Techmeme: Amazon confirms that HQ2 in Arlington lost 200 jobs in 2023, missing Amazon's goal of adding 2,500 jobs; HQ2 has ~8,000 employees and plans to reach ~25,000 (Teo Armus/Washington Post)

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April 16, 2024, 3:45 PM

Top News

Financial Times:

Microsoft invests $1.5B in Abu Dhabi-based AI startup G42 for a minority stake, after G42 severed ties with Chinese suppliers; Brad Smith will join G42's board — Agreement is latest move by US tech group to extend its reach into fast-growing sector — Microsoft has agreed to invest $1.5bn …

Bloomberg:

Sources: in 2023, Abu Dhabi's G42 and the US Commerce Department held talks that led to G42 agreeing to pare back its China presence to avoid punitive measures

More: Benzinga, Crunchbase News, TechCrunch, Forbes, The Verge, New York Times, CCN.com, Wall Street Journal, and GeekWire

X: @dinabass, @stuartlwallace, and @mackhawk

Connor Jones / The Register:

UnitedHealth says the February ransomware attack on Change Healthcare cost the company $872M in Q1; another ransomware group appears to be extorting the company — First glimpse at attack financials reveals huge pain — UnitedHealth, parent company of ransomware-besieged Change Healthcare …

Abner Li / 9to5Google:

YouTube strengthens its “enforcement on third-party apps” violating its ToS, “specifically ad-blocking apps”, leading to error messages and “buffering issues” — Following the ad blocker crackdown, YouTube is explicitly going after third-party …

Raphael Satter / Reuters:

The Open Source Security Foundation and the OpenJS Foundation say the attempt to insert a secret backdoor into XZ Utils “may not be an isolated incident” — The recent attempt by an unknown actor to sabotage a widely used software program may have been one of several attempts …

More: OpenJS Foundation, The Register, Fortune, Cybersecurity Dive, ZDNet, The Record, DataBreachToday.com, Infosecurity, Security Affairs, Metacurity, Nextgov/FCW, The Hacker News, SC Media, and ComputerWeekly.com

Mastodon: @danimo@chaos.social, @thegibson@hackers.town, and @rechelon@mastodon.social

X: @feross and @_msw_

Benjamin Sandofsky / Sandofsky:

A look at the failure of Humane's Ai Pin, which took six years to ship after raising $230M, including building the device “the Apple way” and raising too much — Why You Can't Build Apple with Venture Capital — An ex-Apple designer who went on to startup success once told me …

More: Marques Brownlee on YouTube, Platformer, The Verge, Business Insider, TechSpot, Cryptopolitan, BBC, and iPhone in Canada Blog

Mastodon: @jasonpettus@mastodon.cloud, @akosma@mastodon.online, and @sandofsky@mastodon.social

X: @samsheffer, @carnage4life, @gergelyorosz, @wesamo__, and @mkbhd

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

Apple debuts web distribution of iOS apps to EU users, allowing qualifying devs who opt in to its Core Technology Fee to offer direct downloads from their sites — Apple is opening up web distribution for iOS apps targeting users in the European Union from today.

More: MacRumors, 9to5Mac, ZDNet, BGR, iPhone in Canada Blog, Trusted Reviews, nextpit, and TweakTown

X: @chancehmiller. Forums: r/apple and Slashdot

Dell Cameron / Wired:

The Senate is set to vote on RISAA, which reauthorizes FISA's Section 702 and could force new types of businesses to eavesdrop on Americans without a warrant — A controversial bill reauthorizing the Section 702 spy program may force whole new categories of businesses to eavesdrop …

More: New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Fortune

Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg:

Andreessen Horowitz raised $7.2B, including $600M for American Dynamism, $3.75B for late-stage startups, and $600M for gaming, exceeding its target by ~4% — Andreessen Horowitz, one of Silicon Valley's biggest venture capital firms, has raised $7.2 billion in new funding — a sizable haul after a rocky period for the startup world.

