~techmeme | Bookmarks (1014)

Jamie Crawley / CoinDesk: Binance resumes services in India, after completing registration with India's Financial Intelligence Unit, which imposed a ~$2.2M fine on Binance in June 2024  —  The registration was provisionally approved in May, subject to the crypto exchange paying a fine of about $2.2 million.

Hannah Lang / Reuters: At a Crypto4Harris online event, Mark Cuban, Anthony Scaramucci, and other crypto advocates supporting Kamala Harris urged a reset in Democratic crypto policy  —  Billionaire Mark Cuban, Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci and congressman Adam Schiff were among a group of cryptocurrency advocates …

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: California lawmakers weaken the AI safety bill with amendments proposed by Anthropic and other opponents, including giving the AG less power to sue AI companies  —  California's bill to prevent AI disasters, SB 1047, has faced significant opposition from many parties in Silicon Valley.

Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat: Google makes Imagen 3 available to all US users via ImageFX, after unveiling the text-to-image AI model in May; some users criticize its strict content filters  —  Google has quietly made its latest text-to-image AI model, Imagen 3, available to all U.S. users through its ImageFX platform …

Andrew Liszewski / The Verge: Meta releases an app for the Quest 3, 2, and Pro to let the headsets display video from devices with an HDMI or DisplayPort output; a capture card is required  —  Meta has released a new app for the Quest 3, 2, and Pro, letting you use the headsets as a screen for consoles, laptops, or any device with...

Heather Knight / New York Times: The San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu files a lawsuit that seeks to shut down 16 popular websites used to create nonconsensual deepfake pornography  —  City Attorney David Chiu has filed a lawsuit seeking to permanently shutter 16 popular websites that turn images of real girls and women into pornography.

Shawna Chen / Axios: California announces support for adding driver's licenses or state IDs to Apple Wallet and Google Wallet, rolling out “in the coming weeks”  —  - They will be authorized for use in TSA screenings, select apps and select businesses, such as Circle K. Participating airports in the state include SFO, SJC and LAX.

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: Threads announces new features, like the ability to store multiple drafts and an analytics page, rolling out on the web, and plans to test a scheduling feature  —  Meta's X rival Threads announced a number of new features today, including the ability to store multiple drafts …

Ryan Browne / CNBC: Klarna debuts a checking account-like service and a cashback offering in its app in 12 markets, including the US and across Europe, as it prepares for a US IPO  —  Financial technology firm Klarna is pushing deeper into banking with its own checking account-like product and a cashback offering …

Bloomberg: Some publishers say they can't block the Googlebot crawler that covers AI Overviews without hampering their discoverability, as the crawler also covers Search  —  Publishers say blocking the company's AI bot could also prevent their sites from showing up in search

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: xAI launches Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini in beta with improved reasoning capabilities, available to X Premium and Premium+ users; the API will debut later in August  —  Elon Musk-owned launched Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini in beta today with improved reasoning.  The new Grok AI model can now generate images …

Pranav Dixit / Engadget: Google says Gemini will replace Google Assistant as the default on the Google Pixel 9 lineup, but “users can go back to the classic Google Assistant”  —  This is the new Google Assistant now, a senior executive told Engadget.  —  Google's new Pixel 9 lineup of phones will be different …

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: A look at challenges Google faces ahead of Pixel 9 launch in India; IDC: Google's smartphone shipments in India grew over 1,300% in 2023 to a 0.5% market share  —  On Tuesday at its Made by Google event, Google announced that the new Pixel 9 line is coming to India.

Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE: Guidewheel, which offers plug-and-play sensors to make factory machines smarter, raised a $31M Series B led by BlackRock and Temasek's Decarbonization Partners  —  Factory software startup Guidewheel said today it's looking to usher in a new era of artificial intelligence-powered automation …

Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch: Chinese self-driving startup WeRide gets permission to test its robotaxis with passengers in California after testing without passengers in San Jose since 2021  —  Chinese autonomous vehicle company WeRide has received the green light to test its driverless vehicles with passengers in California.

John Koblin / New York Times: A look at the growth of free streaming service Tubi, which does not require an account to use, is entirely dependent on ad revenue, and is not yet profitable  —  Tubi has exploded in popularity over the past 18 months, outpacing some competitors with much bigger budgets.

Bobby Allyn / NPR: US District Judge Reed O'Connor recuses himself from X's advertiser lawsuit over an alleged ad boycott; O'Connor held stock in Tesla and Unilever  —  A U.S. District Judge in Texas has recused himself from a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk's X days after NPR drew scrutiny to the judge's investment …

Ian King / Bloomberg: Filing: Intel sold its 1.18M shares in Arm during the second quarter, which, based on the stock's average price in Q2, would have raised ~$147M for the company  —  Intel Corp., which is slashing jobs and expenses in a bid to turn around the business, sold its holdings in chip technology …

Blake Brittain / Reuters: A US judge rules that a group of artists can pursue some copyright infringement claims in their lawsuit against Stability AI, Midjourney, and other companies  —  A group of visual artists can continue to pursue some claims that Stability AI, Midjourney, DeviantArt and Runway AI's artificial …

Abrar Al-Heeti / CNET: Google announces Android accessibility updates, including an easier-to-use Guided Frame for photos, AI features for Magnifier, and new Live Caption languages  —  Features like Guided Frame and Magnifier on Pixel get smarter — and easier to use.  —  Along with the debut of the Pixel 9 series …

Nathan Eddy / Dark Reading: Researchers describe now-fixed vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Azure Health Bot Service that would allow a user to access and manage other customers' resources  —  Multiple privilege escalation issues in Microsoft Azure's cloud-based Health Bot service opened the platform to server-side request forgery …

Julian Chokkattu / Wired: Hands-on with Pixel 9's AI camera features: Add Me, Reimagine, Autoframe, Zoom Enhance, and improvements to Video Boost and panoramas  —  Add Me, Reimagine, Autoframe, and Zoom Enhance—these camera features allow you to alter your photos with zero technical know-how.

Bloomberg: Sources: after Google's monopoly ruling, the DOJ considers options including forcing a breakup of the company or requiring it to share more data with rivals  —  - Antitrust enforcers soliciting input from outside companies  — Judge ruled Alphabet unit monopolized online search, ads

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch: NIST publishes its first three post-quantum cryptography standards; IBM's director of research thinks quantum computing will hit an inflection point around 2030  —  It'll still be a while before quantum computers become powerful enough to do anything useful, but it's increasingly likely …