Techmeme: Mark Zuckerberg says “tens of millions of people” have “tried” Meta AI but making money from generative AI in Meta's apps is likely going to take several years (Alex Heath/The Verge)

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April 25, 2024, 1:40 PM

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The Information:

Sources: ByteDance is exploring scenarios for selling a majority stake in TikTok US, preferably to a non-tech company, and without the recommendation algorithm — ByteDance is internally exploring scenarios for selling a majority stake in TikTok's U.S. business, preferably to companies outside …

More: Reuters, Dexerto, Yahoo News, Pocket Gamer.biz, Forbes, and The Verge

X: @tiktokpolicy, @lexnfx, @luke_metro, @garrytan, @tiktokpolicy, @lulumeservey, @zeffmax, @benjamintormey, @ali_lev, @matthewstoller, and @micsolana. LinkedIn: Emil Protalinski

See also Mediagazer

Financial Times:

Interviews with 24+ current and ex-ByteDance staff: the Beijing-based company has tightened its grip on TikTok over the past two years, causing a culture clash

More: Associated Press and Far Out Magazine

Bluesky: @cachiporra.bsky.social. X: @clothildegouj, @daphnehk, and @cristinacriddle

Reuters:

Sources: ByteDance prefers a TikTok shutdown in the US rather than a sale if legal options fail, deeming TikTok's algorithm as core to overall ByteDance systems

More: CBS News, The Independent, and Business Times

X: @danprimack. Forums: Hacker News

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: ByteDance executives have previously considered TikTok's global operations to be worth ~50% of the Chinese company's overall value, or above $100B

More: Hindustan Times, Semafor, Spyglass, New York Times, Bloomberg, and Washington Post

X: @jchengwsj and @wsjtech

Cecilia Kang / New York Times:

The FCC votes 3-2 to reinstate the US' net neutrality rules, expanding government oversight of ISPs and aiming to protect consumer access to the internet — Commissioners voted along party lines to revive the rules that declare broadband as a utility-like service that could be regulated like phones and water.

Alex Heath / The Verge:

Mark Zuckerberg says “tens of millions of people” have “tried” Meta AI but making money from generative AI in Meta's apps is likely going to take several years — The generative AI gold rush is underway — just don't expect it to create profits anytime soon.

More: Tech Monitor, Android Headlines, Business Insider, Forbes, Financial Times, diginomica, The Decoder, DatacenterDynamics, The Hindu, Cryptopolitan, Benzinga, Metanews, New York Times, Moneycontrol, Bloomberg, Business Today, BusinessLIVE, and Dow Jones Newswires

Threads: @alexheath. Bluesky: @marygillis.bsky.social

Meta Investor Relations:

Meta reports Q1 revenue up 27% YoY to $36.46B, net income up 117% YoY to $12.37B, and family daily active people up 7% YoY to 3.24B on average for March 2024 — Meta Platforms, Inc. (Nasdaq: META) today reported financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2024.

Karissa Bell / Engadget:

On Meta's Q1 earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg said that Threads now has more than 150M MAUs, up from more than 130M in February 2024

More: TechCrunch, ZDNet, TweakTown, Nairametrics, Mashable, Gizchina, Android Headlines, Neowin, Benzinga, Social Media Today, NewsBytes, The Verge, and Business Insider

Threads: @alexheath and @wongmjane

Ashley Capoot / CNBC:

Meta's stock drops 10%+ on weak Q2 revenue guidance and increasing FY 2024 capital expenditures from $30B-$37B to $35B-$40B due to AI infrastructure investments

More: NBC News, Silicon UK, Financial Times, Benzinga, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Wall Street Journal, Business Post, Shacknews, Fast Company, NBC News, Reuters, The Irish Times, Proactive, Benzinga, The Hollywood Reporter, and Bloomberg

Threads: @vthallam and @kurtwag8

LinkedIn: Roderick Mann and Ashley Capoot. Forums: r/wallstreetbets

Alex Koller / CNBC:

Meta's Reality Labs Q1: revenue up 30% YoY to $440M, vs. $512.5M est., a $3.85B operating loss, vs. $4.31B est.; Reality Labs has lost $45B+ since 2020's end

More: Game Developer, Fortune, MIXED Reality News, Coinspeaker, Gameranx, Business Insider, Business Insider, This is Money, Proactive, New York Times, Investing.com, Reuters, and MarketWatch

Mastodon: @parismarx@mastodon.online. X: @qcapital2020, @ballmatthew, @jason_kint, @brandolightshed, @ballmatthew, @lamonicabuzz, and @cap_zay

Forums: r/technology and r/Economics

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Sources: Microsoft has scrambled to respond to new attacks from the Russia-linked SolarWinds hackers, as its engineers prioritize security over new features — The world's largest tech company has a security problem. A series of high-profile security incidents have rocked Microsoft …

More: Benzinga, WinBuzzer, Neowin, and Directions on Microsoft

X: @tomwarren. LinkedIn: Tom Bridge

Abner Li / 9to5Google:

Google Meet rolls out an update to let users seamlessly transfer calls between devices “without hanging up and rejoining” via its Android, iOS, and web apps — Let's say you start a call on your phone because you're not at your desk yet. Once you get to a computer …

