deal (Financial Times)
• Humane’s daily returns are outpacing sales (The Verge)
• Logitech Insists It’s Not Making a Mouse With a Subscription Fee (Gizmodo)
• Anduril now valued at $14 billion, set to build autonomous weapons factories (Axios)
• Crunchyroll Passes 15 Million Monthly Paid Subscribers (The Wrap)
• Crunchyroll Is Thriving Thanks to Gen Z and Appointment Anime Viewing, COO Says (The Wrap)

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Google’s new TV streaming appliance, plus lots of lot of Gemini stuff is coming to Google Home and Nest and such. Elon tries to get advertisers to come back to X by… suing them. That time Intel had a chance to invest in OpenAI. And what new products can Airbnb dream up to make more money?

Links:

• The Google TV Streamer might be the Apple TV 4K rival we’ve been waiting for (The Verge)
• Gemini intelligence is coming to Google Home (The Verge)
• Scoop: X sues major brands, ad industry group for antitrust (Axios)
• ‘There’s no price’ Microsoft could pay Apple to use Bing: all the spiciest parts of the Google antitrust ruling (The Verge)
• How chip giant Intel spurned OpenAI and fell behind the times (Reuters)
• The limited edition OnePlus Open is the most striking foldable phone yet (The Verge)
• Airbnb details plans to expand beyond short-term rentals, including co-hosting and relaunching ‘experiences’ (TechCrunch)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Three big stories to catch you up on. A federal judge has ruled Google is an illegal monopoly. The Game Of Thrones style drama at OpenAI is just getting weirder. And what if all those weird acquihires in all but name are actually mercy killings?

Sponsors:

• Lumen.me/ride

Links:

• Google Monopolized Search Through Illegal Deals, Judge Rules (Bloomberg)
• Forget Apple, the biggest loser in the Google search ruling could be Mozilla and its Firefox web browser (Fortune)
• How the Google Antitrust Ruling May Influence Tech Competition (NYTimes)
• OpenAI co-founder Schulman leaves for Anthropic, Brockman takes extended leave (TechCrunch)
• Struggling AI Startups Look for a Bailout from Big Tech (WSJ)

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Why is OpenAI sitting on technology that could detect AI cheating? Why is Bitcoin so correlated to the stock market? Why is Elon restarting his lawsuit against OpenAI? Why are the Chinese launching a Starlink competitor? And are the go-go days for music streaming over?

Sponsors:

• Dell.com/deals
• HelloMood.com code RIDE

Links:

• There’s a Tool to Catch Students Cheating With ChatGPT. OpenAI Hasn’t Released It. (WSJ)
• Bitcoin tumbles below $50,000 for the first time since February (CNBC)
• Elon Musk Revives Lawsuit Against OpenAI and Sam Altman (NYTimes)
• China launches first satellites of constellation to rival Starlink, newspaper reports (Reuters)
• AI Chip Startup Groq Gets $2.8 Billion Valuation in New Funding Round (Bloomberg)
• Is the Music Industry Slowdown a Crisis or a Blip? (Bloomberg)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

So, tech earnings continued to be boring. Apple was fine. Amazon was not quite so fine. And then someone we don’t cover closely really messed the bed. I’ll tell you who. Are we starting to see the first next-generation AI startups? I’ll tell you about an interesting new model. And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

Links:

• Amazon Beats On Earnings, Revenue Comes In Light Despite Strong Cloud Performance (Investor's Business Daily)
• Intel is laying off over 15,000 employees and will stop ‘non-essential work’ (The Verge)
• 23andMe Board Committee ‘Disappointed’ in CEO Anne Wojcicki’s Take-Private Proposal (Bloomberg)
• Stable Diffusion creators launch Black Forest Labs, secure $31M for FLUX.1 AI image generator (VentureBeat)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• A $500 Open Source Tool Lets Anyone Hack Computer Chips With Lasers (Wired)
• The AI Keeps Score (The Verge)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

So I guess Zuck has convinced Wall Street that all the capex spending on AI is fine. How good a business is Tether? A gooooood business. The first arrival of Apple Intelligence is sort of a ho-hum for now. And how sports is completely transforming the streaming wars battlefield.

Links:

• Meta’s Lesson in Allaying Wall Street’s A.I. Fears (Dealbook/NYT)
• Meta’s AI Costs Surge as Digital Advertising Revenue Grows (WSJ)
• Reddit CEO says Microsoft needs to pay to search the site (The Verge)
• Tether Nets $5B Profits This Year, Says Its US Debt Holdings Surpassed Germany's (CoinDesk)
• A first look at Apple Intelligence and its (slightly) smarter Siri (The Verge)
• Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery’s Sports Streamer Venu to Launch at $42.99 per Month (Variety)
• How the NBA’s Slam-Dunk Deals Will Reshape TV (The Hollywood Reporter)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Another big pullback of a major AI tool. Microsoft earnings. How CapCut is taking over the creator tools space. Amazon speedy delivery is rolling out to the nooks and crannies of North America. And the startup taking a new run at AI wearable hardware.

Links:

• Meta Scraps Celebrity AI Chatbots That Fell Flat With Users (The Information)
• The Rise of ByteDance’s CapCut Threatens Adobe and Canva (Bloomberg)
• Amazon Pushes Fast Delivery Into Rural Areas in Challenge to Post Office (WSJ)
• Wear This AI Friend Around Your Neck (Wired)
• Video Announcing the Friend AI device

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Perplexity wants to share ad revenue with publishers. But lots of AI companies are continuing to gamble with scraping. Meta’s new Segment Anything 2 model. AI influencers on Instagram. Canva makes an AI acquisition. And in non-AI news, Meta makes a huge settlement with Texas.

Links:

• Perplexity is cutting checks to publishers following plagiarism accusations (The Verge)
• Websites are Blocking the Wrong AI Scrapers (Because AI Companies Keep Making New Ones) (404Media)
• Zuckerberg touts Meta’s latest video vision AI with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (TechCrunch)
• Instagram creators can now make AI doppelgangers to chat with their followers (Engadget)
• Canva acquires Leonardo.ai to boost its generative AI efforts (TechCrunch)
• Meta to pay $1.4 billion to settle Texas facial recognition data lawsuit (Reuters)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Apple Intelligence might be coming sooner than we dared hope. Might want to check your settings on X. The universe of alt coins is back. A big tech IPO coming from an unexpected source. And is that Galaxy Ring a thing or no?

Links:

• Apple's AI Features Rollout Will Miss Upcoming iPhone Software Overhaul (Bloomberg)
• Elon Musk calls Grok 'the most powerful AI by every metric' but 'secretly' trains the new model with your X data by default (WindowsCentral)
• A Digital Coin Based on Baby Trump? Yup. (NYTimes)
• Honeywell Weighs Quantinuum IPO at $10 Billion Valuation (Bloomberg)
• Amazon Paid Almost $1 Billion for Twitch in 2014. It’s Still Losing Money. (WSJ)
• The Galaxy Ring keeps you in Samsung’s orbit (The Verge)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

OpenAI takes on Google search directly. Another Hollywood strike with the same underlying causes. We know absolutely everything about the new Pixel 9 series already. Is WhatsApp finally catching on in the US? And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

Sponsors:

• Thorne.fit/ridehome, promocode: ridehome.

Links:

• OpenAI announces SearchGPT, its AI-powered search engine (The Verge)
• Video game performers will go on strike over artificial intelligence concerns (AP)
• [Exclusive] Google Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro Fold promo material reveals design, specs, AI, and other features (91Mobiles)
• Uber, Lyft, DoorDash Prevail in California Gig-Worker Ruling (Bloomberg)
• Mark Zuckerberg says WhatsApp has 100M monthly active users in the US (TechCrunch)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• Airbnb Hosts Want Guests to Come to Them Directly (Bloomberg)
• Physicists may now have a way to make element 120 – the heaviest ever (New Scientist)
• He says he invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. He didn’t, said Frito-Lay. Now he’s suing (LATimes)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Once again, Reddit looks like it’s not worried about upsetting people. New generative search on Bing, new models from Mistral and a new video model from Stability. But did Runway train it’s video models on YouTube videos? We might have a smoking gun. But what if the dream of synthetic data for AI training is a mirage?

