Techmeme: As chipmakers move into or expand in the region around Germany's Dresden, skeptics say more government subsidies, skilled workers, and end customers are needed (Cheng Ting-Fang/Nikkei Asia)

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May 4, 2024, 8:40 AM

Top News

Wendy Lee / Los Angeles Times:

How the AI-generated music video for Washed Out's The Hardest Part was created entirely using OpenAI's Sora, a first from a major record label — “The Hardest Part,” a new song from indie pop artist Washed Out, is all about love lost, among the most human of themes.

More: Washed Out on YouTube, Interesting Engineering, Paul Trillo on Vimeo, Stereogum, TechEBlog, Boing Boing, Mashable, Voicebot.ai, Tom's Guide, VentureBeat, Cybernews.com, and TechRadar

Threads: @billyfx.ig and @patrickromeoau

X: @paultrillo, @paultrillo, @paultrillo, @paultrillo, @realwashedout, @ankitpr89, @carlfranzen, @counternotions, @realwashedout, @vividfeverdrms, @thisisnalaa, @realwashedout, @kennyle31, @realwashedout, @realwashedout, @abelowrob, and @realwashedout. LinkedIn: Kamila Sultanova. Forums: r/videos

See also Mediagazer

Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:

Russian national Alexander Vinnik, one of the operators of crypto exchange BTC-e from 2011 to 2017, pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering — Vinnik was first arrested in 2017, but faced a lengthy extradition process that saw him spend time in Greece and France before being sent to the U.S.

More: US Department of Justice, Cointelegraph, Cryptopolitan, Bloomberg, CoinGape, and The Crypto Times

X: @nikhileshde, @usao_ndca, and @usao_ndca

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

X launches Stories on X, with news curated and summarized by Grok AI, available for Premium subscribers in the Explore tab on iOS and on the web — X, formerly Twitter, is now using Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok to power a feature that summarizes the personalized trending stories in the app's Explore section.

More: Engadget, The Decoder, and The Crypto Times

Bluesky: @rocksizedrock.bsky.social and @annlaabs.bsky.social

X: @xeng, @brij, @matthewkeyslive, @lindayax, and @x

Alex Kantrowitz / Big Technology:

Elon Musk says he wants Grok to create news summaries by relying solely on X posts, without looking at article text, and improved story citations are coming

Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asia:

As chipmakers move into or expand in the region around Germany's Dresden, skeptics say more government subsidies, skilled workers, and end customers are needed — Skeptics say more government subsidies, skilled workers and end customers are needed — DRESDEN, Germany/TAIPEI …

Joanna Stern / Wall Street Journal:

Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses are a simple, reliable, and smartly priced AI gadget, whereas Humane's AI Pin and the Rabbit R1 are more akin to science projects — There's a new WANTED poster in town... PUBLIC ENEMY NO. 1: The smartphone ACCUSED OF: Stealing your attention, sanity and well-being REWARD …

More: The Verge, Spyglass, The Wall Street Journal on YouTube, Engadget, BGR, 9to5Google, New York Post, and CNET

Threads: @daultonvenglar, @joannastern, @brian_c_weaver_, @phillydesign, @joannastern, @daultonvenglar, and @joannastern. Mastodon: @joannastern@mastodon.world

X: @joannastern, @tvanschadewijk, and @alexeheath

Will Knight / Wired:

Q&A with Nick Bostrom on his book Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World, which considers a future in which AI solves all of humanity's problems — Philosopher Nick Bostrom popularized the idea superintelligent AI could erase humanity. His new book imagines a world in which algorithms have solved every problem.

X: @terrorproforma and @wired

C.C. Weiss / New Atlas:

Natron Energy starts production of sodium-ion batteries that it says charge and discharge 10x faster than lithium-ion, initially for use at data centers — Two years ago, sodium-ion battery pioneer Natron Energy was busy preparing its specially formulated sodium batteries for mass production.

More: Bloomberg and CleanTechnica

Mastodon: @HollyCo26588808 … and @ernie@writing.exchange. X: @perpetualmaniac

Forums: Hacker News, r/technology, and Slashdot

Isabelle Bousquette / Wall Street Journal:

A look at AI companies gathering data from real people to create “digital twins”, to use as fashion models, focus group members, or clinical trial participants — AI that can predict how specific humans will look, act and feel could do the jobs of fashion models, focus group members and clinical trial participants

More: Applied Clinical Trials, PharmaVoice, arXiv, and The Information

X: @hamishbrock, @charleskfisher, @danielcitron, @charleskfisher, @miramurati, @brox_ai, @charleskfisher, and @scribblevc

LinkedIn: Douglas Weiss and Rachel Kalmar

Tim Stelloh / NBC News:

Defense lawyers question the accuracy and reliability of Cybercheck, an AI tool used in thousands of US cases to identify suspects' locations and other details — Cybercheck's founder has said the software tops 90% accuracy. Defense lawyers have said he lied under oath about his expertise …

