Monday, June 17, 2024

Kuo: the Apple Watch Series 10 will be thinner and its screen will grow from 41mm to 45mm and 45mm to 49mm; Apple will use 3D printing to make some components (Tim Hardwick/MacRumors)

Tim Hardwick / MacRumors:
Kuo: the Apple Watch Series 10 will be thinner and its screen will grow from 41mm to 45mm and 45mm to 49mm; Apple will use 3D printing to make some components  —  This year's Apple Watch Series 10 will be thinner and come in larger screen sizes than previous models, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.



Google begins rolling out a "Listen to this page" feature on Chrome for Android, letting the browser read text-heavy web pages (Abner Li/9to5Google)

Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google begins rolling out a “Listen to this page” feature on Chrome for Android, letting the browser read text-heavy web pages  —  Chrome for Android has been working on its own text-to-speech (TTS) capability for a few months now, and Google is now rolling out “Listen to this page.”



McDonald's ends its two-year IBM partnership to test automated Drive Thru order taking and plans to remove the tech from 100+ restaurants by July 26 (Jonathan Maze/Restaurant Business)

Jonathan Maze / Restaurant Business:
McDonald's ends its two-year IBM partnership to test automated Drive Thru order taking and plans to remove the tech from 100+ restaurants by July 26  —  The Chicago-based fast-food giant is ending its partnership with IBM on automated order-taking without an expansion.



Sunday, June 16, 2024

A Texas federal jury orders Amazon to pay nearly $122M to adtech company AlmondNet for infringing on two patents related to personalized ad targeting (Blake Brittain/Reuters)

Blake Brittain / Reuters:
A Texas federal jury orders Amazon to pay nearly $122M to adtech company AlmondNet for infringing on two patents related to personalized ad targeting  —  Amazon (AMZN.O) must pay nearly $122 million for violating another company's rights in targeted internet advertising technology, a Texas federal jury said on Friday.



Report: alleged ringleader of the Scattered Spider hacking group was arrested in Spain; sources: the accused is a 22-year-old Scottish man named Tyler Buchanan (Brian Krebs/Krebs on Security)

Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
Report: alleged ringleader of the Scattered Spider hacking group was arrested in Spain; sources: the accused is a 22-year-old Scottish man named Tyler Buchanan  —  A 22-year-old man from the United Kingdom arrested this week in Spain is allegedly the ringleader of Scattered Spider …



Despite disinformation concerns during India's elections, political parties largely used AI, including deepfakes, constructively, primarily for voter outreach (The Conversation)

The Conversation:
Despite disinformation concerns during India's elections, political parties largely used AI, including deepfakes, constructively, primarily for voter outreach  —  As India concluded the world's largest election on June 5, 2024, with over 640 million votes counted, observers could assess …



Saturday, June 15, 2024

A profile of game publisher Devolver Digital, which gives indie studios immense creative freedom, doesn't take IP rights from them, and is turning 15 on June 25 (Rollo Romig/New York Times)

Rollo Romig / New York Times:
A profile of game publisher Devolver Digital, which gives indie studios immense creative freedom, doesn't take IP rights from them, and is turning 15 on June 25  —  Devolver Digital teams with independent video game studios and gives them immense freedom.  Just don't kill Jeff Bezos.



Apple may not be bringing Apple Intelligence to iPhone 15, which has 6GB of RAM vs. iPhone 15 Pro's 8GB, due to RAM requirements for on-device AI processing (Andrew Williams/Wired)

Andrew Williams / Wired:
Apple may not be bringing Apple Intelligence to iPhone 15, which has 6GB of RAM vs. iPhone 15 Pro's 8GB, due to RAM requirements for on-device AI processing  —  Older iPhones might well be able to cope with Apple's AI, so why won't your $900 year-old model run it?  Here's why.



How the launch of AI search chatbots such as Bing Copilot is affecting advertisers, as they look for new ways to target users with relevant ads (Paresh Dave/Wired)

Paresh Dave / Wired:
How the launch of AI search chatbots such as Bing Copilot is affecting advertisers, as they look for new ways to target users with relevant ads  —  Microsoft and Google are bringing ads to their AI search experiences.  But users don't always find it helpful.



How disabled people use Apple Vision Pro for work, entertainment, and more, and interviews with some disabled Apple staff who built the accessibility features (Andrew Leland/New York Magazine)

Andrew Leland / New York Magazine:
How disabled people use Apple Vision Pro for work, entertainment, and more, and interviews with some disabled Apple staff who built the accessibility features  —  The headset is already changing disabled users' lives.  —  In her childhood bedroom, Maxine Collard had a PC connected …



Friday, June 14, 2024

Sources: Shein tries to suppress its chair's claim that the retailer is American, amid fears it could annoy China, which needs to approve Shein's London IPO (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
Sources: Shein tries to suppress its chair's claim that the retailer is American, amid fears it could annoy China, which needs to approve Shein's London IPO  —  Donald Tang's remarks are said to have annoyed Chinese officials who need to approve London IPO  —  Online fast-fashion retailer Shein …



The crypto industry has amassed a $160M war chest to bolster pro-crypto US candidates, which could be pivotal in handing the Senate majority to GOP in November (Steven T. Dennis/Bloomberg)

Steven T. Dennis / Bloomberg:
The crypto industry has amassed a $160M war chest to bolster pro-crypto US candidates, which could be pivotal in handing the Senate majority to GOP in November  —  - Industry seeks regulatory changes to blunt SEC influence  — Democrats Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester targeted by crypto



Sources: Lightspeed wants to become a registered investment adviser, letting it use more than 20% of its funds, the cap for VC firms, to trade secondary markets (Tabby Kinder/Financial Times)

Tabby Kinder / Financial Times:
Sources: Lightspeed wants to become a registered investment adviser, letting it use more than 20% of its funds, the cap for VC firms, to trade secondary markets  —  Move is a sign of how traditional investment models are under threat by a challenging VC environment



Berlin-based Nelly, whose SaaS lets medical practices digitally onboard new patients, accept payments, and more, raised a €50M Series B led by Cathay Innovation (Romain Dillet/TechCrunch)

Romain Dillet / TechCrunch : Berlin-based Nelly, whose SaaS lets medical practices digitally onboard new patients, accept payments, and m...