Sponsors:

• Lumen.me/ride

Links:

• Google's Exclusive Reddit Access (404Media)
• Microsoft unveils Bing Generative Search — enhanced with AI, it's a complete overhaul of traditional search (WindowsCentral)
• Mistral shocks with new open model Mistral Large 2, taking on Llama 3.1 (VentureBeat)
• Stability AI steps into a new gen AI dimension with Stable Video 4D (VentureBeat)
• Runway Ripped Off YouTube Creators (404Media)
• The problem of ‘model collapse’: how a lack of human data limits AI progress (Financial Times)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Meta’s Llama 3.1 shows that open models can at least go toe to toe with proprietary AI models. Why did the Google-Wiz deal fall apart? Was the CrowdStrike outage a part of it? Kamala Harris, AI czar? And what do the reviews of the recent Samsung foldable phones say to us about those Apple foldable phone rumors?

Links:

• Meta puts open source AI on the podium. (Ben's Bites)
• The first GPT-4-class AI model anyone can download has arrived: Llama 405B (ArsTechnica)
• Google’s Aborted Deals Show Antitrust’s Long Shadow Over Tech (Bloomberg)
• Google’s $23 Billion Snub From Wiz Will Sting Them Both (Bloomberg)
• A Kamala Harris Presidency Could Mean More of the Same on A.I. Regulation (NYTimes)
• Apple Moves Forward With Foldable iPhone (The Information)
• The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a great phone that’s out of ideas (The Verge)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I try to get my head around the whole Google and third-party cookies thing. Wiz turns down Google’s big money acquisition offer. Spot ether ETFs can begin trading. And why weather prediction might be the first big scientific breakthrough of this AI era.

Links:

• After years of uncertainty, Google says it won’t be ‘deprecating third-party cookies’ in Chrome (Digiday)
• Wiz walks away from $23 billion deal with Google, will pursue IPO (CNBC)
• This ‘Google TV Streamer’ set-top box is what comes after Chromecast [Gallery] (9to5Google)
• Spot Ethereum ETFs get final sign off to begin trading Tuesday (The Block)
• Delta CEO sees flight disruptions lasting for another couple of days (Reuters)
• Alexa Is in Millions of Households—and Amazon Is Losing Billions (WSJ)
• AI helps to produce breakthrough in weather and climate forecasting (Financial Times)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wait, did any news happen this weekend? IT people don’t know about it cause they’re still digging out from the CrowdStrike thing. But why is everybody pointing fingers at Microsoft? Samsung jumps on the Google Messages bandwagon. Japan wants AI startups. And what do you do when you need 22 thousand football player avatars real quick? AI of course!

Links:

• CrowdStrike's Falcon Sensor also linked to Linux kernel panics and crashes (The Register)
• Microsoft’s global sprawl comes under fire after historic outage (Washington Post)
• Blue Screens Everywhere Are Latest Tech Woe for Microsoft (WSJ)
• Samsung going all in on Google Messages in US, stops pre-installing Samsung Messages on Galaxy phones (9to5Google)
• Japan’s copyright rules draw AI groups — and alarm from creators (FT)
• How AI Brought 11,000 College Football Players to Digital Life in Three Months (WSJ)
• Review: CMF Phone 1 (Wired)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The big tech outage caused by a single software update that even my mom is texting me about. The new mini AI models are bring prices down as we hoped. How Netflix completely righted its ship. And, of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.

Sponsors:

• Miro.com
• The Next Wave Podcast

Links:

• Major Windows BSOD issue takes banks, airlines, and broadcasters offline (The Verge)
• Global IT Collapse Puts Cyber Firm CrowdStrike in Spotlight (Bloomberg)
• Samsung halts Galaxy Buds 3 Pro shipments over quality issues (The Verge)
• OpenAI debuts mini version of its most powerful model yet (CNBC)
• OpenAI's 4o-mini brings big brains on a budget. (Ben's Bites)
• Netflix Q2 Profits Surge 44% to $2.15 Billion As Streamer Adds 8 Million Subscribers (The Wrap)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• A One-Man Telemundo on TikTok (NYTimes)
• Pooping on the Moon Is a Messy Business (Wired)

Interesting Raise Story About San Francisco Compute Co. (Bloomberg)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It looks like crypto exchange hacks are back. And so are the North Koreans, I guess. Are the Meta Ray-Bans selling so well Zuck might invest in the Ray-Ban maker? The continuing trend of tech companies withholding products from Europe. And the state of play in terms of whether or not the cops can get into your phone.

Sponsors:

• Greenlight.com/ride

Links:

• WazirX Hacked for $230M, Largely in SHIB, as Elliptic Says North Korea Behind Attack (CoinDesk)
• $235 million lost by WazirX in North Korea-linked breach (Elliptic)
• Meta explores stake in Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica (FT)
• Reality Comes to Meta’s Reality Labs (The Information)
• Scoop: Meta won't offer future multimodal AI models in EU (Axios)
• Apple says its OpenELM model doesn’t power Apple Intelligence amid YouTube controversy (9to5Mac)
• Apple, Nvidia, Anthropic Used Thousands of Swiped YouTube Videos to Train AI (Proof)
• Leaked Docs Show What Phones Cellebrite Can (and Can’t) Unlock (404 Media)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sorry, we gotta do more politics. Can’t avoid it cause now Trump likes TikTok and seemingly hates Mark Zuckerberg. Mistrals two new models. A big Pixel phone leak. And the interesting new “sketch to image” AI tool on the new Galaxy phones.

Sponsors:

• CleanMyMac X with promocode: techmeme

Links:

• Trump on Taxes, Tariffs, Jerome Powell and More (Bloomberg)
• Exclusive: Google-backed software developer GitLab explores sale, sources say (Reuters)
• Mistral releases Codestral Mamba for faster, longer code generation (VentureBeat)
• Giant Pixel 9 leak gives us our first real-world look at the Fold, faster charging specs, and more (AndroidAuthority)
• Samsung’s new image-generating AI tool is a little too good (The Verge)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

JD Vance becomes the first Tech industry player, and especially Venture Capitalist, to ever be on a major presidential ticket. It’s never been easier for the cops to break into your phone. Why are the major record labels suing Verizon? And why an AI innovation around spreadsheets could be a big deal.

Sponsors:

• Vanta.com/ride for $1000 off
• CleanMyMac X with promocode: techmeme

Links:

• J.D. Vance Is Trump’s Pick for Vice President (Wired)
• It’s never been easier for the cops to break into your phone (The Verge)
• Microsoft Investigated by UK Over Ex-Inflection Staff Hires (Bloomberg)
• Record labels sue Verizon for not disconnecting pirates’ Internet service (ArsTechnica)
• Microsoft’s new AI system ‘SpreadsheetLLM’ unlocks insights from spreadsheets, boosting enterprise productivity (VentureBeat)
• Apple releases public betas for iOS 18, macOS, and more (The Verge)

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The biggest tech exit in years might be in the offing as Alphabet eyes scooping up Wiz. The weird story of that huge AT&T hack. A new ARM-powered CoPilot+ PC is maybe the most powerful yet. And is India the reason Apple’s stock has been on the rise lately?

Sponsors:

• ArcticWolf.com/techmeme
• Shopify.com/ride

Links:

• Google Near $23 Billion Deal for Cybersecurity Startup Wiz (WSJ)
• Zero to Billions: The Startup on the Verge of the Biggest Tech Exit in Years (WSJ)
• AT&T says criminals stole phone records of ‘nearly all’ customers in new data breach (TechCrunch)
• AT&T Paid a Hacker $370,000 to Delete Stolen Phone Records (Wired)
• HP's new OmniBook Ultra beats every single Copilot+ PC on the market in TOPS, and it runs on an AMD Ryzen AI 300 processor (Windows Central)
• Apple’s India Sales Surge 33% to Record in Shift From China (Bloomberg)
• India clings to cheap feature phones as brands struggle to tap new smartphone buyers (TechCrunch)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

More about Josh Wolfe and Lux Capital here.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

All the headlines from what was largely a foldable phone event from Samsung yesterday. Apple has settled with the EU. More numbers on Apple Vision Pro sales. Why the sparkle emoji is the defacto symbol of AI. And, of course, the Weekend Longread Suggestions.

