Techmeme River
Saturday, July 27, 2024
2:35 AM
The 2024 Paris Summer Olympics is using real-time AI-based video surveillance tech to detect and predict threats, raising concerns over mass surveillance
Bloomberg Law
12:30 AM
Filing: the US DOJ says TikTok collected data about its users' views on gun control, abortion, and religion, and censored content at ByteDance's direction
Wall Street Journal
Friday, July 26, 2024
11:40 PM
The International Association of Machinists says Apple reached a three-year tentative labor agreement with retail workers at a Towson, Maryland store, a first
Bloomberg
10:15 PM
Sources: Honeywell is considering a US IPO of its majority-owned quantum computing firm Quantinuum as soon as 2025, and could seek a valuation of about $10B
Bloomberg
7:40 PM
Chinese self-driving startup WeRide files to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol WRD, reporting a loss of $268M on revenue of $55M in 2023
Bloomberg
6:55 PM
Freelancer.com, iFixit, and others say Anthropic's crawler has aggressively scraped their websites, potentially breaching their terms of service
Financial Times
5:15 PM
A look at the race to build advanced AI robots; PitchBook: robotics startups have raised $6.5B across 552 deals in 2024 vs. $9.7B across 1,256 deals in 2023
Financial Times
3:00 PM
Ireland's Data Protection Commission says it is surprised and is “seeking clarity” about X's move to automatically allow user data to train Grok
Financial Times
2:20 PM
US unions are trying to organize staff at chip firms set to receive CHIPS Act grants; CWA is pushing to organize workers at Intel and other big chip companies
Wall Street Journal
12:35 PM
A North Korean Hacker Tricked a US Security Vendor Into Hiring Him—and Immediately Tried to Hack Them
Wired
11:35 AM
X activates a setting, on by default, that gives it permission to train Grok on user's posts; the setting can be turned off on the web but not in the mobile app
Windows Central
10:45 AM
Kamala Harris, who began her career in the Bay Area and was involved in Biden's pro-tech actions like the CHIPS Act, sees a surge of support from tech donors
CNN
9:15 AM
How TikTok is trying to fend off a potential US ban via ad campaigns, funding creators' lawsuits, and spending $6M on lobbying in H1 2024, vs. $3.5M in H1 2023
Bloomberg
8:15 AM
An interview with Samsung's mobile chief TM Roh on the Galaxy AI push, monetizing AI, future products such as foldables and mixed reality headsets, and more
CNBC
7:20 AM
A profile of, and interview with, Sequoia Managing Partner Roelof Botha on increasing Sequoia's focus on AI investments, staying politically neutral, and more
Fortune
6:40 AM
The US Commerce Department says it signed a nonbinding preliminary agreement with Amkor for a CHIPS Act award consisting of $400M in grants and $200M in loans
Phoenix Business Journal
6:05 AM
SK Hynix announces plans to invest roughly $6.8B through 2028 on a chip plant in Yongin, South Korea, including a “mini-fab” to process 300mm silicon wafers
Reuters
5:55 AM
The Biden administration says Apple has agreed to adopt the White House's voluntary safeguards for AI, joining OpenAI, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and others
Bloomberg
4:10 AM
Inside JD Vance's VC career: five years, two firms before co-founding Narya, investing in AppHarvest, which faced lawsuits and filed for bankruptcy, and more
Wall Street Journal
2:05 AM
As xAI builds a supercomputer in Memphis set for 2025, many locals are wary of its benefits, and environmental advocates are puzzled over its potential effects
Bloomberg
Thursday, July 25, 2024
11:25 PM
A look at the flood of “fancam” Kamala Harris videos and memes on short-form video platforms, echoing the “meme armies” that backed Donald Trump's campaigns
Washington Post
10:40 PM
Self-driving startup Applied Intuition raised $300M+ as part of a secondary deal that allowed shareholders and employees to sell shares in the $6B company
Bloomberg
10:15 PM
