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Techmeme
May 25, 2023, 11:55 AM

Top News

Kevin Breuninger / CNBC:
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign announcement on Twitter Spaces suffers crashes, feedback glitches, and audio failures  —  - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign announcement plans evening were derailed by massive technical glitches on Twitter that prevented him from declaring his candidacy.
More: New York Times, Associated Press, TechCrunch, CNN, CoinDesk, Mashable, The Verge, Insider, Gizmodo, The Guardian, Washington Post, USA Today, Blockworks, Bloomberg, Crowdfund Insider, Quinnipiac University Poll, Semafor, The Hollywood Reporter, Vox, Quartz, NPR, The Hill, Cryptopolitan, Fortune, Wired, Fox News, CNN, Wall Street Journal, Mediaite, Daily Mail, Washington Examiner, TMZ.com, TIME, Forbes, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, New York Post, Decrypt, The Hill, Reuters, Insider, NBC News, Engadget, Deadline, TechCrunch, and Variety
Financial Times:
Morgan Meaker / Wired:
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently visited London, part of tour to 17 cities, including Paris, Warsaw, and Lagos, to discuss AI, balanced regulation, and more  —  On a stop in London, the OpenAI CEO called for balanced regulation and warned of the risks of deepfake disinformation.
Rohan Goswami / CNBC:
Microsoft says Chinese state-sponsored hackers compromised “critical infrastructure organizations” across US industries, with a focus on gathering intelligence  —  - Chinese state-sponsored hackers have compromised “critical” cyber infrastructure in a variety of industries …
Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg:
Fahrenheit, a group of bidders led by Arrington Capital, win an auction to oversee Celsius Network's assets, including $500M in “liquid cryptocurrency”  —  Failed crypto lender Celsius Network LLC is poised to restart as a new company after Fahrenheit LLC, a group of bidders led …
Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
A profile of Microsoft President Brad Smith, a DC veteran pushing to shape AI regulation, including by proposing a new agency, testing a well-worn playbook  —  In 2017, Microsoft president Brad Smith made a bold prediction.  Speaking on a panel at the Davos World Economic Forum …
The Verge:
Sony announces Project Q, a handheld device with an 8-inch screen for streaming games from a PlayStation 5 via Remote Play over Wi-Fi, launching later in 2023  —  Sony has officially confirmed it's working on a PlayStation handheld to make it easier to play your PS5 games.
Oliver Whang / New York Times:
A study describes how a patient who was paralyzed from waist down was able to walk naturally again with brain and spine implants using an AI thought decoder  —  In a new study, researchers describe a device that connects the intentions of a paralyzed patient to his physical movements.
Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg:
Margrethe Vestager says the EU and the UK disagreeing on Microsoft's Activision deal raises “important questions” and the EU was swayed by the proposed remedies  —  The European Union's decision to approve Microsoft Corp.'s $69 billion plan to buy Activision Blizzard Inc …
Access Now:
Pegasus was used in the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict to target a government worker, a UN official, and others in 2021 and 2022, the first known use in a war  —  The Armenia spyware victims include a former Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia (the Ombudsperson) …
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Nvidia reports Q1 revenue down 13% YoY to $7.19B, vs. $6.52B est., Data Center revenue up 14% YoY, and a Q2 revenue forecast above estimates; NVDA jumps 25%+  —  - Nvidia reported first-quarter earnings for its fiscal 2024 on Wednesday, with a stronger-than-expected forecast that drove shares up 26% in extended trading.
Wall Street Journal:
A look at Disney and Comcast's fight over Hulu; sources say their Hulu valuations differ significantly, they're in arbitration, and Comcast stopped funding Hulu  —  Parent companies are in final phase of battle marked by legal threats, broken promises and secret arbitration
Hannah Miller / Bloomberg:
Tools for Humanity, co-founded by Sam Altman to build Worldcoin, raised a $115M Series C led by Blockchain Capital, aiming to scan eyes to create IDs for all  —  A crypto startup co-founded by OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman has raised new funding to further its mission of providing a digital ID for everyone on the planet.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Starling Bank CEO Anne Boden steps down, replaced by COO John Mountain as interim CEO; Starling, which has raised over $1B, reports £453M in FY2023 revenue  —  Anne Boden nearly lost a grip on Starling Bank years ago when the neobank was in the middle of a coup effort led by its CTO …
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Snowflake reports Q1 revenue up 48% YoY to $623.6M, vs. $608M est., forecasts Q2 product revenue below est., and plans to acquire startup Neeva; SNOW drops 10%+  —  - Snowflake beat on the top and bottom lines for the fiscal first quarter, but it gave product revenue guidance that missed consensus estimates.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Google DeepMind shows how its visual language model Flamingo is generating descriptions for YouTube Shorts based on metadata, helping improve discoverability  —  Google just combined DeepMind and Google Brain into one big AI team, and on Wednesday, the new Google DeepMind shared details …
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Binance launches NFT loans, starting with ETH borrowing against “blue-chip” NFTs, such as BAYC, MAYC, and Azuki with an interest rate of 7.91% per annum  —  - Binance has launched NFT loans feature on its NFT marketplace.  — The feature currently supports ETH borrowing against …
More: CoinDesk and NFTgators
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google expands its Google Play Games beta on PC to Europe and New Zealand, expanding the offering from 13 countries to 56 countries and to 100+ Android games  —  As telegraphed earlier this year, the Google Play Games on PC Beta is now available in Europe and New Zealand.
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Interviews with 30+ sources detail issues at Tom Siebel's AI startup C3.ai, causing product delays; the company is on its third name since its founding in 2009  —  The AI hype cycle has birthed innumerable boosters.  An unlikely member of this group is Silicon Valley billionaire Tom Siebel.

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UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
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Earlier Picks

Elizabeth Chamberlain / iFixit News:
Bloomberg:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Jay Peters / The Verge: