Apple announces Assistive Access, a suite of features to improve cognitive, vision, and speech accessibility on iOS and iPadOS, rolling out later in 2023 (Amanda Silberling/TechCrunch)

Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch: Apple announces Assistive Access, a suite of features to improve cognitive, vision, and speech accessibility on iOS and iPadOS, rolling out later in 2023  —  Apple previewed a suite of new features today to improve cognitive, vision and speech accessibility.

As the European Central Bank prepares to pilot a digital euro in October, consumers, financiers, and politicians are questioning the project’s aims and benefits (Financial Times)

Financial Times: As the European Central Bank prepares to pilot a digital euro in October, consumers, financiers, and politicians are questioning the project’s aims and benefits  —  Europe’s central bank is pushing ahead with the development of electronic currency even as politicians question its purpose

Futu and Tiger Brokers, two Nasdaq-listed online brokerages catering to clients in China, plan to remove apps from Chinese app stores and stop taking on users (James T. Areddy/Wall Street Journal)

James T. Areddy / Wall Street Journal: Futu and Tiger Brokers, two Nasdaq-listed online brokerages catering to clients in China, plan to remove apps from Chinese app stores and stop taking on users  —  The online brokerages earlier agreed to stop accepting new customers from mainland China  —  Two Nasdaq-listed online brokerages …

WhatsApp introduces Chat Lock, which lets users put chats in a password- or biometrics-protected folder and hide chats’ contents and senders in notifications (Jay Peters/The Verge)

Jay Peters / The Verge: WhatsApp introduces Chat Lock, which lets users put chats in a password- or biometrics-protected folder and hide chats’ contents and senders in notifications  —  WhatsApp is getting a new “Chat Lock” feature intended to make it easier to keep conversations more private.

Cloudflare debuts Cloudflare One for AI, a zero-trust security controls suite to help businesses use generative AI tools while protecting IP and customer data (Victor Dey/VentureBeat)

Victor Dey / VentureBeat: Cloudflare debuts Cloudflare One for AI, a zero-trust security controls suite to help businesses use generative AI tools while protecting IP and customer data  —  Internet solutions firm Cloudflare today unveiled Cloudflare One for AI, its latest suite of zero-trust security controls.

Together, which aims to build open-source LLMs and was part of RedPajama, a project where six companies replicated Meta’s LLaMA dataset, raised a $20M seed (Victor Dey/VentureBeat)

Victor Dey / VentureBeat: Together, which aims to build open-source LLMs and was part of RedPajama, a project where six companies replicated Meta’s LLaMA dataset, raised a $20M seed  —  Together, an open-source AI startup, announced today that it has raised $20 million in seed funding to support its mission …

Thirteen from MIT win 2023 Fulbright fellowships

Thirteen MIT undergraduates, graduate students, and alumni have been awarded Fulbright fellowships and will embark on projects overseas in the 2023-24 grant year. Four other MIT affiliates were offered awards but declined them to pursue other opportunities. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, the Fulbright U.S. Student Program offers American citizen students and recent […]

London-based Smart, which helps employers and employees manage their pensions, raised a $95M Series E led by Aquiline; reports said Smart sought to raise $123M (TechCrunch)

TechCrunch: London-based Smart, which helps employers and employees manage their pensions, raised a $95M Series E led by Aquiline; reports said Smart sought to raise $123M  —  Smart, a London-based startup that helps employers and their employees manage and monitor their pensions, said that it has closed $95 million in Series E funding.

Pluto TV co-founder Ilya Pozin’s Telly opens a waitlist to give away 500,000 55-inch 4K HDR TVs in 2023 with a second screen that constantly shows ads (Jared Newman/Fast Company)

Jared Newman / Fast Company: Pluto TV co-founder Ilya Pozin’s Telly opens a waitlist to give away 500,000 55-inch 4K HDR TVs in 2023 with a second screen that constantly shows ads  —  Would you take a free TV if it constantly ran banner ads beneath everything you watched?  —  That’s the proposition for Telly […]

A survey of 60 major crypto companies in Q1 on the state of governance and controls finds many operate outside the norm; around half engage an external auditor (Emily Nicolle/Bloomberg)

Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg: A survey of 60 major crypto companies in Q1 on the state of governance and controls finds many operate outside the norm; around half engage an external auditor  —  Before it filed for bankruptcy last November, many of the entities in Sam Bankman-Fried’s colossal FTX empire had never held a board […]

