A look at Smallville, a virtual village populated by AI chatbots, built by Stanford and Google researchers to create a society with "believable human behavior" (Oliver Roeder/Financial Times)

Oliver Roeder / Financial Times:
A look at Smallville, a virtual village populated by AI chatbots, built by Stanford and Google researchers to create a society with “believable human behavior”  —  Giving digital agents ‘memory streams’ produced surprising results  —  John Lin is a small-town pharmacist who takes great pride in his work.

Despite cheating and misinformation fears, some US schools that once raced to block AI chatbot access are now encouraging teachers and students to use them (Natasha Singer/New York Times)

Natasha Singer / New York Times:
Despite cheating and misinformation fears, some US schools that once raced to block AI chatbot access are now encouraging teachers and students to use them  —  Some districts that once raced to block A.I. chatbots are now trying to embrace them.  —  For decades, Walla Walla High School …

VMware unveils enhanced VMware Cloud suite with advanced features for modernization and security

VMware has announced a major upgrade to its VMware Cloud offerings, aimed at helping organizations modernize and secure their operations. The enhanced VMware Cloud integrates on-premises and public cloud software, providing a consistent environment across different cloud platforms. It is available in five editions, offering flexibility to organizations at different stages of their cloud transformation journey. Additionally, VMware has introduced NSX+, a cloud-managed service for networking, security, and developer services in multi-cloud environments, and VMware vSAN Max, a scalable and cost-effective storage solution. The company also unveiled VMware Ransomware Recovery, a cloud service for recovering from fileless ransomware attacks. https://ift.tt/dkxFMSJ

CoinGecko: Worldcoin's WLD fell 9.1% in the past 24 hours to ~$1.33, down 43.6% since its launch a month ago, after scrutiny over data collection and privacy (Timmy Shen/The Block)

Timmy Shen / The Block:
CoinGecko: Worldcoin's WLD fell 9.1% in the past 24 hours to ~$1.33, down 43.6% since its launch a month ago, after scrutiny over data collection and privacy  —  - The controversial crypto project co-created by Sam Altman saw its WLD token drop 9.1% over the past 24 hours and 43.6% over the past 30 days.

Amazon sues pirate sites for selling DVDs of the most expensive TV show ever

Amazon has filed a criminal case against 'pirates' who were selling the TV show, The Lord of The Rings: Rings of Power, online. The company is seeking financial damages and wants to take over the websites involved. Amazon has named seven websites and a Chinese man as defendants in the case. The company is also seeking a permanent injunction and wants domain registrars to transfer the domain names associated with the piracy websites to Amazon's name. Additionally, Amazon wants financial institutions to transfer any amounts arising from the defendants' unlawful activities. https://ift.tt/9w7LokU

Source: Tencent Music, Cloud Music, and more scrap their virtual lucky draws and other features at a hefty cost, as China cracks down on online gambling (Josh Ye/Reuters)

Josh Ye / Reuters:
Source: Tencent Music, Cloud Music, and more scrap their virtual lucky draws and other features at a hefty cost, as China cracks down on online gambling  —  Chinese online content platforms including Tencent Music (1698.HK) and NetEase's Cloud Music (9899.HK) have removed live streaming features …

Indian instant grocery startup Zepto raised a $200M Series E led by StepStone at a $1.4B valuation, taking its funding to $560M, India's first unicorn of 2023 (Manish Singh/TechCrunch)

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Indian instant grocery startup Zepto raised a $200M Series E led by StepStone at a $1.4B valuation, taking its funding to $560M, India's first unicorn of 2023  —  Instant grocery delivery startup Zepto has raised $200 million in a new funding round at a valuation of $1.4 billion, it said Friday …

Amazon partners with LG to launch Luna on smart TVs

Amazon has announced that its gaming service, Luna, will now be available on LG smart TVs in the US, Canada, Germany, and the UK. LG Smart TV owners can access games on Luna directly from the Home Screen Game Card or download the Luna app from the LG Content Store. Amazon Prime members can play Fortnite and other games at no additional cost, while Luna+ and Luna Pro subscriptions offer access to a wide range of games. Luna is powered by Amazon Web Services and is currently available in four countries. https://ift.tt/y7IWon4