Florida-based IntelePeer, which develops software to help businesses automate customer contact centers using AI, raised $140M in equity and debt
Denver Business Journal
9:55 PM
FTC's Lina Khan says open-weights AI models can promote competition and “liberate startups from the arbitrary whims of closed developers and cloud gatekeepers”
Bloomberg
9:30 PM
Binarly: UEFI Secure Boot is completely compromised on 200+ device models sold by Acer, Dell, Gigabyte, Intel, and Supermicro due to a cryptographic key leak
Ars Technica
8:45 PM
The US DOJ indicts a North Korean hacker, still at large, for his alleged role in the Andariel group's cyberattacks on US hospitals, NASA, and military bases
Associated Press
8:20 PM
Kamala Harris joins TikTok, after an explosion of Harris memes since she announced her presidential run; her account has attracted 1.6M+ followers in ~16 hours
Variety
7:45 PM
Memo: Jack Dorsey plans a Block restructuring to remove business unit silos and group staff by function and warns that it may feel “disruptive or uncomfortable”
Fortune
7:30 PM
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz says 97% of Windows sensors are back online, about a week after CrowdStrike shipped a faulty update that bricked 8.5M Windows PCs
Axios
7:15 PM
A decade-old drama between David Sacks and Parker Conrad blew up into a fight on X over VC behavior, drawing in Paul Graham and other big Silicon Valley names
TechCrunch
6:30 PM
Leaked promo materials reveal Pixel 9 series specs: all four phones get the Tensor G4, the Pixel 9 Pro comes in 6.3" and 6.8" models with 16GB of RAM, and more
91mobiles
5:30 PM
Canalys: China's smartphone shipments rose 10% YoY in Q2, with Huawei's shipments up 41% YoY; Apple's market share in China dropped from 16% in Q2 2023 to 14%
Reuters
5:10 PM
Amazon says a judge has dismissed a Washington state case, alleging that Amazon exposed warehouse workers to injuries, for lack of evidence
Bloomberg
4:50 PM
Anthropic says it does not support California's AI safety bill and suggests changes, including a shift from “pre-harm enforcement” to “outcome-based deterrence”
Axios
4:35 PM
Epic plans to bring its mobile games to AltStore on iOS in the EU, and remove its games from the Galaxy Store to protest Samsung blocking sideloading by default
Epic Games
4:25 PM
Russia says it will throttle YouTube download speeds on computers by 70% by the end of next week, as “a consequence of the anti-Russian policy of the host”
Bloomberg
3:50 PM
SAG-AFTRA announces a strike starting on Friday against major video game studios, including EA, after talks for a new contract broke down over AI protections
Associated Press
3:15 PM
Sonos CEO Patrick Spence apologizes for Sonos' redesigned app, which launched in May to widespread criticism, and promises biweekly app updates through the fall
The Verge
2:45 PM
OpenAI says it partnered with publishers such as News Corp and The Atlantic to build its SearchGPT search tool; publishers can manage how their content appears
Wall Street Journal
2:35 PM
Meta says WhatsApp now has more than 100M MAUs in the US and that more than 50% of WhatsApp users in the country have an iPhone; WhatsApp has 2B+ MAUs globally
TechCrunch
2:16 PM
OpenAI unveils SearchGPT, a GPT-4-powered search tool that can organize links and summarize its findings, limited to 10K users but eventually coming to ChatGPT
The Verge
2:00 PM
California's Supreme Court upholds Prop 22, allowing Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and other companies to keep classifying California drivers as independent contractors
Bloomberg
12:50 PM
FTC's newly unredacted filings quote an Adobe exec comparing early termination fees to “heroin”; Adobe's Dana Rao says the person was not on the leadership team
The Verge
12:25 PM
Google updates its Gemini chatbot with Gemini 1.5 Flash and a 32K-token context window in its free tier, links to related content for some prompts, and more
The Verge
11:45 AM
Google DeepMind rolls out AlphaProof AI model, which specializes in math reasoning, and AlphaGeometry 2, an updated version of a model focused on geometry
Bloomberg
11:25 AM
Samsung Galaxy Ring review: great hardware, long battery life, and requires no subscription, but it's Android only and health tracking accuracy is a mixed bag
The Verge
11:05 AM
Sources: in a few weeks, the EU is set to hit Meta with its first antitrust fine, for up to 10% of its 2023 global revenue, for tying Marketplace and Facebook
Reuters
10:35 AM
The new Disney+, Hulu, and Max streaming bundle goes on sale in the US for $16.99 per month with ads and $29.99 per month without ads
Variety
10:15 AM
Source and doc: Runway scraped thousands of videos from YouTube creators and brands, including Disney and VICE News, to train its Gen-3 AI video generation tool
404 Media
10:05 AM
Chainguard, which helps companies secure their software supply chain, raised a $140M Series C co-led by Redpoint, Lightspeed, and IVP at a $1.12B valuation
GeekWire
9:50 AM
OpenAI details Rule-Based Rewards, a method it has been using to automate some model fine-tuning and cut down the time required to ensure a model behaves safely
VentureBeat
9:10 AM
The UK FCA fines Coinbase £3.5M for providing payment services to 13K+ “high-risk” customers, in the agency's first enforcement action against a crypto company
Financial Times
8:40 AM
We need a US-led global coalition of like-minded countries and a new strategy to ensure that a democratic vision for AI prevails over an authoritarian one
Washington Post
8:15 AM
DefiLlama and Wintermute: the aggregate market cap of stablecoins crossed $164B for the first time since the collapse of Terra in May 2022; USDT is at $114.26B
CoinDesk
7:15 AM
Crunchbase: in H1 2024, generative AI startups raised $500M across 198 angel/seed deals, $8.7B across 39 early-stage deals, and $3.1B across 18 late-stage deals
TechCrunch
6:35 AM
The Oversight Board urges Meta to refine its policies around AI-generated explicit images, following investigations into how the company handles such images
TechCrunch
6:15 AM
Google debuts new Maps features in India to help users easily navigate through flyovers and narrow roads, says it made an AI model specifically for Indian roads
TechCrunch
6:00 AM
Beijing-based AI startup Baichuan raised about $687M at a $2.8B valuation from investors, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen governments, and Alibaba
Bloomberg
4:10 AM
Revolut secures a UK banking license, ending a more-than-three-year-long regulatory battle; the London-based fintech has ~9M UK customers and 45M+ globally
Financial Times
2:30 AM
A NASA-funded study of satellite data finds traffic-related NO2 pollution spiked ~20% near ~150K large US warehouses, which have proliferated due to e-commerce
The Verge
2:10 AM
STMicro reports Q2 net revenue down 25.3% YoY to $3.23B and cuts its FY 2024 revenue outlook to $13.2B to $13.7B, down from a previous range of $14B to $15B
Bloomberg
1:55 AM
India drops the 2% equalization levy on digital services offered by foreign companies starting August 1; the levy had become a point of contention with the US
The Register
12:55 AM
A group of 17 US lawmakers ask Meta to delay shutting down CrowdTangle for at least six months, saying that Meta Content Library has “significant limitations”
Axios
12:40 AM
Analysis: since the start of Ukraine war in 2022, Russia obtained ~$4B worth of US restricted chips from 6K+ companies, including from shell firms in Hong Kong
New York Times
12:20 AM
Lakera, which helps enterprises protect generative AI apps from LLM vulnerabilities, raised a $20M Series A led by Atomico, bringing its total funding to $30M
TechCrunch
12:05 AM
Enterprise financial software company OneStream's shares closed up 34.25% at $26.85 in its Nasdaq debut, giving it a market cap of ~$6.2B, after a ~$490M IPO
Bloomberg
Wednesday, July 24, 2024
11:25 PM
Dazz, which provides AI-based cloud security remediation software for enterprises, raised $50M from Greylock and others, sources say at a ~$400M valuation
TechCrunch
10:25 PM
ServiceNow President CJ Desai leaves the company after an internal probe found he violated company policy related to a US contract and an ex-Army CIO's hiring
Bloomberg
10:05 PM
Meta removes ~63K Instagram accounts used by sextortion scammers in Nigeria, along with ~7,200 Facebook accounts, Pages, and Groups linked to the Yahoo Boys
Bloomberg
9:55 PM
Microsoft says “Bing stopped crawling Reddit” after Reddit updated its robots.txt file on July 1 to prohibit “all crawling of their site”
Search Engine Land
9:35 PM
Elon Musk's X poll asking whether Tesla should invest $5B in xAI ends with 67.9% voting yes, after Musk said on Tesla's earnings call that he supported the idea
Bloomberg
8:55 PM
SK Hynix Q2: revenue up 125% YoY to ~$11.86B, operating profit of ~$3.96B, its highest quarterly profit in six years, and sees further rising chip demand in H2
Reuters
7:45 PM
AMD delays its Zen 5 Ryzen 9000 launch, originally set for July, to August due to an unspecified quality issue, and pulls back all shipped units to replace them
Tom's Hardware
7:15 PM
Privacy-focused developer Proton debuts a self-custody bitcoin wallet, its first cryptocurrency product, initially for early access Proton Visionary subscribers
TechCrunch
6:35 PM
Microsoft unveils Bing generative search, which shows LLM-generated answers with the sources used to create them, currently available to a small subset of users
Windows Central
5:05 PM
AltStore PAL now offers third-party iOS apps in the EU, starting with two torrenting apps, a social discovery app for dating, and a PC emulator
The Verge
4:45 PM
IBM reports Q2 revenue up 2% YoY to $15.8B, vs. $15.6B est., and says bookings for AI consulting and software have exceeded $2B since mid-2023, vs. $1B in Q1
Bloomberg
4:30 PM
Around 500 World of Warcraft workers vote to unionize with the CWA, bringing the number of unionized US gaming employees at Microsoft to around 1,750
Bloomberg
4:00 PM
Apple launches Apple Maps on the web in beta, available in English and compatible with Safari and Chrome on Mac and iPad, and Chrome and Edge on Windows PCs
9to5Mac
3:20 PM
Mistral announces Mistral Large 2, the new generation of its flagship model, with 123B parameters; commercial usage requires a separate license
VentureBeat
2:40 PM
Reddit appears to be blocking search engines that don't rely on Google's indexing; Bing, DuckDuckGo, Mojeek, and others are not showing recent Reddit results
404 Media
2:05 PM
Atos appoints its chairman Jean Pierre Mustier as CEO to replace departing boss Paul Saleh, in its fifth top management reshuffle in less than two years
Reuters
1:25 PM
Insurer Parametrix estimates that the global outage sparked by CrowdStrike's faulty update will cost US Fortune 500 companies, excluding Microsoft, $5.4B
The Guardian
12:55 PM
Airtable launches Cobuilder, which can generate apps from text prompts and match them to relevant data and customer information already stored within Airtable
Forbes
12:00 PM
All Raise: ~18% of US VC firms have at least one female partner, double from 2018; PitchBook says female founders had almost 28% of total US deal value in 2023
Bloomberg
11:35 AM
Researchers suggest that using “synthetic” data, created by AI systems to train LLMs, could lead to the rapid degradation of AI models and a collapse over time
Financial Times
11:25 AM
Stability AI unveils Stable Video 4D, a model based on its Stable Video Diffusion model that takes video input and generates videos from eight new perspectives
VentureBeat
10:40 AM
Early Microsoft Copilot adopters say the AI assistants excel at distilling information but require cleaning up corporate data and lots of employee training
Bloomberg
10:15 AM
The US NCSC warns US tech startups that “foreign threat actors”, including China, might use private investment to exploit them and threaten national security
Financial Times
9:55 AM
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 review: very good battery life, easy multitasking, and seven years of updates, but a narrow cover screen, and bulky, heavy, and expensive
The Verge
9:40 AM
Law enforcement officials and experts: criminal groups are shying away from large ransomware-as-a-service platforms after disruption operations and an exit scam
The Record
9:15 AM
Google updates the Play Store on Android to add categorized “Collections” that show installed app content, expand Play Pass, and add curated comics in Japan
The Verge
8:35 AM
Compliance startup Vanta raised a $150M Series C led by Sequoia Capital at a $2.45B valuation, up from $1.6B in 2022, to accelerate adding AI to its products
Bloomberg
8:25 AM
Twitch introduces new policy and moderation updates to curb sexual harassment, including making its policy “easier to understand” and adding moderation tools
The Verge
8:15 AM
The Overture Maps Foundation, backed by Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, TomTom, and others, releases four global open maps datasets; Transportation remains in beta
TechCrunch
7:50 AM
LA-based Pearl, an FDA-approved startup that uses AI to assist dentists to make diagnoses, raised a $58M Series B led by Left Lane Capital at a $400M valuation
Bloomberg
7:30 AM
Ferrari plans to accept crypto payments for its cars at European dealers from the end of July, and internationally by the end of 2024, expanding on the US
Reuters
6:35 AM
Kamala Harris took a leading White House role on AI, including meeting executives; a Harris win could mean a continued relatively smooth runway for AI companies
New York Times
6:10 AM
Google's failed deal with Wiz, and with HubSpot before that, puts Google in an awkward spot to grow Cloud; Wiz staff are likely upset at missing a big payday
Bloomberg
5:45 AM
A profile of Blake Benthall, arrested in 2014 for running Silk Road 2.0, which had 1.7M users and $8M/month sales, as he promotes his crypto startup Fathom(x)
New York Times
4:50 AM
French cybersecurity company Exclusive Networks receives a binding buyout proposal from private equity firms CD&R and Permira valuing Exclusive at ~€2.2B
Bloomberg
4:30 AM
Irish government data: data centers in Ireland used 21% of the country's electricity in 2023, up 20% YoY, topping the 18% of electricity used by all urban homes
The Guardian
4:15 AM
A dip in rental profits and a shift to longer stays has led some US hosts and property managers to circumvent Airbnb, including asking guests to book directly
Bloomberg
2:40 AM
Some in Silicon Valley hope Kamala Harris could provide a chance for a reset, after years of bipartisan criticism in Washington, DC, toward Big Tech companies
Politico
2:30 AM
CrowdStrike says the problematic July 19 software update that brought down 8.5M Windows PCs was deployed into production due to “a bug in the Content Validator”
The Register
2:20 AM
Foxconn announces plans to invest $137.5M to construct a new business HQ in Zhengzhou, China, after signing a contract with the Henan provincial government
Reuters
1:35 AM
Sources: enterprise financial software maker OneStream raised $490M after pricing its IPO at $20/share, above its $17-$19 marketed range, for a $4.6B valuation
Reuters
12:50 AM
Elon Musk says Starlink service is now active in a hospital in Gaza, reflecting Israel's reluctance for Gaza residents to have internet access more broadly
Washington Post
12:40 AM
In an effort to compete with Shein and Temu, Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall offer qualified merchants, selling goods in the fashion category, free overseas shipping
South China Morning Post
Tuesday, July 23, 2024
11:15 PM
India scraps “angel tax” for all classes of investors, a major victory to the country's startup ecosystem that had lobbied for years against the measure
TechCrunch
10:35 PM
Seattle-based QA Wolf, which helps companies automate QA testing for apps, raised a $36M Series B and opens a waitlist for Android and iOS test automation
TechCrunch
9:50 PM
Texas Instruments reports Q2 revenue down 16% YoY to $3.82B and forecasts Q3 revenue in line with analysts' estimates of $4.14B, easing fears of a chip downturn
Bloomberg
9:25 PM
X reverts its water pistol emoji back to a firearm on the web, after Twitter originally switched the pistol emoji from a realistic-looking handgun in 2018
Emojipedia
9:00 PM
Meta says it will allow developers to use the outputs from Llama models, including Llama 3.1 405B, to improve other models for the first time
Ars Technica
8:40 PM
Elon Musk says “I am not donating $45M a month to Trump” and that he created America PAC to support Trump, without revealing how much he is donating
Fortune
7:55 PM
Level AI, maker of AI-powered tools to automate customer service tasks, raised a $39.4M Series C led by Adams Street Partners, taking its total raised to $73.1M
TechCrunch
7:45 PM
Sources: Samsung's HBM3 chips have been cleared by Nvidia for use in its H20 GPU, developed for the Chinese market; HBM3E chips are still being tested
Reuters
6:45 PM
Mytra, a startup building autonomous robots for warehouses that can move loads up to 3,000 pounds, emerges from stealth with $78M in total funding
TechCrunch
6:35 PM
Alphabet reports Other Bets Q2 revenue of $365M, up from $285M in Q2 2023, a $1.13B loss, up from $813M YoY, and announces a “multiyear” $5B investment in Waymo
CNBC
6:20 PM
US spot ether ETFs hit $1B+ in trading volume across nine funds, a strong debut but far from the $4.6B traded during the spot bitcoin ETFs debut in January 2024
Bloomberg
6:05 PM
Internal messages: Meta staff complained about Threads' algorithm limiting political posts, after the For You page was slow to show news of Biden dropping out
The Information
5:50 PM
Sources: the Google-Wiz deal failed, in part, due to antitrust fears and CrowdStrike's outage, which increased the potential value of cloud security companies
Bloomberg
5:20 PM
US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says the Senate will take up the Kids Online Safety Act this week, signaling there's enough support among his colleagues
Courthouse News Service
4:40 PM
Google Cloud Q2 revenue grew 29% YoY to $10.35B, vs. $10.2B est.; Cloud exceeded $10B in quarterly revenues and $1B in operating profit for the first time
CNBC
4:30 PM
YouTube Q2 ad revenue grew 13% YoY to $8.66B, vs. $8.93B est.; Google's subscriptions, platforms, and devices unit that includes YouTube TV had revenue of $9.3B
The Hollywood Reporter
4:16 PM
Source: OpenAI has reassigned Aleksander Madry, the head of its Preparedness AI safety team, to a role within its research organization focusing on reasoning
The Information
4:07 PM
Alphabet reports Q2 revenue up 14% YoY to $84.7B, net income up 29% YoY to $23.6B, Search revenue of $48.5B, up from $42.6B YoY, headcount down 1% to 179,582
Alphabet
4:05 PM
Daniel Ek says Spotify is working on a deluxe Spotify tier, costing around $17 to $18, that has “a lot more control, a lot higher quality across the board”
The Verge
3:50 PM
Comcast reports Peacock Q2 revenue up 28% YoY to $1B, and a $348M loss, down from $651M in Q2 2023; paying subs were up 38% YoY to 33M but down from 33.5M in Q1
The Hollywood Reporter
2:30 PM
Harvey, which is building an AI-powered “copilot” for lawyers, raised a $100M Series C led by GV that values it at $1.5B and brings its total funding to $206M
TechCrunch
2:00 PM
dYdX says v3, an older version of its DeFi crypto exchange that is reportedly for sale and averages ~$1.5B/week in derivatives trading, “has been compromised”
CoinDesk
1:25 PM
A staffer at Activision Blizzard, which had layoffs in 2024 affecting many 2D artists, says some remaining artists were “forced to use AI to aid in their work”
Wired
1:15 PM
Mark Zuckerberg argues that “open source AI” is the path forward, closed models are vulnerable to vendor lock-in and state-backed espionage, and more
Meta
12:50 PM
Meta plans to roll out its AI assistant to the Quest in August, limited to US and Canada users in experimental mode, after debuting on the Ray-Ban smart glasses
Engadget
12:25 PM
The US FTC seeks info from Mastercard, Accenture, and six other companies related to their “surveillance pricing products” that use personal data, AI, and more