Swedish cybersecurity company Truesec and experts: Russia-linked “Anonymous Sudan” is one of the most prolific hacktivist groups targeting Swedish organizations (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: Swedish cybersecurity company Truesec and experts: Russia-linked “Anonymous Sudan” is one of the most prolific hacktivist groups targeting Swedish organizations  —  Since February, a mysterious hacker group calling itself Anonymous Sudan has targeted dozens of Swedish airports …

A look at TikTok’s #medicalmoms, where mothers of disabled and chronically ill kids share parenthood journeys, raising privacy, consent, and autonomy concerns (Fortesa Latifi/Washington Post)

Fortesa Latifi / Washington Post: A look at TikTok’s #medicalmoms, where mothers of disabled and chronically ill kids share parenthood journeys, raising privacy, consent, and autonomy concerns  —  When Bella was born in 2013, she didn’t leave the hospital for the first two years of her life because of a combination of a rare form […]

Developer logs: Apple tests an M3 with 12 CPU cores, 18 GPU cores, and 36GB of RAM; Meta pulls Messenger from Apple Watch and launches WhatsApp on WearOS (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Developer logs: Apple tests an M3 with 12 CPU cores, 18 GPU cores, and 36GB of RAM; Meta pulls Messenger from Apple Watch and launches WhatsApp on WearOS  —  As Apple prepares to launch its next M2 Macs, the company is already ramping up testing of M3 chips.

US universities are revamping their semiconductor curricula and striking industry deals to train staff as the CHIPS Act aims to kick start chip making in the US (Prachi Patel/IEEE Spectrum)

Prachi Patel / IEEE Spectrum: US universities are revamping their semiconductor curricula and striking industry deals to train staff as the CHIPS Act aims to kick start chip making in the US  —  The CHIPS Act could require 50,000 new engineers  —  The CHIPS and Science Act, aimed at kick-starting chip manufacturing …

Research finds AI assistants may be able to influence users without them being aware, akin to humans swaying each other through collaboration and social norms (Christopher Mims/Wall Street Journal)

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal: Research finds AI assistants may be able to influence users without them being aware, akin to humans swaying each other through collaboration and social norms  —  AI assistants may be able to change our views without our realizing it.  Says one expert: ‘What’s interesting here is the subtlety.’

Sensor Tower: 156 of the 475 top five apps in 95 countries and regions for Q1 were Chinese, up 8% from 2020; Chinese apps took the top three spots in the US (Nikkei Asia)

Nikkei Asia: Sensor Tower: 156 of the 475 top five apps in 95 countries and regions for Q1 were Chinese, up 8% from 2020; Chinese apps took the top three spots in the US  —  Security concerns and lack of market access drives crackdowns around the world  —  Chinese apps such as TikTok and Shein […]

How an overhaul of Amazon’s US logistics network in recent months cut delivery times, changed inventory management, and altered search results on its website (Sebastian Herrera/Wall Street Journal)

Sebastian Herrera / Wall Street Journal: How an overhaul of Amazon’s US logistics network in recent months cut delivery times, changed inventory management, and altered search results on its website  —  Company seeks to trim package travel time, though some sellers still cite delays  —  Amazon.com has upended its vast logistics network …

Google barely mentioned the next Android version, Android 14, during the 2023 I/O keynote, as the company prioritizes continuous updates over annual OS upgrades (Allison Johnson/The Verge)

Allison Johnson / The Verge: Google barely mentioned the next Android version, Android 14, during the 2023 I/O keynote, as the company prioritizes continuous updates over annual OS upgrades  —  There was a chilly marine layer hanging in the air above the Shoreline Amphitheater, but the danceable beats thumped on in spite of it.

A look at Forever Voices, which launched GPT-4-powered chatbot CarynAI, letting the fans of influencer Caryn Marjorie chat with her replica for $1 per minute (Taylor Lorenz/Washington Post)

Taylor Lorenz / Washington Post: A look at Forever Voices, which launched GPT-4-powered chatbot CarynAI, letting the fans of influencer Caryn Marjorie chat with her replica for $1 per minute  —  CarynAI is the first AI companion product from a new startup called Forever Voices, allowing users to chat with a digital version of the […]