Oppo Find N3 Flip, Watch 4 Pro to launch on August 29

Chinese smartphone maker Oppo is set to launch its competitor to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5, called the Oppo Find N3 Flip. The company has confirmed that it will be launched on August 29 in China, along with the Oppo Watch 4 Pro. The Oppo Find N3 Flip is rumored to have a 6.8-inch internal display, a 3.26-inch external AMOLED display, a MediaTek Dimensity 9200 chipset, and a triple rear camera setup. The Oppo Watch 4 Pro is expected to have a curved design, a Snapdragon W5 chipset, and various health monitoring features. https://ift.tt/Atu1niC

Sources: Vietnamese internet company VNG aims to raise ~$150M in its US IPO and targets a debut at the end of September; VNG reported $166.3M in H1 2023 revenue (Dave Sebastian/Wall Street Journal)

Dave Sebastian / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Vietnamese internet company VNG aims to raise ~$150M in its US IPO and targets a debut at the end of September; VNG reported $166.3M in H1 2023 revenue  —  Company is targeting a trading debut by the end of September, sources say  —  Vietnamese internet company VNG aims …

HonorTech to launch Honor 90 in India soon, confirms company

Honor, the Chinese smartphone maker, is making a comeback in the Indian market under the brand name HonorTech. The CEO, Madhav Sheth, revealed that the upcoming Honor smartphones in India will run on Android 13 and receive regular security updates. The company will focus on the premium smartphone segment and aims to provide a flagship experience to users. Sheth also confirmed that the Honor 90 series will be launched in India, but no further details were disclosed. The Honor 90 and Honor 90 Pro offer impressive features such as OLED displays and powerful processors. https://ift.tt/O7QyrlI

Amazon launches Amazon Luna on LG smart TVs released between 2021 and 2023 and running webOS 6.0 or later, after debuting Luna on Samsung TVs in August 2022 (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Amazon launches Amazon Luna on LG smart TVs released between 2021 and 2023 and running webOS 6.0 or later, after debuting Luna on Samsung TVs in August 2022  —  LG is teaming up with Amazon to bring the Amazon Luna cloud-based game streaming service on its smart TVs.

This upcoming flagship chipset to bring generative AI to smartphones

Qualcomm and MediaTek are set to release their flagship chipsets later this year, with both companies confirming collaboration with Meta to incorporate Llama 2 large language model (LLM) into their upcoming chipsets. MediaTek's flagship chipset will have improved hardware to enhance generative AI performance, while Qualcomm also plans to implement generative AI in its flagship chipset. The integration of generative AI will bring benefits such as improved privacy, faster processing, and more secure devices for users. These AI capabilities are expected to eventually be available in more affordable chipsets as well. https://ift.tt/Bve9McH

The FBI details North Korea's TraderTraitor-affiliated actors, responsible for Alphapo, CoinsPaid, and Atomic Wallet hacks, and warns over cashing out $40M+ BTC (Ryan Weeks/The Block)

Ryan Weeks / The Block:
The FBI details North Korea's TraderTraitor-affiliated actors, responsible for Alphapo, CoinsPaid, and Atomic Wallet hacks, and warns over cashing out $40M+ BTC  —  - The warning, issued today, comes after a series of high profile crypto heists carried out by North Korea-affiliated Lazarus Group in recent years.

Investigation: despite scaling back in Russia in 2022, Binance continues to handle substantial ruble trading, helping clients evade sanctions via intermediaries (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Investigation: despite scaling back in Russia in 2022, Binance continues to handle substantial ruble trading, helping clients evade sanctions via intermediaries  —  Binance is helping Russians move money abroad, potentially adding to its sprawling legal problems in the U.S. The cryptocurrency giant …