Sponsors:

• Lumen.me/ride

Links:

• Galaxy Z Fold 6 goes official with 7 years of updates, wider displays, starting at $1,899 (9to5Google)
• Galaxy Z Flip 6 starts at $1,099 with battery, cover display, and camera upgrades (9to5Google)
• Apple Avoids EU Antitrust Threat With Tap-and-Pay Probe Settlement (Bloomberg)
• Apple’s Vision Pro Won’t Cross 500,000 Sales This Year, IDC Says (Bloomberg)
• Has Artificial Intelligence Co-opted the Sparkle Emoji? (Bloomberg)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• Defeated by A.I., a Legend in the Board Game Go Warns: Get Ready for What’s Next (NYTimes)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Suddenly nobody wants to be on OpenAI’s board, even as observers. I’ll tell you why. More on how AI has thrown everybody’s carbon neutral plans into chaos. A monster raise in the AI and robotics space. And a16z has found a way to get chips into the hands of their AI startups.

Links:

• Microsoft and Apple drop OpenAI seats amid antitrust scrutiny (FT)
• Microsoft gives up observer seat on OpenAI board (Axios)
• Google Is No Longer Claiming to Be Carbon Neutral (Bloomberg)
• Amazon Says It Reached a Climate Goal Seven Years Early (NYTimes)
• Microsoft is hiking the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and launching a new ‘Standard’ tier (The Verge)
• This $1.5 Billion AI Company Is Building A ‘General Purpose Brain’ For Robots (Forbes)
• Andreessen Horowitz Is Building a Stash of More Than 20,000 GPUs to Win AI Deals (The Information)

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The new nothing phone costs almost nothing. I’m not punning. Sam Altman has founded yet another AI startup. Is the hype around AI PCs underdelivering? And two other back the future stories about updating Notepad in Windows, and abandoning floppy disks in Japan.

Sponsors:

• Dragon Ball Legends

Links:

• Nothing’s CMF Devices Prove Yet Again Cheap Doesn't Have to Mean Boring (Wired)
• Amazon announces new $79 Echo Spot alarm clock (CNBC)
• OpenAI and Arianna Huffington are working together on an ‘AI health coach’ (The Verge)
• Spotify is going to let you leave comments on podcast episodes (The Verge)
• Qualcomm, Microsoft Lean on AI Hype to Spur PC Market Revival (Bloomberg)
• After 41 years Microsoft quietly adds spellchecking and autocorrect to Windows Notepad (Tom Hardware)
• Japan declares victory in effort to end government use of floppy disks (Reuters)

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Ok, fine. Give me a thinner watch if it’ll also somehow have a bigger screen. Apple and Epic are just petty, squabbling children at this point. What if AI as it currently exists, is simply too expensive to be profitable? And a new social network is sort of back to the future.

Sponsors:

• Ramp.com/techmeme
• Miro.com

Links:

• What’s Next for the Apple Watch: Bigger Screens But a Similar Look (Bloomberg)
• Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe (Reuters)
• In a major update, Proton adds privacy-safe document collaboration to Drive, its freemium E2EE cloud storage service (TechCrunch)
• AI industry needs to earn $600 billion per year to pay for massive hardware spend — fears of an AI bubble intensify in wake of Sequoia report (Tom's Hardware)
• noplace, a mashup of Twitter and Myspace for Gen Z, hits No. 1 on the App Store (TechCrunch)

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This about the man who invented the modern disc operating system (the OS) and the concept of the software platform. That man was Gary Kildall. And the question we examine in this episode is, why is Bill Gates the richest man in the world, and not Gary Kildall? Could things have turned out differently?

In this episode we use audio from the following documentaries:

Triumph of the Nerds

and

Computer Chronicles

Special thanks to Justin Schwinghamer for the original score and the voice acting.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This about the man who invented the modern disc operating system (the OS) and the concept of the software platform. That man was Gary Kildall. And the question we examine in this episode is, why is Bill Gates the richest man in the world, and not Gary Kildall? Could things have turned out differently?

In this episode we use audio from the following documentaries:

Triumph of the Nerds

and

Computer Chronicles

Special thanks to Justin Schwinghamer for the original score and the voice acting.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The deploying and then walking back of AI products and features is becoming something of a routine at this point. Apple is joining OpenAI’s board, kinda-sorta. Meta outlines 3D Gen. Proof that VC funding is coming back, baby. And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

Sponsors:

• A Better Paradise Podcast

Links:

• Figma Disables AI App Design Tool After It Copied Apple’s Weather App (404 Media)
• Figma pulls AI tool after criticism that it ripped off Apple’s design (The Verge)
• Apple Poised to Get OpenAI Board Observer Role as Part of AI Pact (Bloomberg)
• Meta drops ‘3D Gen’ bomb: AI-powered 3D asset creation at lightning speed (VentureBeat)
• Investors Pour $27.1 Billion Into A.I. Start-Ups, Defying a Downturn (NYTimes)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions

• Internet Browsers Are Getting a Makeover for the Workplace (WSJ)
• A.I. Begins Ushering In an Age of Killer Robots (NYTimes)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A recent Evolve Bank and Trust cyberattack might impact a lot of tech customers. Why single points of failure impact cyberattacks. YouTube will soon let you take down videos like you’re a Hollywood studio. And big tech’s playbook for AI acquisitions that the regulators can’t frown at.

Sponsors:

• CleanMyMac X Promocode: techmeme

Links:

• Fintech company Wise says some customers affected by Evolve Bank data breach (TechCrunch)
• CDK Global Hack Shows Risk of One Software Vendor Dominating an Industry (WSJ)
• Supreme Court orders new look at social media laws in Texas and Florida (CBSNews)
• Exclusive: Nvidia set to face French antitrust charges, sources say (Reuters)
• YouTube now lets you request removal of AI-generated content that simulates your face or voice (TechCrunch)
• This is Big Tech’s playbook for swallowing the AI industry (The Verge)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Meta’s turn to be accused of breaching the DMA. Smarter AirPods as part of an AR/VR strategy. Better AI leaderboards. And is the Surface Laptop finally a true MacBook Air killer?

Sponsors:

• Dragon Ball Legends

Links:

• Meta's pay or consent model in crosshairs for breaching EU tech rules (Reuters)
• Kuo: Apple to begin mass production of AirPods with cameras by 2026 (9to5Mac)
• ‘Boring’ Bitcoin Sends Weekend Trading Volume to All-Time Lows (Bloomberg)
• Amazon’s Bargain Store Would Use Same Trade ‘Loophole’ as Temu, Shein (The Information)
• Chinese AI models storm Hugging Face's LLM chatbot benchmark leaderboard — Alibaba runs the board as major US competitors have worsened (Tom's Hardware)
• Surface Laptop review: Microsoft’s best MacBook Air competitor yet (The Verge)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Find out more about Casemark at Casemark.ai.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The growing backlash over Perplexity is getting interesting. OpenAI possibly exiting China will be interesting in terms of a massive land grab. AI Al Michaels will deliver personalized Olympics updates for you. And in the Longreads: is the real King of All Media… YouTube?

Sponsors:

• ConstantContact.com

Links:

• Amazon Is Investigating Perplexity Over Claims of Scraping Abuse (Wired)
• OpenAI’s China Block to Reshape AI Scene as Big Players Pounce (Bloomberg)
• OpenAI Wants AI to Help Humans Train AI (Wired)
• An AI version of Al Michaels will deliver Olympic recaps on Peacock (The Verge)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• YouTube dominates streaming, forcing media companies to decide whether it’s friend or foe (CNBC)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Is Uncle Sam about to unload a ton of Bitcoin? AI has helped Google Translate almost double the number of languages it supports. No surprise, but Amazon is gonna take a page out of Temu’s book. Figma’s big redesign. And another way the AI era is rhyming with the DotCom era: the consultants are back.

Sponsors:

• Miro.com

Links:

• Bitcoin Falls After U.S. Sends $240M Worth of Silk Road-Related BTC to Coinbase (Coindesk)
• Google Translate is getting support for more than 110 new languages (The Verge)
• Amazon To Launch Temu-Like Discount Section With Direct Shipping From China (The Information)
• Amazon Hits $2 Trillion in Value as AI Frenzy Fuels Rally (Bloomberg)
• Figma announces big redesign with AI (The Verge)
• Webtoon Entertainment to debut on Nasdaq as latest Korean cultural export success (Financial Times)
• The A.I. Boom Has an Unlikely Early Winner: Wonky Consultants (NYTimes)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The ChatGPT macOS app is now available for everybody. Google drops continuous scroll for search. Waymo drops the waitlist in San Francisco. Are the AI characters on Character.ai somehow… changed? And is there an eInk phone that I might actually have to try out?