The Record
12:15 PM
Meta VP Rob Sherman confirms a report that Meta received an EU request to pause future AI model training on data in the EU, and says the EU may get left behind
Financial Times
12:05 PM
Netflix last week reported it is developing 80 games, most “interactive narrative games” based on its IP, and will debut one a month; Netflix offers 100+ games
Fortune
11:52 AM
Sources: Apple is working on a foldable, clamshell-design iPhone that could debut as soon as 2026, and reached out to Asian component suppliers in recent months
The Information
11:12 AM
Meta debuts Llama 3.1 405B, the “first frontier-level open source AI model”, as well as new Llama 3.1 70B and 8B models, and says it's working on Llama 4
Bloomberg
9:45 AM
Posh, an iOS app that offers a TikTok-like vertical feed of events, raised a $22M Series A, taking its total funding to $31M, and claims 2M registered users
TechCrunch
9:30 AM
Adobe rolls out new Illustrator features like Generative Shape Fill, powered by its latest Firefly Vector model now in beta, and new and updated Photoshop tools
The Verge
8:25 AM
Vancouver-based Clio, which makes cloud tools to help law firms run more efficiently, raised a $900M Series F at a $3B valuation, up from $1.6B in April 2021
TechCrunch
8:10 AM
Amazon begins rolling out a new UI for Prime Video to help distinguish content included with Prime, update its navigation bar, manage subscriptions, and more
Variety
7:30 AM
Dragos details a sample of Russia-linked malware used in a hack in January 2024 to target a heating utility in Lviv, Ukraine, cutting service to 600 buildings
Wired
7:15 AM
Swiss computer hardware maker Logitech reports Q2 revenue up 12% YoY to $4.34B and expects 2024 sales up 1% to 3%, up from 0% to 2% previously forecast
Bloomberg
7:00 AM
GM says Cruise restarted test operations in three US cities after a vehicle dragged a pedestrian in October 2023, and suspends developing its Cruise Origin cab
New York Times
6:50 AM
Google Research and others detail NeuralGCM, a model combining ML and weather forecasting tools that produced a breakthrough in accurate long-range predictions
Financial Times
6:40 AM
A five-month FCC investigation finds AT&T's February 2024 outage that lasted 12+ hours blocked 92M+ voice calls and prevented 25K+ attempts to reach 911
Reuters
6:30 AM
The EU opens an in-depth investigation into Delivery Hero and its Spanish subsidiary Glovo to determine if they may have illegally colluded with each other
Bloomberg
6:20 AM
Spotify reports Q2 revenue up 20% YoY to €3.8B, MAUs up 14% YoY to 626M, subscribers up 12% YoY to 246M, above est., and €266M operating income; SPOT jumps 12%+
Bloomberg
6:05 AM
Mozilla and AI Forensics: TikTok Lite, launched in 2018 and aimed at poorer markets, leaves AI-generated content unlabeled and lacks other similar safeguards
Wired
5:55 AM
Leaked images show the upcoming “Google TV Streamer”, a set-top box with a pill-shaped design, to replace the dongle form factor, and an updated, longer remote
9to5Google
5:45 AM
India plans to cut import duty on mobile phones and some key parts from 20% to 15%, a move that will directly benefit Apple, as part of its 2024/2025 budget
Reuters
5:35 AM
NXP Semiconductors reports Q2 revenue down 5% YoY to $3.13B, automotive chip sales down 7% YoY, and forecasts Q3 revenue below $3.35B est.; NXPI drops 9%+
Bloomberg
4:15 AM
Scientists hunt for clues about China's supercomputing progress as Chinese scientists turn secretive and stop participating in the Top500, after US sanctions
Wall Street Journal
2:00 AM
A profile of Nick Pickles, who has recently been promoted to X's VP of global affairs; sources say Pickles has become the right-hand man to CEO Linda Yaccarino
Financial Times
1:15 AM
Malaysia plans to require social media and messaging apps to register for a renewable license starting late 2024; Singapore asks online platforms to curb scams
Nikkei Asia
12:50 AM
Sources: TikTok plans to launch TikTok Shop in Spain and Ireland as early as October; the rollout will be smaller than previously envisioned amid EU scrutiny