More: Google Workspace Updates, ZDNet, Thurrott, The Verge, OSnews, TechRadar, Jay is games, Windows Report, The Hindu, Android Headlines, MySmartPrice, and Android Police

Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asia:

TSMC unveils A16, chip manufacturing tech featuring nanosheet transistors with “backside power rails” meant for producing its ultra-advanced 1.6nm chips by 2026 — Taiwan chip titan aims to secure leading position and capture AI demand — TAIPEI — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co …

More: TSMC, Reuters, Club386, The Register, AnandTech, Tom's Hardware, Cult of Mac, ExtremeTech, iClarified, Benzinga, TechSpot, Interesting Engineering, TechNode, AnandTech, DigiTimes, TrendForce Insights, and MacDailyNews

X: @ryansmithat, @dnystedt, and @trendforce

Melissa Heikkilä / MIT Technology Review:

A look at AI video startup Synthesia, whose avatars are more human-like and expressive than predecessors, raising concerns over the consequences of realistic AI — I'm stressed and running late, because what do you wear for the rest of eternity? — This makes it sound like I'm dying, but it's the opposite.

More: Synthesia LTD, CNBC, HotHardware, Quartz, TechCrunch, Maginative, ZDNet, and UKTN

Forums: r/artificial, r/singularity, and r/tech

Ben Glickman / Wall Street Journal:

The US awards Micron up to $6.1B under the CHIPS Act, to back an up to $125B investment to build a megafab in New York and a fab in Idaho over the next 20 years — Micron Technology MU -.60%decrease; red down pointing triangle is receiving up to $6.1 billion from the federal government …

More: Benzinga, The White House, Silicon Republic, HotHardware, Data Center Knowledge, Financial Times, Financial Times, SIA, TechPowerUp, Forbes, BoiseDev, PCMag, New York Times, and The Hill

X: @micronpolicy, @mackhawk, and @microntech

CNBC:

Cloud data management startup Rubrik opens up 20% at $38.60 per share in its NYSE debut, after raising $752M at a $5.6B valuation — In this photo illustration, the Rubrik, Inc. logo is displayed on a smartphone screen. — Data management software maker Rubrik began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.

More: TechCrunch, Reuters, Investor's Business Daily, Bloomberg, Fast Company, Fortune, The Information, and SiliconANGLE

CNBC:

Cloud data management startup Rubrik priced its NYSE IPO at $32 per share, above its expected $28 to $31 range, raising $752M and valuing the company at $5.6B

More: Forbes, Bloomberg, Reuters, Crunchbase News, Wall Street Journal, The Information, CRN, The Information, and Barron's Online. X: @lesliepicker

Shubham Sharma / VentureBeat:

Snowflake launches Arctic, an LLM optimized for enterprise tasks such as SQL generation, coding, and instruction following, under an Apache 2.0 license — Today, Snowflake announced the launch of Arctic, a large language model (LLM) optimized for complex enterprise workloads such as SQL generation …

More: Snowflake, MSPoweruser, Unite.AI, TechRadar, ITPro, Barron's Online, ZDNet, InfoWorld, TechCrunch, and SiliconANGLE

X: @haozhangml, @vivek7ue, @ramaswmysridhar, @thom_wolf, @aurickq, @omarsar0, @jeffra45, @snowflakedb, @yahoofinance, @unixterminal, @vivek7ue, and @deliprao

LinkedIn: Craig Collier, Kaitlyn Hopkins, and Mike Biebel. Forums: r/snowflake

Andy Chalk / PC Gamer:

Garry's Mod is removing “all Nintendo related stuff” from its Steam Workshop, covering “20 years of uploads”, after receiving a takedown request from Nintendo — Fans aren't happy, as you can imagine. — Following a takedown request issued by Nintendo …

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

Cisco details a hacking campaign that penetrated multiple governments' networks using two zero-day flaws in its VPN and firewall Adaptive Security Appliances — Change Healthcare Finally Admits It Paid Ransomware Hackers—and Still Faces a Patient Data Leak

More: Cisco Talos Blog, Canadian Centre …, Ars Technica, Cisco, The Hacker News, Cisco, Metacurity, Dark Reading, The Record, TechRadar, CSO, BleepingComputer, and Cybersecurity …

Mastodon: @da_667@infosec.exchange, @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social, and @mttaggart@infosec.town

X: @cisacyber, @a_greenberg, @wdormann, @hkashfi, @ericgeller, @nicoleperlroth, @jamieantisocial, and @bushidotoken

LinkedIn: Michael Taggart, Robinson Roca, Rob Lucchetti, Shawn Wilson, Dr. Jesus Molina, Lodi Hensen, and Alexander Viftrup Andersen

Forums: r/technology, r/netsec, r/privacy, and Slashdot

Scharon Harding / Ars Technica:

Reddit says its Dynamic Product Ads, which use “shopping signals” to automatically show relevant ads to users, are entering public beta globally — Reddit says its “communities are naturally commercial.” — Reddit has made it clear that it's an ad-first business.