Sponsors:

• Lumen.me/ride

Links:

• OpenAI’s ChatGPT for Mac app is now available to everyone (9to5Mac)
• Google dropping continuous scroll in search results (Search Engine Land)
• Waymo ditches the waitlist and opens up its robotaxis to everyone in San Francisco (The Verge)
• Tech Investor Sean Parker Leads Rescue of Struggling AI Startup (WSJ)
• ‘No Bot is Themselves Anymore:’ Character.ai Users Report Sudden Personality Changes to Chatbots (404 Media)
• The Boox Palma is an amazing gadget I didn’t even know I wanted (The Verge)

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History is rhyming today as AI music startups get the Napster treatment and Microsoft gets dinged for product bundling. Google wants you to build your own AI celebrity. Amazon wants to go at ChatGPT directly. And two hella-interesting and hella-big AI raises.

Sponsors:

• Miro.com

Links:

• Major record labels sue AI company behind ‘BBL Drizzy’ (The Verge)
• EU charges Microsoft with antitrust violations over Teams (FT)
• Apple Spurned Idea of iPhone AI Partnership With Meta Months Ago (Bloomberg)
• Uber Is Locking Out NYC Drivers Mid-Shift to Lower Minimum Pay (Bloomberg)
• Google Develops Challenger to Meta’s Chatbots and Character.AI (The Information)
• Amazon is secretly working on a ChatGPT killer (Business Insider)
• Etched is building an AI chip that only runs one type of model (TechCrunch)
• EvolutionaryScale lands $142 mln to advance AI in biology (Reuters)

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Could Apple soon owe Europe a ton of money as they are the first to run afoul of the DMA? Could Meta soon join OpenAI as part of Apple Intelligence. Why food delivery apps are seeing plunging usage in NYC and Seattle. And a big new AI focused bill in California that AI startups are worried about.

Sponsors:

• 1password.com/ride
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Links:

• Brussels accuses Apple of breaking EU ‘gatekeeper’ rules (FT)
• Apple is first company charged with violating EU’s DMA rules (The Verge)
• Apple Won’t Roll Out AI Tech In EU Market Over Regulatory Concerns (Bloomberg)
• Apple, Meta Have Discussed an AI Partnership (WSJ)
• Delivery Drivers Got Higher Wages. Now They’re Getting Fewer Orders. (WSJ)
• AI Doesn’t Kill Jobs? Tell That to Freelancers (WSJ)
• ‘Little Tech’ brings a big flex to Sacramento (Politico)

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The government has banned Kaspersky antivirus sales in the US. People are losing their minds over Claude 3.5 Sonnet from Anthropic. Soon all devices can pair to your iPhone as easily as AirPods do. And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

Links:

• US bans sale of Kaspersky software citing security risk from Russia (TechCrunch)
• Anthropic claims its latest model is best-in-class (TechCrunch)
• Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet wows AI power users: ‘this is wild’ (VentureBeat)
• New iOS 18 API brings AirPods setup experience to third-party accessories (9to5Mac)
• SpaceX unveils backpack-sized ‘Starlink Mini’ satellite internet antenna for $599 (CNBC)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• Why are mobile game ads so weird and bad? (Sherwood)
• From Infocom to 80 Days: An oral history of text games and interactive fiction (ArsTechnica)
• The song Stevie Nicks wrote to “haunt” Lindsey Buckingham (Far Out)

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Ilya Sutskever wants to go straight to Safe Superintelligence, do not pass go, but do probably collect hundreds of millions of dollars. Is Perplexity ignoring robots.txt files? Xreal’s hybrid AR glasses play. And how many apps did Apple sherlock at WWDC last week?

Sponsors:

• GreenLight.com/ride

Links:

• Ilya Sutskever Has a New Plan for Safe Superintelligence (Bloomberg)
• Perplexity Is a Bullshit Machine (Wired)
• For Apple’s AI Push, China Is a Missing Piece (WSJ)
• Xreal’s new gadget is a phone-sized Android tablet just for your AR glasses (The Verge)
• iOS 18 could ‘sherlock’ $400M in app revenue (TechCrunch)

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Does Apple pumping the breaks on the Vision Pro indicate problems for the category, or was this always the plan? What if AI means bots do the social media-ing for you? Actual RISC-V PCs coming to market. And a review of the new slate of CoPilot+ PCs that are available now.

Links:

• Apple Suspends Work on Next Vision Pro, Focused on Releasing Cheaper Model in Late 2025 (The Information)
• Former Snap engineer launches Butterflies, a social network where AIs and humans coexist (TechCrunch)
• The Framework Laptop 13 is about to become one of the world’s first RISC-V laptops (The Verge)
• Here are all of the Copilot+ PCs with Snapdragon X chips that were released today (Engadget)
• ASUS VivoBook S 15 Copilot+ PC Review: Is the Snapdragon X Elite hype real? (Windows Central)

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The regulators have come for adobe and their alleged subscription shenanigans. Apple might settle with the EU. But it’s also shutting down its BNPL service. The Threads API is here. Tether is making bank. Uber might be having a breakthrough moment. And back to using Reddit for search.

Sponsors:

• A Better Paradise Podcast

Links:

• US sues Adobe for ‘deceiving’ subscriptions that are too hard to cancel (The Verge)
• Apple to settle ‘tap-and-go’ payments probe with EU (FT)
• Apple discontinuing Apple Pay Later, ahead of new features launching this fall (9to5Mac)
• Threads finally launches its API for developers (TechCrunch)
• Tether Announces a New Synthetic Dollar That Is Backed by Gold (Bloomberg)
• A Robotaxi Business Is A Dream For Elon Musk–But Already A Reality For Waymo (Forbes)
• Can You Replace Google Search With Reddit? I Tried It for a Week (WSJ)

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Mark Gurman says Apple is going to go all in on making the thinnest and lightest devices in the industry. Though the Apple Watch is probably going to get a bigger screen. McDonalds pumps the breaks on AI in the drive through. And two contradictory anecdotal stories about what happens when AI comes for your job.

Sponsors:

• ArcticWolf.com/techmeme
• Miro.com

Links:

• Apple’s Slow Rollout of Intelligence Features Will Stretch Into 2025 (Bloomberg)
• Kuo: Apple Watch Series 10 to Get Larger Screen and Thinner Design (MacRumors)
• Privacy app maker Proton transitions to non-profit foundation structure (TechCrunch)
• McDonald's is ending its drive-thru AI test (Restaurant Business Online)
• AI took their jobs. Now they get paid to make it sound human (BBC)
• AI in finance is like ‘moving from typewriters to word processors’ (Financial Times)

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The recall of some Microsoft AI products continues as literally Recall gets delayed. Another deep dive into how Apple’s AI actually works. Dream Machine is an open source AI video generator you can use this weekend. And in the Weekend Longreads Suggestions, the people who have found everyday use cases for the Apple Vision Pro.

Links:

• Microsoft’s all-knowing Recall AI feature is being delayed (The Verge)
• Here’s how Apple’s AI model tries to keep your data private (The Verge)
• Luma AI debuts ‘Dream Machine’ for realistic video generation, heating up AI media race (VentureBeat)
• As streaming becomes more expensive, Tubi cashes in on the value of free (Los Angeles Times)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• I Know What the Apple Vision Pro Is For (Intelligencer)

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Apple isn’t paying OpenAI anything for their partnership. Guess they’ll make it up on volume. More details on how much money OpenAI IS making. The surprise Galaxy Watch FE. And do you think you’d have the skills to compete in the Excel World Championships?

Links:

• Apple to ‘Pay’ OpenAI for ChatGPT Through Distribution, Not Cash (Bloomberg)
• OpenAI’s Annualized Revenue Doubles to $3.4 Billion Since Late 2023 (The Information)
• Perplexity was planning revenue-sharing deals with publishers when it came under media fire (Semafor)
• You’ll soon be able to join Discord calls directly from your PS5 (The Verge)
• Nintendo Switch Update 18.1.0 Pulls X/Twitter Support, Bringing It In-Line With PlayStation and Xbox (IGN)
• Samsung’s Galaxy Watch FE is its new entry-level smartwatch (The Verge)
• Spreadsheet Superstars (The Verge)

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Elon Musk has withdrawn his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI. I guess Wall Street likes Apple’s AI strategy. But why is Microsoft already putting the brakes on some of its AI features? BeReal gets acquired. What does the word “slop” mean when it comes to AI? And what happens when you add modern technology to the humble walkie talkie?