Bloomberg
Monday, July 22, 2024
11:20 PM
An investigation shows how pedophiles groom children using Roblox, a problem exacerbated by Roblox not collecting any personal information beyond a user's age
Bloomberg
10:40 PM
Israeli cybersecurity startup Wiz walks away from Google's $23B acquisition offer; Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport tells staff that Wiz will pursue an IPO as planned
CNBC
10:10 PM
Sources: Amazon lost $25B+ on its devices business between 2017 and 2021, and its plan to sell hardware at a lower price and make money elsewhere hasn't worked
Wall Street Journal
9:10 PM
Wa'ed Ventures, the $500M venture arm of Saudi Aramco, made its first investment in South Korea, putting $15M in AI chipmaker Rebellions
Bloomberg
8:05 PM
FlightAware: Reeling from CrowdStrike-related outages, Delta has canceled 5,000+ flights since Friday, including 1,159 flights on Monday and 400+ on Tuesday
Reuters
7:55 PM
AMD President Victor Peng, who rejoined the chipmaker in 2022 following its acquisition of Xilinx, where he served as CEO, plans to retire on August 30, 2024
Bloomberg
7:15 PM
Monarch Tractor, which makes autonomous electric tractors, raised a $133M Series C co-led by Astanor and HH-CTBC Partnership at a $500M+ valuation
TechCrunch
5:40 PM
Intel says “elevated operating voltage” is causing “instability issues” in some Core 13th and 14th Gen desktop processors, and plans to release a fix in August
Tom's Hardware
5:25 PM
The US SEC approves spot ether ETFs from 21Shares, Bitwise, BlackRock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, VanEck, and Invesco Galaxy, which can now start trading
The Block
5:05 PM
SAP reports Q2 cloud revenue up 25% YoY to €4.15B, revenue up 10% YoY to €8.29B, a €918M net profit, and says a “restructuring” will affect ~10,000 jobs
Constellation Research
4:15 PM
A rare look inside Iconiq Growth two months after the firm closed a $5.75B fund, its largest ever and 42% larger than its previous fund
Fortune
3:30 PM
Google says it won't be “deprecating third-party cookies” in Chrome and will instead keep working on “privacy-preserving alternatives” via Privacy Sandbox APIs
Digiday
3:05 PM
A Telegram for Android zero-day, patched on July 11, let attackers send malicious Android APK payloads as video files; the exploit was for sale from June 6
BleepingComputer
1:50 PM
An interview with AMD's Mike Clark, who has worked on AMD's CPU architectures for 31 years and led Zen development through all of its five generations
Tom's Hardware
12:25 PM
The EU tells Meta its “pay or consent” model for Facebook and Instagram may violate consumer protection laws, giving Meta until September 1 to propose changes
The Verge
9:40 AM
Tel Aviv-based enterprise identity management startup Linx emerges from stealth with $27M co-led by Index and Cyberstarts, after raising $6M led by Cyberstarts
TechCrunch
9:25 AM
Reddit COO Jen Wong says the company has revenue sharing deals with the NFL, the NBA, MLB, and others to get video and other content, hoping to draw advertisers
The Information
9:10 AM
Toronto-based AI startup Cohere raised a $500M Series D led by Canadian pension fund PSP at a $5.5B valuation, after raising $270M at a $2.2B valuation in 2023
Bloomberg
6:50 AM
China removes sanctions on US communications company Viasat, saying the situation had changed, without elaborating, a rare reversal for the Chinese government
Bloomberg
6:30 AM
Asus ROG Ally X review: easier to grip, comfortable to hold, nice black casing, games run smoothly, and improved, but not great, battery life, and no touchpads
Windows Central
6:10 AM
How Japan lured some AI companies with copyright laws that critics say allow using copyrighted images and other materials to train AI models, alarming creators
Financial Times
5:55 AM
Nothing's CMF Phone 1 review: excellent performance, camera, battery, display, and software, far above rival $199 phones, but no NFC and spotty US band support
Wired