THE BIG STORY

The Wraps Come Off Vision Pro

Apple this week unveiled its long-awaited mixed-reality headset, the Vision Pro, Apple Insider reports. Following years of rumors, Apple used its keynote address at the Worldwide Developer Conference to introduce its headset. It is the company’s first major new product in a decade.

Vision Pro, which will start at $3,499 and launch early next year, is positioned as primarily an AR device, but it can switch between augmented and full virtual reality using a dial, The Verge reports.

Apple will have to win over some skeptics. In advance of the unveiling, Alex Kantrowitz wrote on his Big Technology blog that "rather than perfecting an existing category—as it did with phones, watches, and headphones—(Apple is) simply nudging mixed reality forward, capitulating to some of the same technical limitations holding back its peers."

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CRYPTO

Binance, Coinbase Sued by SEC

The SEC on Monday filed 13 charges against Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, and its founder, Changpeng Zhao, alleging both comingled billions of dollars in user funds and sent them to a European company controlled by Zhao, CNBC reports.The next day, the SEC charged Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the U.S. with operating its crypto asset trading platform as an unregistered national securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency.

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STARTUPS

The New Venture Challenging ChatGPT

AI's latest hot startup, Character.ai, is challenging ChatGPT using the power of personality, Axios reports. It lets users converse with more than 10 million characters—fictional versions of any person living or dead—based on data scraped from the open internet. Character.ai is beating ChatGPT on average user time, and has a much higher growth rate in monthly users. 

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LAW

Section 230 May Not Apply to Generative AI

Section 230, the law that shields online platforms from liability for user-generated content, has withstood several recent challenges. But a big new question is emerging: Does Section 230 apply to generative AI? The law’s 1996 drafters told the New York Times DealBook they think it does not. Platforms are immune only to suits about material created by others, not their own work, and generative AI is blurring that line.

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QUICK HITS

• Customers of Venmo, PayPal and CashApp should not keep money with those apps for the long term because the funds might not be safe during a crisis, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warns. Generally, funds held in the apps are not covered by deposit insurance.
• Google announced an AI update for search within Gmail, which will deliver “top results” for queries, featured above the “all results” section.
• Meta will require that office-assigned staff return to in-person work for at least three days a week starting Sept. 5. Apple and other major tech companies also have mandated hybrid work schedules and, like Apple, have faced resistance.

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"They attempted to evade U.S. securities laws by announcing sham controls that they disregarded behind the scenes so that they could keep high-value U.S. customers on their platforms."

—SEC Chair Gary Gensler, on the charges brought against Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao
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