Links:

• Elon Musk drops suit against OpenAI and Sam Altman (CNBC)
• X is officially making likes (mostly) private for everyone (Engadget)
• Apple quietly improves Mac virtualization in macOS 15 Sequoia (ArsTechnica)
• Microsoft is killing off GPT Builder in Copilot Pro for consumers, just three months after broad availability (XDA Developers)
• OpenAI ex-employees worry about company’s control over their millions of dollars in shares (CNBC)
• Photo-sharing app BeReal acquired by Voodoo for €500mn (FT)
• First Came ‘Spam.’ Now, With A.I., We’ve Got ‘Slop’ (NYTimes)
• Raleigh smart walkie-talkie startup Relay raises $35M from investors (Axios)

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All of the drips and drabs details from yesterday’s WWDC keynote. Spotify is about to announce a higher tier of membership with some perks. Mistral raises a big new round. The Raspberry Pi IPO is a success. And what if AI could actually make every stoplight in the country more intelligent in real time?

Sponsors:

• Vanta.com/ride
• Lumen.me/ride

Links:

• Apple’s AI promise: “Your data is never stored or made accessible to Apple” (ArsTechnica)
• How will Apple’s new AI change your phone? I asked Tim Cook. (Washington Post)
• Thoughts on #WWDC24 (Chris Messina)
• Apple’s Push to Infuse Devices With AI Will Take Years to Pay Off (Bloomberg)
• Spotify to Introduce More Expensive Subscription Tier for Music Lovers (Bloomberg)
• Mistral secures €600mn funding as valuation soars to almost €6bn (Financial Times)
• Raspberry Pi shares jump more than a third on first day of trading (Financial Times)
• The Smart, Cheap Fix for Slow, Dumb Traffic Lights (WSJ)

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All the headlines from WWDC. All the AI goodness, even if Apple spent half the time not even mentioning the words Artificial Intelligence. Also, what if the audio quality of cell phones didn’t have to suck? And what if AI could actually make every stoplight in the country more intelligent in real time?

Sponsors:

• Miro.com
• Shopify.com/ride

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Get observability for your LLM application at TraceLoop.com

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As we prep for WWDC on Monday, word of a completely new Passwords app from Apple. Also, it’s a day of backlashes. The backlash against Adobe’s terms of service. The backlash against Windows Recall. The new social media app that is riding the backlash against AI. And, of course, the Weekend Longread Suggestions.

Sponsors:

• get.StoryBlok.com/ridehome

Links:

• Here’s Everything Apple Plans to Show at Its AI-Focused WWDC Event (Bloomberg)
• Apple to Debut Passwords App in Challenge to 1Password, LastPass (Bloomberg)
• Adobe responds to vocal uproar over new Terms of Service language (VentureBeat)
• Adobe terms clarified: Will never own your work, or use it for AI training (9to5Mac)
• A PR disaster: Microsoft has lost trust with its users, and Windows Recall is the straw that broke the camel's back (WindowsCentral)
• A social app for creatives, Cara grew from 40k to 650k users in a week because artists are fed up with Meta’s AI policies (TechCrunch)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• Behind ‘Suicide Squad,’ the Year’s Biggest Video-Game Flop (Bloomberg)
• The Unistellar Odyssey smart telescope made me question what stargazing means (ArsTechnica)

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Nvidia hits $3T. US regulators aren’t sleeping on the AI market, including Nvidia itself. Humane tells users of the AI Pin to stop using the charging case “immediately.” Google is gonna store your Maps data on device. And would you take a job at Ikea... but in the Metaverse?

Sponsors:

• get.StoryBlok.com/ridehome
• Kolide.com/ride

Links:

• U.S. Clears Way for Antitrust Inquiries of Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI (NYTimes)
• FTC Opens Antitrust Probe of Microsoft AI Deal (WSJ)
• US antitrust enforcer says ‘urgent’ scrutiny needed over Big Tech’s control of AI (Financial Times)
• Humane warns AI Pin owners to ‘immediately’ stop using its charging case (The Verge)
• ‘This Is Going to Be Painful’: How a Bold A.I. Device Flopped (NYTimes)
• Google Maps is making a big privacy change to protect your location history (The Verge)
• Stability AI releases a sound generator (TechCrunch)
• Ikea Is Hiring Roblox Players To Run Its Virtual Store (The Gamer)

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As I said on that bonus episode with Alex Kantrowitz, the research side of OpenAI isn’t happy, and they’re starting to speak out. More details on AI at WWDC next week. More price hikes in digital media. Palmer Luckey can’t stop; won’t stop. And how CoreWeave became one of the biggest winners of the AI era.

Links:

• OpenAI Insiders Warn of a ‘Reckless’ Race for Dominance (NYTimes)
• Apple Made Once-Unlikely Deal With Sam Altman to Catch Up in AI (Bloomberg)
• Twitch is raising US subscription prices for the first time (Engadget)
• Quest v66 Update "Significantly" Reduces Quest 3 Passthrough Distortion & Warping (UploadVR)
• How an upstart is using its Nvidia ties to challenge cloud computing giants (Financial Times)

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More headlines from Computex. More layoffs at Microsoft, but why? Instagram is copying YouTube’s unskippable ads. Why Samsung is pre-emptively suing Oura. And Palmer Lucky is personally bankrolling a modern-day Gameboy.

Sponsors:

• CrunchLabs.com/ride

Links:

• Intel CEO Takes Aim at Nvidia in Fight for AI Chip Dominance (Bloomberg)
• E*Trade Considers Kicking Meme-Stock Leader Keith Gill Off Platform (WSJ)
• Microsoft is laying off hundreds in its Azure cloud business, sources say (BusinessInsider)
• Microsoft cuts jobs in Azure, HoloLens, and other units in latest move to control costs (GeekWire)
• Instagram confirms test of ‘unskippable’ ads (TechCrunch)
• Samsung sues Oura preemptively to block smart ring patent claims (The Verge)
• Palmer Luckey is now selling pixel-perfect ultrabright magnesium Game Boys for $199 (The Verge)

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Computex brings a slew of announcements from AMD and Nvidia, including an AI bot to help you with your gaming. Another price hike from Spotify. Perplexity launches Pages. X is now officially NSFW. And a look at Sam Altman’s investment portfolio.

Sponsors:

• WashingtonPost.com/ride
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Links:

• Nvidia’s G-Assist is an AI chatbot that guides you through games and optimizes your PC (The Verge)
• Spotify is increasing US prices again (The Verge)
• Perplexity will research and write reports (The Verge)
• X tweaks rules to formally allow adult content (TechCrunch)
• The Opaque Investment Empire Making OpenAI’s Sam Altman Rich (WSJ)

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OpenAI Teases GPT-5, Musk Raises $6B for xAI, Loneliness in Remote Work Era.

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OpenAI has a new “affordable” version of ChatGPT for universities and schools. They also are planning to get back into robotics in a big way. Behind the scenes, TikTok is forking its algorithm just in case. Why doesn’t Apple just euthanize the Siri brand? And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

Links:

• OpenAI has a has a new version of ChatGPT just for universities (Engadget)
• OpenAI Is Rebooting Its Robotics Team (Forbes)
• OpenAI finds Russian and Chinese groups used its tech for propaganda campaigns (Washington Post)
• Apple Plans AI-Based Siri Overhaul to Control Individual App Functions (Bloomberg)
• Exclusive: TikTok preparing a US copy of the app’s core algorithm, sources say (Reuters)
• Spotify offers Car Thing refunds as it faces lawsuit over bricking the streaming device (TechCrunch)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• Disney Is Banking On Sequels to Help Get Pixar Back on Track (Bloomberg Businessweek)
• They Built a $100 Million Watch Empire. Then the Market Tanked. (WSJ)
• The Creator Of ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Knows Exactly Where It All Went Wrong (Defector)

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Global authorities take down what they say is the biggest botnet of all time. More big AI deals for big media. More on the delicate dance between OpenAI and Microsoft. Why aren’t there more smartwatches for tweens? And the AR laptop that might give the Apple Vision Pro a run for its money.

