Bluesky says it can't "accommodate heads of state" as it seeks to control growth during its beta; Bluesky currently has ~60K users and a waitlist of 1.2M people (Kylie Robison/Fortune)

Kylie Robison / Fortune:
Bluesky says it can't “accommodate heads of state” as it seeks to control growth during its beta; Bluesky currently has ~60K users and a waitlist of 1.2M people  —  Bluesky, the buzzy social media platform that's emerging as a Twitter competitor, said on Friday that it will not allow …

Discord says it will let "high-visibility users" secure usernames to minimize the risk of impersonation, as some users criticize its plans to change usernames (Umar Shakir/The Verge)

Umar Shakir / The Verge:
Discord says it will let “high-visibility users” secure usernames to minimize the risk of impersonation, as some users criticize its plans to change usernames  —  A race to reserve usernames is kicking off on Discord.  —  Starting in the next couple of weeks …

AI text generators are quietly authoring more of the internet; more AI-generated books and personalized articles mean fewer clients buying human-written content (Will Oremus/Washington Post)

Will Oremus / Washington Post:
AI text generators are quietly authoring more of the internet; more AI-generated books and personalized articles mean fewer clients buying human-written content  —  From recipes to product reviews to how-to books, artificial intelligence text generators are quietly authoring more and more of the internet.

Binance may face US probe for violating Russian sanctions: Report

The inquiry by the Justice Department's national security division is looking at whether Binance or company officials ran afoul of sanctions related to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the report said, citing five people. https://ift.tt/ygu4K1i

A journalist recounts discovering that ByteDance surveilled her in 2022 after reporting on TikTok's staff troubles in London and wonders why she was targeted (Cristina Criddle/Financial Times)

Cristina Criddle / Financial Times:
A journalist recounts discovering that ByteDance surveilled her in 2022 after reporting on TikTok's staff troubles in London and wonders why she was targeted  —  The FT's Cristina Criddle on discovering she'd been surveilled by the controversial social media company

Google Messages rolls out “Send photos faster” to more users

The Google Messages feature "Send photos faster" was introduced last month and is now being more widely released. The "Send photos faster" feature can be found as a new toggle in the settings menu of the Google Messages app. It is specifically labelled as "Send photos faster" and comes with the description "Resolution is reduced for faster sending." https://ift.tt/yV7za1m

Sources: Ant Group's transformation into a fully regulated company has been on hold for over a year as China reshuffles its regulatory system (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Ant Group's transformation into a fully regulated company has been on hold for over a year as China reshuffles its regulatory system  —  Powerful new regulator will have to approve the fintech giant's application to become a financial-holding company

Google, Sonos head to trial in contentious smart speaker patent fight

The case is part of a sprawling intellectual property dispute between the former business partners that includes other lawsuits in the U.S., Canada, France, Germany and the Netherlands. https://ift.tt/flR4JaU

Airbus, Eutelsat, SES, Thales, and other European satellite companies plan to bid for the IRIS² satellite constellation, hoping to rival SpaceX's Starlink (Eric Berger/Ars Technica)

Eric Berger / Ars Technica:
Airbus, Eutelsat, SES, Thales, and other European satellite companies plan to bid for the IRIS² satellite constellation, hoping to rival SpaceX's Starlink  —  The bid includes large players such as Airbus Defence and Space, Eutelsat, and SES.  —  A consortium of nearly every major …

Amazon plans to bring ChatGPT-like technology to Alexa: Report

Amazon calls its LLM Alexa Teacher Model but a company spokesperson echoed Jassy's comments saying that Amazon is building larger “more generalised and capable” LLMs to make Alexa “more proactive and conversational.” The spokesperson also said that Alexa has been using the Teacher model for several years. Just like Amazon, Google also relies on its own language models. https://ift.tt/AJwFkP6

Apple may ship the 14-inch iPad Pro with M3 Pro chipset in 2024

Apple is rumoured to be developing a new iPad Pro model, which may be called iPad Pro Max or iPad Ultra. According to a Twitter user, the tablet is expected to feature a 14.1-inch OLED screen and be powered by Apple's M3 processor, which is expected to be announced in 2024. https://ift.tt/yfKMotF

Google may add a Bard AI widget on Pixel phones: What to expect

Google is reportedly planning to make its Bard AI language more accessible to users of Pixel phones and Android tablets. The company is said to be developing an exclusive home screen widget for Pixel devices that will allow users to access AI conversations at the touch of a button. Bard, which was previewed in March, has already been integrated into Gmail and Docs, and may soon be added to ChromeOS. https://ift.tt/z2RyL8Z

Shopify reports Q1 revenue up 25% YoY to $1.5B, above $1.43B analyst estimates, GMV up 15% to $49.6B, and plans to cut 20% of its staff; SHOP jumps 14%+ (Ilya Banares/Bloomberg)

Ilya Banares / Bloomberg:
Shopify reports Q1 revenue up 25% YoY to $1.5B, above $1.43B analyst estimates, GMV up 15% to $49.6B, and plans to cut 20% of its staff; SHOP jumps 14%+  —  Shopify Inc. cut jobs for the second time in less than a year and agreed to sell the majority of its logistics business to Flexport Inc …

Impact Nano, chip materials startup, wins funding from Intel, Goldman Sachs

Impact Nano, a Massachusetts-based startup that makes specialty chemicals for the semiconductor industry and others, said it raised $32 million in funding from investors including Intel Capital and Goldman Sachs Asset Management. https://ift.tt/Ghp38uW

As US VCs flood to the Middle East in search of funding, some view their desperation poorly because the region's investors value long-term relationships (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
As US VCs flood to the Middle East in search of funding, some view their desperation poorly because the region's investors value long-term relationships  —  Silicon Valley has taken investment from moneyed state-run funds in the Middle East for years.  Now that the technology industry …