🗺️ Apple Maps Web Beta, Google Reddit Deal, Meta’s Big Purge
Good morning. It’s Thursday, July 25. Today we are covering:
Apple Maps launches on the web in new public beta
Google's Exclusive Reddit Access
Meta Removes 63,000 Accounts Linked to Sextortion Scammers
CrowdStrike global outage to cost US Fortune 500 companies $5.4bn
AMD delays its Ryzen 9000 launch due to unspecified quality issue - new launch in August; chipmaker pulls back all units shipped globally for quality checks
Let’s dive in
Apple Maps launches on the web in new public beta
By Chance Miller via 9to5Mac
Apple Maps is now available on the web in public beta, accessible via Safari and Chrome on Mac and iPad, and Chrome and Edge on Windows PCs.
The web version includes directions, businesses and points of interest, Guides, and will add the Look Around feature in the coming months, though users currently can't log in to their Apple ID.
Developers can link to Apple Maps on the web using MapKit JS, and support for additional languages, browsers, and platforms will expand over time.
𝕏: This is great! Something I've wanted for a long time now. Also... just one step closer to launching their own search engine! - Dylan (@DylanMcD8)
Google's Exclusive Reddit Access
By Emanuel Maiberg via 404 Media
Google is now the exclusive search engine that can surface results from Reddit, blocking competitors like Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Mojeek.
This exclusivity stems from a multi-million dollar deal allowing Google to scrape Reddit data to train its AI products, highlighting Google’s search monopoly and its implications.
Reddit has updated its robots.txt file to block other search engines, reflecting its efforts to protect user-generated content from unauthorized scraping.
𝕏: Considering like 50% of my Google searches are solved by just going to the first Reddit result, this is an *insane* bargain at $60m, and the decimal should be moved over once or twice to the right. - Aric Toler (@AricToler)
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Meta Removes 63,000 Accounts Linked to Sextortion Scammers
By Olivia Carville via Bloomberg
Meta removed 63,000 Instagram accounts in Nigeria linked to sextortion scammers who blackmailed targets after soliciting intimate photos.
The purge included thousands of Facebook accounts, pages, and groups sharing scripts on how to blackmail and sexually extort users.
One network of 20 criminals was running 2,500 fake accounts, highlighting the scale of the operation.
𝕏: Six weeks after my @BW cover story on sextortion scams driving teens to suicide, @Meta carried out a mass purge. Today, it announced it’s removed 63,000 fake accounts linked to sextortion scammers in Nigeria. - Olivia Carville (@livcarville)
CrowdStrike global outage to cost US Fortune 500 companies $5.4bn
By Nick Robins-Early via The Guardian
CrowdStrike's faulty update caused a global technology outage, projected to cost US Fortune 500 companies $5.4 billion, excluding Microsoft.
The outage severely impacted sectors like banking, healthcare, and airlines, grounding flights and disrupting hospital operations.
CrowdStrike has pledged to increase software testing and gradually roll out updates to prevent future widespread failures, following the crash of 8.5 million Windows machines.
𝕏: If you want to know the bubble the cybersecurity industry exists in.. this comment (they’re the CEO of a security vendor) combined with the likes (which include from CrowdStrike staff). - Kevin Beaumont (@GossiTheDog)
By Paul Alcorn via Tom's Hardware
AMD has delayed the launch of its Zen 5 Ryzen 9000 series due to an unspecified quality issue, pushing the release to August.
The company has pulled back all Ryzen 9000 units shipped globally to retailers and OEMs for quality checks.
The delay affects all units delivered worldwide, as AMD works to address the unspecified quality concerns.
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