Good morning, and happy hump day. Let’s get into the tech news.
1. TPG calls on Government to get tougher on scams
The Australian reports that TPG Telecom will call on the Australian Government to crack down on phone scams at the Commsday Summit today, with the company to flag the need for a mandatory SMS sender ID register and stricter controls of Australian numbers. “We need the right policy and regulatory settings because we see how good intentions are distorted when structure and incentives are wrong,” TPG Telecom chief executive Inaki Berroeta is expected to say in his speech. “Failure to act on scams is hurting Australians.”
2. Four months in the slammer for Binance founder
The founder of crypto trading company Binance Changpeng Zhao has been sentenced to four months in prison, for failing to introduce protections on the platform against money laundering, according to The Verge. Zhao pled guilty in November 2023 to the charges, and in the ruling today, Judge Richard Jones said Zhao prioritised “Binance’s growth and profits over compliance with US laws and regulations.”
3. Big money for news to train AI
Reuters reports that Google will begin to develop its AI products with help from News Corp, with between $US5 and $US6 million paid to the news company. “We absolutely do not have an AI content licensing deal with Google, though we do have a number of partnerships with Google across our businesses,” a News Corp spokesperson told Reuters. It’s not the only recent deal struck with a news company to train AI, with OpenAI licencing Financial Times journalism to train its technologies.
4. EU to investigate Meta election policies
The European Commission is investigating Facebook and Instagram for alleged failures to remove disinformation surrounding collections, under rules enforced by the new Digital Services Act.”Big digital platforms must live up to their obligations to put enough resources into this and today’s decision shows that we are serious about compliance,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “This Commission has created means to protect European citizens from targeted disinformation and manipulation by third countries.” I feel like we all know what ‘third countries’ means, even if Russia isn’t explicitly mentioned.
5. Twitch goes TikTok
Per Bloomberg, Twitch has begun to roll out its short-form video platform, Discovery Feed, as an extension of the Twitch gaming live stream platform, and an obvious competitor to TikTok, because companies have forgotten about new ideas. The new feed is being rolled out to Twitch’s mobile app, with an obvious lean towards gaming content, though it’ll be interesting to see how much gaming creators rely on it. Bloomberg says that it had already seen a short form video of a university professor welcoming a class and *checks notes* a streamer getting attacked on the street.
BONUS ITEM: Off to the great hangar in the sky. It’s not explicitly tech, but I don’t care.
— Ross (@RossDoesHisBest) April 30, 2024
Have a lovely day.
Photo: Eric Piermont (Getty Images)