Links:

• US dismantles 911 S5 botnet used for cyberattacks, arrests admin (BleepingComputer)
• Exclusive: The Atlantic, Vox Media ink licensing, product deals with OpenAI (Axios)
• OpenAI CEO Cements Control as He Secures Apple Deal (The Information)
• Internal divisions linger at OpenAI after November’s attempted coup (Financial Times)
• Amazon to Expand US Drone Service After Getting Regulator’s Nod (Bloomberg)
• Apple Signals That It’s Working on TV+ App for Android Phones (Bloomberg)
• Google announces Fitbit Ace LTE for kids with Wear OS, Pixel Watch 2 specs (9to5Google)
• The Spacetop G1 Arrives This Fall. We Try the AR Laptop With No Screen (Wired)

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A big leak at Google might be the tech equivalent of the secret formula for Coca-Cola being revealed for the first time. The ex-OpenAI board members are starting to explain why they tried to fire Sam Altman. Did the Biden administration pass on TikTok’s concessions to avoid a ban? And remember delivery apps? How they doin’ these days?

Sponsors:

• Lumen.me code: RIDE

Links:

• An Anonymous Source Shared Thousands of Leaked Google Search API Documents with Me; Everyone in SEO Should See Them (SparkToro.com)
• Ex-OpenAI Director Says Board Learned of ChatGPT Launch on Twitter (Bloomberg)
• Anthropic hires former OpenAI safety lead to head up new team (TechCrunch)
• YouTube’s free games catalog ‘Playables’ rolls out to all users (TechCrunch)
• How the U.S. ignored a chance to make TikTok safer (Washington Post)
• Food delivery apps rack up $20bn in losses in fierce battle for diners (Financial Times)

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We have a rough timeline of when we can expect GPT5 and it looks like it won’t be this summer. xAI has a big raise. Another in-depth look at Apple’s AI strategy. The surprising old school companies getting boosted by the AI boom. And more data on how popular ad-supported streaming is becoming.

Sponsors:

• YahooFinance.com
• 1Password.com/ride

Links:

• OpenAI Says It Has Begun Training a New Flagship A.I. Model (NYTimes)
• Elon Musk’s xAI raises $6 billion to fund its race against ChatGPT and all the rest (The Verge)
• Apple Bets That Its Giant User Base Will Help It Win in AI (Bloomberg)
• Google adds AI-powered features to Chromebook (TechCrunch)
• The future of financial analysis: How GPT-4 is disrupting the industry, according to new research (VentureBeat)
• AI Is Driving ‘the Next Industrial Revolution.’ Wall Street Is Cashing In. (WSJ)
• What Happened to Our Ad-Free TV? (NYTimes)

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Out of nowhere, the SEC has approved spot ETFs for ether. Spotify is killing its Car Thing. Google’s AI Overview is giving crazy answers all over the place. But Meta already wants to charge more for their AI bots. And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

Sponsors:

• Miro.com

Links:

• US SEC approves exchange applications to list spot ether ETFs (Reuters)
• Spotify is going to break every Car Thing gadget it ever sold (The Verge)
• Google's AI search feature suggested using glue to keep cheese sticking to a pizza (Business Insider)
• Save $200+ on your upgrade to The Information Pro (The Information)
• The Daylight DC1 is a $729 attempt to build a calmer computer (The Verge)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• VCs and the military are fueling self-driving startups that don’t need roads (TechCrunch)
• Two students find security bug that could let millions do laundry for free (The Verge)

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Nvidia’s earnings are still historic, but what could upset their apple cart? A few things, actually. I think we know the truth or at least the timeline of JohanssonGate. Big new media deal for OpenAI. Likes are going private on X. And would you clone your voice to answer the phone on your behalf?

Sponsors:

• Vanta.com/ride

Links:

• Nvidia shares pass $1,000 for first time on AI-driven sales surge (CNBC)
• Nvidia’s Business Is Booming. Here’s What Could Slow It Down. (WSJ)
• OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show (Washington Post)
• OpenAI, WSJ Owner News Corp Strike Content Deal Valued at Over $250 Million (WSJ)
• Crypto Lobby Wins: House Passes FIT21 as Democrats Deride Historic Regulatory Framework (Decrypt)
• Elon Musk Wants to Make X's Likes Private to Hide Your Favorite 'Edgy' Content (Gizmodo)
• Truecaller and Microsoft will let users make an AI voice to answer calls (The Verge)

The story about my wife's theater project (NYTimes)

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All the AI announcements from Microsoft Build. I know it’s only been a minute, but is Humane already circling the Deadpool? They’re supposedly shopping themselves, but at a valuation that seems… shall we say, on brand for them? Don’t forget Alexa needs an AI upgrade. And the efforts to peek inside the black box that is the Large Language Model.

Links:

• Microsoft’s new Copilot AI agents act like virtual employees to automate tasks (The Verge)
• Microsoft is bringing ‘Windows Volumetric Apps’ to Meta Quest headsets (The Verge)
• Wearable AI Startup Humane Explores Potential Sale, Sources Say (Bloomberg)
• Google Search’s New AI Overviews Will Soon Have Ads (Wired)
• Amazon plans to give Alexa an AI overhaul — and a monthly subscription price (CNBC)
• AI Is a Black Box. Anthropic Figured Out a Way to Look Inside (Wired)

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There are only 2 stories today, but they’re big ones. First, at an event yesterday, Microsoft showed off what they want the PC to look like in the AI era. Plus, this Recall app is super interesting. Then, look, it’s the Scarlett Johansson/OpenAI thing. It’s gotten weird. And more importantly, it’s continuing to highlight how OpenAI itself is… weird.

Sponsors:

• Miro.com for 3 free boards!

Links:

• The new, faster Surface Pro is Microsoft’s all-purpose AI PC (The Verge)
• Microsoft announces an Arm-powered Surface Laptop (The Verge)
• Microsoft unveils Copilot+ PCs with generative AI capabilities baked in (Engadget)
• Recall is Microsoft’s key to unlocking the future of PCs (The Verge)
• Scarlett Johansson says she was 'shocked, angered' when she heard OpenAI's voice that sounded like her (NBCNews)
• Midler v. Ford Motor Co. (Wikipedia)

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No, that ChatGPT voice is not Scarlett Johansson, stop asking. In fact, that voice is going away. What does it mean if OpenAI’s entire superalignment team has gone away? Is Apple News+ the partner publishers have been waiting for? And if you want to be a digital nomad, you’ve got a lot of options these days.

Sponsors:

• Pivotal Podcast
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Links:

• OpenAI to Pull Johansson Soundalike Sky’s Voice From ChatGPT (Bloomberg)
• What We Lose When ChatGPT Sounds Like Scarlett Johansson (NYTimes)
• Apple Needs to Evolve to Compete in the Artificial Intelligence Era (Bloomberg)
• OpenAI’s Long-Term AI Risk Team Has Disbanded (Wired)
• As clicks dry up for news sites, could Apple’s news app be a lifeline? (Semafor)
• Countries wooing corporate digital nomads hope to make them stay (FT)

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As telegraphed for the last year, Reddit is going all in on being an all you can eat buffet for AI companies. Will new batteries give iPhones longer battery life like I want, or will they just make the phones thinner? A subtle but important improvement to ChatGPT and in the Longreads, a deep dive into what happened at Cruise.

Links:

• OpenAI strikes deal to bring Reddit content to ChatGPT (Reuters)
• OpenAI strikes Reddit deal to train its AI on your posts (The Verge)
• Grand Theft Auto VI is launching in fall 2025 (The Verge)
• iPhone 16 Pro Max to get new battery that could last longer (AppleInsider)
• ChatGPT now lets you import files directly from Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive (VentureBeat)
• Twitter is officially X.com now (The Verge)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• In a single night, self-driving startup Cruise went from sizzling startup to cautionary tale. Here’s what really happened—and how GM is scrambling to save its $10B bet (Fortune)
• How cuddly robots could change dementia care (MIT Technology Review)
• Where Did All The Stocks Go? (Sherwood)

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Some AI companies want to go after web search. But by hiring an Instagram founder, is Anthropic going in a social or app direction? Will AI kill the carbon neutral ambitions of the major tech players? Will tech companies now have to onshore EMPLOYEES from China? And Netflix with ads? Definitely working.

