Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg suggested Tumblr’s unloved Live service wasn’t long for this world last year, and it’s now shutting down January 24th. Users can transfer any in-app currency they bought to the video chat service MeetMe, which uses the same underlying tech. The Tumblr userbase, unsurprisingly, seems pleased.
[Help Center]
Last week Qualcomm announced a new AR/VR chip and reference design aimed at competing with Apple’s upcoming headset; yesterday Xreal (formerly Nreal) debuted some new spatial computing glasses with the same goal. And today the two companies announced a multiyear partnership that could include:
AR external hosts and processors; purpose-built devices and experience categories, such as fitness and sports; and artificial intelligence integrations.
A little vague, I’ll admit! But both companies have long AR track records and have worked together before, so as partnerships go, it’s a safer bet than many.
Oral arguments in Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton — respectively concerning whether Florida and Texas can take over social network moderation — were finally put on the docket. Will we see a continuation of last year’s surprisingly circumspect internet law discourse? Or will Clarence Thomas decide the time is right for the crackdown he so craves? We may find out in a couple months!
[SCOTUSblog]
Legal blogger Ken White (aka Popehat) isn’t outright ditching Substack over its decision to keep monetizing Nazi content. But he finds its claim of being a principled upholder of free expression, rather than a company pulling a widely recognized branding trick, a bit risible:
The brand is effective and lucrative. The “we’re the noble defenders of civilization, upholding free thought from the onslaught of the woke hordes” sells these days. It sells even when free thought is actually under more profound assault from cynical and powerful and absolutely not woke forces. It sells even though — as I will get to in a minute — there’s a difference between tolerance and platforming.
[popehat.substack.com]
But forget the thinkpieces about weapons of mass destruction — it’s that Kai Bird, coauthor of J. Robert Oppenheimer biography American Prometheus, is part of a fresh group of authors joining one of the numerous copyright lawsuits against generative AI companies.
No, not the one with Michael Chabon. Or the Sarah Silverman one. Or the one with George R.R. Martin... although those are in the same court district, so we wouldn’t be surprised if their fates are closely linked. My god, can the Copyright Office finish reading all those public comments and help clear things up?
It’s from New York, and it would require large social media companies to let third-party services do things including blocking or muting content on behalf of users — basically mandating a certain level of free, open API access. Mike Masnick has some thoughtful analysis:
In effect this would roll back some aspects of companies like ExTwitter and Reddit trying to restrict access to their APIs and putting up ridiculously expensive paywalls for that access. It would be tearing down walls and enabling more innovation. [...] I like the concept of the bill, but I’m just not sure New York really has the authority to do this like this, and I worry on the margins about some of the way the bill is written.