More: Financial Times, Andreessen Horowitz, Bitcoin Insider, CNBC, CoinGape, and The Information

X: @davidu, @bhorowitz, and @thogge

Matthew Connatser / The Register:

Intel's Gaudi 3 white paper details the made-for-China processors HL-328 and HL-388, likely designed to comply with US export controls by reducing performance — Intel is set to launch two China-exclusive models of its Gaudi 3 AI accelerator, and they'll be substantially crippled to fit in with US sanctions.

More: Intel, Reuters, and Benzinga

The Guardian:

The UK proposes legislation to outlaw creating sexually explicit deepfake photos without consent, regardless of whether creators intended to share the images — Offenders could face jail if image is widely shared under proposed amendment to criminal justice bill

More: Gizmodo, GOV.UK, Ars Technica, TIME, BBC, PCMag, CityAM, and inews.co.uk

Mastodon: @campuscodi@mastodon.social. X: @mojgovuk, @dc_lawrence, @tonydowson5, and @mojgovuk

Forums: Hacker News, r/aiwars, r/ArtistHate, r/technology, r/technews, r/worldnews, and r/ukpolitics

Vittoria Elliott / Wired:

Meta's Oversight Board plans to investigate two deepfake porn cases involving unnamed US celebrities who had their images altered to create explicit content — Social platforms have struggled to quickly remove deepfake porn depicting celebrities. — As AI tools become increasingly sophisticated …

Teo Armus / Washington Post:

Amazon confirms that HQ2 in Arlington lost 200 jobs in 2023, missing Amazon's goal of adding 2,500 jobs; HQ2 has ~8,000 employees and plans to reach ~25,000 — The tech giant's deal with Virginia had it adding more than 2,500 new employees at its new Arlington headquarters in 2023.

More: The Verge. Forums: Hacker News

Pierluigi Paganini / Security Affairs:

Resecurity: malicious cyber activities targeting the Philippines, like cyberattacks and misinformation campaigns, grew 300%+ YoY in Q1, as China tensions rise — Amidst rising tensions with China in the SCS, Resecurity observed a spike in malicious cyber activity targeting the Philippines in Q1 2024.

More: Resecurity

Sabrina Willmer / Bloomberg:

Filing: MGM sues the FTC to stop an investigation into a 2023 cyberattack and asks for Chair Lina Khan's recusal; Khan stayed at the MGM Grand in September 2023 — - Agency chair Lina Khan was visiting resort during cyber attack — Lawsuit alleges FTC asked company for ‘100 categories’ of data

More: The Record, Reuters, Tech Xplore, and Daring Fireball

Julie Creswell / New York Times:

Ghost kitchens and virtual restaurant brands, which boomed during the pandemic after raising billions, are disappearing due to overtaxed kitchens and complaints — Ghost kitchens and virtual brands became a way for idle restaurant kitchens to generate revenue.

Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to. X: @rakeshlobster

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

Mozilla and CheckFirst: Apple, Google, Meta, and others' ad transparency efforts are a work in progress, months after the EU's DSA mandated a searchable library — Efforts by tech giants to be more transparent about the ads they run are — at very best — still a work in progress …

More: Mozilla Foundation, AppleInsider, The Daily Dot, 9to5Mac, Mashable, Euractiv, Cybernews.com, Mozilla Foundation, CNBC, CheckFirst, and Adweek

X: @ecranmobilefr and @checkfirsthq

Paul Alcorn / Tom's Hardware:

AMD unveils the Ryzen Pro 8040 series for business laptops and mobile workstations and the Ryzen Pro 8000 series for desktops, adding an NPU for AI processing — AMD is the first with a Pro desktop PC chip with an NPU for AI workloads. — AMD announced its Ryzen Pro portfolio today …

Kari Paul / The Guardian:

A look at Neopets, which launched in 1999 to let users care for virtual pets, including surviving multiple acquisitions and browsers phasing out Flash in 2017 — An icon of millennials' childhoods languished for nearly two decades. Now it's attempting a comeback - banking on the fact that it hasn't changed at all

X: @blakersdozen

Jane Lanhee Lee / Bloomberg:

AI chip developer Rivos, which recently settled with Apple over trade secret theft, raised $250M+ led by Matrix to compete with Nvidia using its RISC-V chips — - US upstart targets data analytics and generative AI markets — Matrix Capital leads round, with Intel, MediaTek participating

More: DatacenterDynamics, FinSMEs, Reuters, CCN.com, Tech Startups, Verdict, and Pulse 2.0

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:

Spotify says 25% of paid users in the US, UK, and Australia have started an audiobook as part of their subscriptions; 57% are between 18 and 34 years old — - Spotify listeners skew younger, with 57% age 18 to 34 — Certain subscribers receive 15 hours of listening per month

More: CNET

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From Mediagazer

Bron Maher / Press Gazette:

Newsquest's editorial development director says it now employs 36 “AI-assisted” reporters, freeing up the rest of the newsroom to “be out pounding the beat”

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

Tortoise Media names Times journalist Rachel Sylvester as The Observer's political editor; a source says 50%+ of Observer staff have decided to leave

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

A look at CBS' bet on its massive overhaul of the Evening News, with greater emphasis on in-depth reporting on the ground from places beyond NYC, DC, and LA

More News

Bloomberg:

Bain Capital agrees to sell UK payroll software company Zellis, acquired in 2017, to Apax Partners; sources say the deal values Zellis at ~£1.25B

More: PYMNTS.com

Times of India:

India-based B2B e-commerce marketplace ProcMart raised a $30M Series B led by Fundamentum and Edelweiss Discovery Fund, following a $10M Series A in 2022

More: Entrackr, The Economic Times, Livemint, The Hindu BusinessLine, Moneycontrol, and VCCircle. LinkedIn: ProcMart

Anna Heim / TechCrunch:

Berlin-based finmid, which makes embedded fintech tools for SMBs, raised a €23M Series A at a €100M post-money valuation, bringing its total raised to €35M

More: FinTech Global, Silicon Canals, Crowdfund Insider, FinSMEs, Tech Funding News, finmid, Tech.eu, and EU-Startups. LinkedIn: finmid

Saritha Rai / Bloomberg:

Tel Aviv-based Bridgewise, which uses AI to provide investment analysis to brokerages, wealth advisors, and exchanges, raised a $21M Series A led by SIX Group

More: Tech Funding News, FinSMEs, Tech.eu, CTech, Asia Blockchain Review, and Bridgewise

Josh Ye / Reuters:

Baidu says that eight months after launch its AI chatbot Ernie Bot now has 200M+ users and 85K enterprise clients, after reaching 100M+ users in December 2023

More: ZDNet, The Decoder, CNBC, South China Morning Post, WinBuzzer, Wall Street Journal, Benzinga, Business Standard, and Pandaily

Tim De Chant / TechCrunch:

Kode Labs, which develops tools that integrate data from building management systems and IoT devices, raised a $30M Series B led by Maverix Private Equity

More: PR Newswire, FinSMEs, and Venture Capital Journal

X: @tdechant and @kodelabs

LinkedIn: Etrit Demaj and Nick Viscuso

Ellen Milligan / Bloomberg:

Sources: the UK plans talks this month with Apple, Meta, and others to push a voluntary charter granting parents more control of social media use by young teens

X: @arollingsloane, @alecmuffett, @jamesrbuk, and @webdevlaw

Earlier Picks

Rachel Graf / Bloomberg:

Mark Zuckerberg wins his bid to avoid personal liability in about two dozen lawsuits accusing Meta and other companies of addicting children to their products

More: The Hill, Silicon Valley Business …, TechSpot, Verdict, 9to5Mac, NewsBytes, Reuters, Benzinga, and International Business Times

Billy Perrigo / TIME:

Google's Jigsaw expands Perspective API, a set of ML tools that help moderators and researchers identify toxicity, with seven attributes, including nuance

More: ZDNet and Jigsaw

X: @mer__edith, @prestonjbyrne, @billyperrigo, @jigsaw, @jigsaw, and @jigsaw. LinkedIn: Reza Ghazinouri