Links:

• EU launches probe into Meta over social media addiction in children (Financial Times)
• Instagram’s co-founder is Anthropic’s new chief product officer (The Verge)
• Android will be able to detect if your phone has been snatched (The Verge)
• Microsoft’s AI Push Imperils Climate Goal as Carbon Emissions Jump 30% (Bloomberg)
• Microsoft Asks Hundreds of China-Based AI Staff to Consider Relocating Amid U.S.-China Tensions (WSJ)
• Stability AI, Facing Cash Crunch, Discusses Sale (The Information)
• Netflix ad-supported tier has 40 million monthly users, nearly double previous count (CNBC)

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All the announces from Google’s massive I/O event yesterday, including, yes, generative AI summaries are fully coming to Google Search. Plus, the camera-based AI system they teased that looks really cool. Ilya Sutskever officially leaves OpenAI. And is crypto the only place left where you can raise a billion-dollar seed round?

Sponsors:

• Lumen.me code RIDE for $100 off

Links:

• Google rolls out AI Overviews in US with more countries coming soon (SearchEngineLand)
• Can Google Give A.I. Answers Without Breaking the Web? (NYTimes)
• Google's Project Astra uses your phone's camera and AI to find noise makers, misplaced items and more. (Engadget)
• OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever says he will leave the startup (CNBC)
• TikTok creators sue U.S. government over potential ban (Washington Post)
• Humanity Protocol Becomes Crypto’s New Digital Identity Unicorn (Bloomberg)

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OpenAI unveils GPT-4o which makes Siri look like the technical cul-de-sac it very much is. But what does it mean that this was NOT GPT-5? What does it mean for the gaming industry that the PS5 might be underperforming? More streaming bundles. And the 2024 iPad refresh reviews.

Sponsors:

• YahooFinance.com
• ConstantContact.com

Links:

• OpenAI debuts GPT-4o ‘omni’ model now powering ChatGPT (TechCrunch)
• OpenAI debuts new model with enhanced real-time voice abilities (Axios)
• Tom Warren's PS5 sales Tweet
• Comcast to Launch Peacock, Netflix and Apple TV+ Bundle at a ‘Vastly Reduced Price’ (Variety)
• The new Apple iPad Air is great — but it’s not the one to get (The Verge)
• Apple iPad Pro (2024) review: the best kind of overkill (The Verge)

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Well, looks like my worries about solar weather being a threat to technology wasn’t just in my head. Ask farmers. Squarespace to go private. Raspberry Pi to go public? Waymo is setting some impressive records. And the new type of deal Apple and the other streamers want to offer Hollywood.

Sponsors:

• ArcticWolf.com/techmeme
• Shopify.com/ride

Links:

• Solar Storm Knocks Out Farmers' Tractor GPS Systems During Peak Planting Season (404Media)
• Website-design firm Squarespace to go private in $6.9 billion deal with Permira (Reuters)
• British tech firm Raspberry Pi lines up £500m float (The Times)
• Microsoft set to face EU competition charges over Teams software (Financial Times)
• Google’s Waymo Crosses 50,000 Paid Driverless Rides Per Week (The Information)
• Apple Nears Deal With OpenAI to Put ChatGPT on iPhone (Bloomberg)
• Apple, Netflix Amazon Want to Change How They Pay Hollywood Stars (Bloomberg)

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Well that was fast. Apple apologized for the “Crush” Ad, saying they missed the mark on that one. Microsoft is launching a mobile game app store. Elevenlabs is getting into the music generating game. And of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

Links:

• Apple apologizes for iPad ‘Crush’ ad that ‘missed the mark’ (The Verge)
• Apple doesn’t understand why you use technology (The Verge)
• Microsoft Plans Mobile-Game Store, Vying With Apple, Google (Bloomberg)
• Apple to Power AI Tools With In-House Server Chips This Year (Bloomberg)
• ElevenLabs previews music-generating AI model (VentureBeat)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• Tim Cook Can’t Run Apple Forever. Who’s Next? (Bloomberg)
• World’s Biggest Construction Project Gets a Reality Check (WSJ)

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AlphaFold 3 is a new AI model to predict interactions and structures of proteins, the better to cure diseases and create medicine with. More cuts in Microsoft gaming. The community backlash erupting over at Stack Overflow. And that really weirdly tone deaf Apple commercial that has everyone so upset.

Links:

• Google DeepMind unveils AI model for living cells (FT)
• Microsoft’s Xbox Is Planning More Cuts After Studio Closings (Bloomberg)
• Stack Overflow bans users en masse for rebelling against OpenAI partnership — users banned for deleting answers to prevent them being used to train ChatGPT (TomsHardware)
• Alphabet Progressing in Talks to Buy HubSpot, Sources Say (Bloomberg)
• That Weird Apple Ad "Crush!"

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Multiple Bethesda studios are being shut down by Xbox and gamers are worried. The new Pixel phone announcement yesterday that probably nobody heard about. What if OpenAI decides to go after web search? And the surprising fact that FTX investors could be made whole, and then some. With interest!

Links:

• Microsoft Closes Redfall Developer Arkane Austin, Hi-Fi Rush Developer Tango Gameworks, and More in Devastating Cuts at Bethesda (IGN)
• US revokes licences for supply of chips to China’s Huawei (Financial Times)
• Exclusive: In Tesla Autopilot probe, US prosecutors focus on securities, wire fraud (Reuters)
• Google’s New $500 Pixel 8A Smartphone Will Get 7 Years of Software Updates (Wired)
• OpenAI Is Readying a Search Product to Rival Google, Perplexity (Bloomberg)
• TikTok Sues U.S. Government Over Law Forcing Sale or Ban (NYTimes)
• FTX Has Billions More Than Needed to Pay Bankruptcy Victims (Bloomberg)

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All the headlines from today’s Spring Apple event. New iPads? M4 chip? I don’t actually know cause I’m recording this bit beforehand. I can tell you Apple might make its own server chips tho. Nintendo has outlined plans to replace the Switch. And Microsoft is training its own high-end LLM, separate from OpenAI.

Links:

• Apple Is Developing AI Chips for Data Centers, Seeking Edge in Arms Race (WSJ)
• Nintendo Teases Long-Awaited Switch Successor as Profit Slides (Bloomberg)
• Meet MAI-1: Microsoft Readies New AI Model to Compete With Google, OpenAI (The Information)
• Amazon’s Delivery Drones Won’t Fly in Arizona’s Summer Heat (Wired)
• China hacked Ministry of Defence, Sky News learns (SkyNews)

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Jack Dorsey abandoned Twitter and now he’s abandoned Bluesky as well. YouTube rolls out Jump Ahead. Threads launches post quote controls. More than 40 thousand books on Audible are now voiced by AI. The Air Force is planning more than a thousand AI fighter jets by the end of the decade. And if you’re listening to this on Apple Podcasts, please listen to the end for an important announcement.

Sponsors:

• 1Password.com/ride
• MackWeldon.com promocode: ride

Links:

• Jack Dorsey departs Bluesky board (TechCrunch)
• YouTube's AI-powered 'Jump Ahead' feature rolling out widely to Premium users (AndroidAuthority)
• Farewell, dunks? Threads launches quote controls for all users (TechCrunch)
• AI-Voiced Audiobooks Top 40,000 Titles on Audible (Bloomberg)
• An AI-controlled fighter jet took the Air Force leader for a historic ride. What that means for war (AP)
• Hugging Face launches LeRobot open source robotics code library (VentureBeat)
• Washed Out’s new music video was created with AI. Is it a watershed moment for Sora? (LATimes)

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Apple earnings are out and revenue was down almost everywhere. Boy, AI can’t come fast enough for them. Did you know you can send Bluetooth signals to satellites in space? The full Rabbit R1 reviews turned out exactly how we expected. And, of course, the Weekend Longreads suggestions.

Links:

• Apple Sales Fall as iPhone, China Businesses Remain Sluggish (WSJ)
• FDA Qualifies Apple’s AFib History feature as an MDDT (MyHealthyApple)
• Hubble Network makes Bluetooth connection with a satellite for the first time (TechCrunch)
• Coinbase’s First-Quarter Profit, Revenue Top Forecasts (Bloomberg)
• Rabbit R1 review: nothing to see here (The Verge)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• The Revenge of the Home Page (The New Yorker)
• Nick Bostrom Made the World Fear AI. Now He Asks: What if It Fixes Everything? (Wired)

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The music is back on TikTok with a new deal struck. Maybe a third of Americans were affected by that Change Healthcare hack. Why are companies suddenly cutting teams you’d think would be sacred cows? Airbnb wants you to stay in the house from the movie Up. And we finally know just how much Google pays Apple for the search default in iOS.