More: ZDNet, Forbes, PhoneArena, Social Media Today, and Search Engine Land

Mastodon: @dangillmor@mastodon.social. Forums: r/artificial and Ars OpenForum

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From Mediagazer

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:

A New York judge finds Sirius XM liable for a difficult subscription cancellation process; Sirius says it will appeal but abide by a new “click-to-cancel” rule

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

Sources: NBCUniversal Vice Chairman Bonnie Hammer plans to leave the company at the end of the year; she has been with the company since 2004

Peter Kafka / Business Insider:

A Q&A with Chris Balfe, CEO of Red Seat Ventures, which has helped Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly set up their podcast and streaming businesses and sell ads

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Thomas Brewster / Forbes:

Sublime, which monitors emails of companies and political campaigns to spot AI-generated phishing attacks, raised a $20M Series A, taking total funding to $30M

More: Sublime Security and VC News Daily

LinkedIn: Thomas Brewster, John Tuckner, and Trevor Hawthorn

Leo Schwartz / Fortune:

Movement Labs, which is building Movement L2, a layer-2 Ethereum blockchain based on the Move programming language, raised a $38M Series A led by Polychain

More: FinSMEs, Movement Labs, The Block, VentureBeat, CoinDesk, NFTgators, and Cointelegraph

The Information:

Sources: a Huawei-led consortium, backed by Chinese government funding, aims to compete with Nvidia by making high-bandwidth memory chips, used in GPUs, by 2026

More: Reuters, The Decoder, Benzinga, and South China Morning Post

Jillian Deutsch / Bloomberg:

Franco-Italian chip company STMicro reports Q1 revenue down 18% YoY to $3.47B, below $3.63B est., and expects Q2 sales down 26% YoY to $3.2B, below $3.79B est.

More: STMicroelectronics N.V. and Reuters

Vlad Savov / Bloomberg:

Lenovo survey of 750 CIOs: 96% expect increased AI investment in the next 12 months and 42% don't expect to show return on AI investments for the next two years

More: Lenovo StoryHub and Cryptopolitan

New York Times:

A look at Saudi Arabia's spending blitz to become an AI superpower, which has put the kingdom in the middle of an escalating global competition over AI

LinkedIn: Monis Rahman

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

Filing: Swiggy, which has a ~45.8% share of the Indian food delivery market, secures shareholder approval for a potential $1.25B IPO, slated for later in 2024

More: The Economic Times, The Economic Times, Reuters, Moneycontrol, Inc42 Media, Business Standard, Tech in Asia, Business Today, and Entrackr

Financial Times:

K Krithivasan, the CEO of Indian IT giant TCS, says there will be “minimal” need for call centers in as soon as one year, due to AI chatbots taking on the work

More: Hindustan Times. X: @ft, @christopherkay, and @johnreedwrites

Earlier Picks

Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg:

SK Hynix reports Q1 revenue of ~$9B, more than doubling YoY, and ~$2B in operating income, above estimates of ~$1.3B and the biggest quarterly profit since 2022

More: The Register, The Korea Herald, TrendForce Insights, ZDNet, KED Global, Wall Street Journal, and Reuters

Annie Palmer / CNBC:

Memo: Thrasio CEO Greg Greeley plans to resign and five other senior executives will “step down when Thrasio emerges from Chapter 11 in the coming weeks”

X: @rogoswami and @levynews

David Pierce / The Verge:

Hands-on with the Rabbit R1: a fun and funky AI device that feels pretty nice and does a solid job with basic AI questions, but the Rabbithole app is unfinished

More: CNET, Android Authority, Engadget, Tom's Guide, Creative Bloq, The Overspill, PCMag, TechSpot, TechCrunch, 9to5Google, Android Headlines, Dexerto, Wired, Mashable, Mashable, Tom's Guide, and CNET

Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to and @stroughtonsmith …. Bluesky: @zitron.bsky.social

X: @edzitron, @snazzylabs, @brianroemmele, @mkbhd, and @maxwinebach. Forums: Hacker News

Ken Yeung / VentureBeat:

Nooks, whose AI tools can analyze sales calls and summarize customer interactions, raised a $22M Series A led by Lachy Groom, bringing its total funding to $27M

More: Nooks and FinSMEs. X: @annimaniac

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

AI coding assistant startup Augment emerges from stealth with a $227M Series B at a $977M post-money valuation, following a $25M Series A led by Sutter Hill

More: Fortune, Augment, Voicebot.ai, Pulse 2.0, FinSMEs, SiliconANGLE, Analytics India Magazine, and Maginative

X: @typedfemale and @hyhieu226. Forums: Hacker News

Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:

TikTok suspends the rewards program in TikTok Lite while the company tries to resolve EU concerns over the potentially addictive nature of Lite for children

More: Fast Company, Engadget, The Guardian, TechCrunch, Gizchina, Brussels Signal, Android Headlines, Tubefilter, and Bloomberg

X: @tiktokpolicyeur, @thierrybreton, @vestager, and @stokel

Bob Van Voris / Bloomberg:

US prosecutors charge two founders of Samourai Wallet, saying the crypto mixing service facilitated more than $100M in “money laundering and sanctions evasion”