Sponsors:

• Kolide.com/ride

Links:

• TikTok and Universal Music Group Settle Royalty Dispute With New Licensing Agreement (Variety)
• UnitedHealthcare CEO says ‘maybe a third’ of US citizens were affected by recent hack (TechCrunch)
• UnitedHealth CEO tells lawmakers the company paid hackers a $22 million ransom (CNBC)
• Google lays off hundreds of ‘Core’ employees, moves some positions to India and Mexico (CNBC)
• Amazon-backed Anthropic launches iPhone app and business tier to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT (CNBC)
• In Latest Stunt, Airbnb Lists the ‘Up’ House. It Floats. (NYTimes)
• Google’s Payments to Apple Reached $20 Billion in 2022, Antitrust Court Documents Show (Bloomberg)
• Microsoft Concern Over Google’s Lead Drove OpenAI Investment (Bloomberg)

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Binance founder CZ looks like he’s heading to jail too, but for way less time than SBF. Is the Rabbit R1 just a fancy device for a glorified Android app? Has OpenAI floated a secret pre-release of GPT5? And finally, so much has happened, I decided we had to do an omnibus catch up with what’s going on in the world of Elon.

Links:

• Binance founder Changpeng Zhao sentenced to four months in prison (The Verge)
• Rabbit R1, a thing that should just be an app, actually is just an Android app (Updated) (Android Authority)
• Powerful New Chatbot Disappears as Mysteriously as It Arrived (Gizmodo)
• Tesla conducting more layoffs, including entire Supercharger team (Electrek)

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The FCC has fined all the major telecom companies. You’ll never guess why. Why the DMA actions from the EU might be a constant thing. Devs, how about an AI-powered IDE? You’ll never guess why Peacock thinks it can raise prices again. And is Marquess Brownlee right about underbaked hardware releases?

Sponsors:

• ZocDoc.com/techmeme
• ConstantContact.com

Links:

• FCC fines AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon nearly $200 million for illegally sharing location data (The Verge)
• Meta Risks EU Fines Over Kremlin Lies on Facebook, Instagram (Bloomberg)
• How an empty S3 bucket can make your AWS bill explode (Maciej Pocwierz)
• Copilot Workspace is GitHub’s take on AI-powered software engineering (TechCrunch)
• Peacock Hikes Subscription Prices Ahead of 2024 Paris Olympics (The Hollywood Reporter)
• Rabbit R1 Review (MKBHD)
• Marques Brownlee slams another AI product as “barely reviewable” after Humane AI Pin controversy (Dexerto)

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Apple continues discussions with folks to partner for AI product. Will the upcoming iPad event kick off Apple’s AI strategy? Why does spending on AI seem to work for Google and Microsoft but not for Meta? Why were a bunch of Apple users signed out of their accounts this weekend? And has AI already ruined Meta’s family of apps?

Sponsors:

• CutsClothing.com/RIDE, promocode RIDE for 20% off
• YahooFinance.com

Links:

• Apple Intensifies Talks With OpenAI for iPhone Generative AI Features (Bloomberg)
• Apple Rivals Retool to Challenge the iPhone and Vision Pro (Bloomberg)
• Investors Cheer AI Spending Boom in Big Tech—Just Not at Meta (WSJ)
• The Financial Times and OpenAI strike content licensing deal (Financial Times)
• Apple users are being locked out of their Apple IDs with no explanation (9to5Mac)
• AI is making Meta's apps basically unusable (Fast Company)

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Net Neutrality has been voted back into existence. Earnings from Microsoft and Google, but it’s the YouTube numbers that continue to impress me. ByteDance claims it would rather be banned than sell US TikTok. The Onion finds a benevolent billionaire. And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

Links:

• F.C.C. Votes to Restore Net Neutrality Rules (NYTimes)
• Google parent announces first-ever dividend; beats on sales, profit; shares soar (Reuters)
• OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Other Tech Leaders to Serve on AI Safety Board (WSJ)
• Exclusive: ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options fail, sources say (Reuters)
• The Onion Is Sold by G/O Media (NYTimes)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• The Chips Act has been surprisingly successful so far (Financial Times)
• Why You Can’t Get a Restaurant Reservation (The New Yorker)

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Meta’s earnings were fine, but it’s what Zuck warned about spending that has Wall Street nervous. Sub 2nm chips are on their way. An AI startup has a big new raise after its big raise just a month ago. Google Meet lets you jump devices. And the first reviews of the Rabbit R1 are out.

Links:

• Zuckerberg Asks for Patience as Meta’s AI Push Spooks Market (Bloomberg)
• Zuckerberg says it will take Meta years to make money from generative AI (The Verge)
• TSMC aims to produce ultra-advanced 1.6-nm chips by 2026 (NikkeiAsia)
• Six-Month-Old AI Coding Startup Valued at $2 Billion by Founders Fund (The Information)
• Google Meet will let you transfer calls between web and phone with ‘Switch here’ (9to5Google)
• A morning with the Rabbit R1: a fun, funky, unfinished AI gadget (The Verge)
• Rabbit R1 hands-on: Already more fun and accessible than the Humane AI Pin (Engadget)
• Rabbit’s R1 is a little AI gadget that grows on you (TechCrunch)

First Ones videos on YouTube

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The TikTok divestment bill has probably already been signed into law. What happens now? What are the legal arguments that this thing can stick? What about things like, you know, the First Amendment? Also, ads in Windows? Time to take Meta’s RayBan smartglasses seriously? And what it’s like to use AI inside of Instagram.

Links:

• Senate passes TikTok ban bill, sending it to President Biden’s desk (The Verge)
• TikTok Ban Looms With Biden Poised to Start 270-Day Countdown (Bloomberg)
• How the TikTok ban could survive a court challenge (Platformer)
• Windows 11 Start menu ads are now rolling out to everyone (The Verge)
• The Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses get video calling, Apple Music, and a new style (The Verge)
• Meta’s A.I. Assistant Is Fun to Use, but It Can’t Be Trusted (NYTimes)

"First Ones" YouTube Videos

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Microsoft has launched new lightweight AI models. Perplexity has a big new raise. Meta wants other people to build Quest headsets. Another reason Apple needs to find new revenue. And if Congress really is going to ban TikTok, are they ever going to tell us exactly why?

Links:

• Microsoft launches Phi-3, its smallest AI model yet (The Verge)
• Meta Expands Its Mixed Reality Beyond the Quest Headsets (CNET)
• Meta wants to be the Microsoft of headsets (The Verge)
• China Smartphone Sales Remain in Black on Huawei, HONOR, Xiaomi Outperformance (Counterpoint)
• AI Search Startup Perplexity Valued at $1 Billion in Funding Round (Bloomberg)
• Adobe’s new Firefly model makes it easier to use Photoshop’s AI tools (The Verge)
• If TikTok Is Such a Threat, Show Us the Receipts (Bloomberg)

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I know we’ve said this before, but TikTok really seems on the brink this time. What the heck is going on with Tesla? Tinder wants you to share your date. Streamers want you to stop dating around and playing the field. An open-source smarthome standard. And again, do we really need standalone AI devices when we already have smartphones?

Links:

• TikTok ‘ban’ passes in the House again, moving to the Senate in foreign aid package (The Verge)
• Tesla lowers price of ‘Full Self-Driving’ to $8,000, down from $12,000 (Electrek)
• Tinder gets a ‘Share My Date’ feature for users to send date plans to their curious friends (TechCrunch)
• Americans’ New TV Habit: Subscribe. Watch. Cancel. Repeat. (NYTimes)
• The little smart home platform that could (The Verge)
• The future of AI gadgets is just phones (The Verge)

Space Ghost Coast To Coast Marathon

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Meta released Llama 3 yesterday, and some of the moves they made have made be consider if Zuck could win these first AI wars. Is Zuck also getting aggressive in VR? Why Apple had to take down the WhatsApp and Threads apps in China. And, of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.

Links:

• Meta’s battle with ChatGPT begins now (The Verge)
• Meta, in Its Biggest A.I. Push, Places Smart Assistants Across Its Apps (NYTimes)
• Meta gives the Quest 2 its second permanent price cut in four months (Engadget)
• Cool or creepy? Microsoft's VASA-1 is a new AI model that turns photos into 'talking faces' (Tom's Guide)
• China Orders Apple to Remove Popular Messaging Apps (WSJ)