Threads: @lllafalce, @hashimwarren, and @lavishtantrums. Mastodon: @Wolven@ourislandgeorgia.net

X: @timstelloh and @eff. Forums: r/boulder

Ron Miller / TechCrunch:

Synergy Research: cloud revenue grew 21% YoY in Q1 2024 to $76B; Altimeter: AWS now has 31% market share followed by Azure with 25% and Google with 11% — Last year's doldrums are in the rearview thanks to AI — If you were concerned about slowing cloud infrastructure growth for a time in 2023 …

More: Synergy Research Group, Clouded Judgement, The Register, Channel Futures, and Analytics India Magazine

X: @srg_research and @jaminball

Sara Fischer / Axios:

A look at news publishers' conflicting approaches toward AI companies, and how the lack of a data marketplace makes it hard for buyers and sellers to set rates — - The new suits add heft to the Times' claims. … Several other large news publishers, including the Financial Times …

X: @sarafischer. LinkedIn: Digimentors and Peter Csathy

See also Mediagazer

Agence France-Presse:

Ukraine unveils an AI-generated foreign ministry spokesperson called Victoria Shi, who will make official statements “written and verified by real people” — Victoria Shi is modelled on Rosalie Nombre, a singer and former contestant on Ukraine's version of the reality show The Bachelor

Vikas SN / Moneycontrol:

Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal's Krutrim launches its developer offerings, including cloud infrastructure access, and an Android app for its eponymous AI chatbot — Krutrim's mobile app launch comes as the country's first AI unicorn gears up to launch its developer offerings, which includes cloud infrastructure and mapping solutions.

More: Business Today, Business Standard, YourStory, Analytics India Magazine, YourStory, and Inc42 Media

X: @krutrim and @krutrim. LinkedIn: Krutrim

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From Mediagazer

Harshita Mary Varghese / Reuters:

Warner Bros. Discovery says John Malone is not seeking re-election to the board of directors and will instead take on the role of chairman emeritus

Natalie Korach / Vanity Fair:

Q&A with Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway on covering Trump's tariffs; their Odd Lots newsletter saw sign-ups jump 142% in April vs. March average

Julian Clover / Broadband TV News:

A group of current and former BBC World Service journalists warn that cuts to the international service risk fracturing “the core identity of the World Service”

More News

Paul Sawers / TechCrunch:

Sources: Swedish PE firm EQT acquires a “significant majority” stake in WSO2, valuing the enterprise API and identity management company at “more than” $600M

More: WSO2, PR Newswire, and Sanjiva Weerawarana

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

Filing: CRM software maker Freshworks acquires Connecticut-based Device42, which helps companies manage their IT infrastructure and had raised $38.5M, for $230M

More: Freshworks, The Hindu BusinessLine, CMSWire.com, Reuters, diginomica, TechCircle, Inc42 Media, Inc42 Media, Freshworks, and Freshworks. LinkedIn: Mika Yamamoto

Nico Grant / New York Times:

Google employees have mostly ignored the DOJ's antitrust case, and some expect only small business tweaks and some fines; closing arguments concluded on May 3

More: The Verge, Associated Press, PBS NewsHour, New York Post, The Information, Digiday, NTD, Reuters, NPR, and Yahoo Finance

Threads: @alexheath and @shiraovide

X: @jason_kint, @nicoagrant, @daveyalba, @khushitavasant, @jason_kint, @daveyalba, and @jason_kint

Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Roundtable:

Google updates its ad policy to ban the promotion of services that generate, distribute, or store synthetic sexually explicit content, starting May 30, 2024

More: Google Help Center, The Verge, 404 Media, and Google Help Center

See also Mediagazer

Alison Snyder / Axios:

CSET: global AI research more than doubled between 2017 and 2022; Chinese Academy of Sciences was the top producer of highly cited AI papers, followed by Google

More: Emerging Technology …, Emerging Technology …, and Blockworks

X: @emergingtechobs, @emergingtechobs, @csetgeorgetown, and @emergingtechobs

Christina A. Cassidy / Associated Press:

In a letter, several Democrats serving as their state's top election officials ask Meta to repeal a policy allowing ads that claim the 2020 election was stolen

X: @nicktuell

Earlier Picks

Reuters:

Sources: Fei-Fei Li raised a seed round for a “spatial intelligence” startup using human-like visual data processing to create AI capable of advanced reasoning

More: The Information. X: @lexnfx

Counterpoint Research:

Global smartphone market grew 6% YoY to 296.9M units in Q1; Samsung recaptured the top spot with a 20% market share; Apple shipments fell 13% but ASP grew 2%

More: Android Central, Mobile World Live, International Business Times, Light Reading, Gizchina, Android Headlines, and Investing.com. X: @carnage4life

Dan Primack / Axios:

SVB agrees to sell its VC arm SVB Capital, which manages ~$9.8B in assets, to a new entity backed by Brookfield and Sequoia Heritage for $340M in cash

More: The Information and Reuters

X: @koolhead17, @pitdesi, and @danprimack

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft outlines security principles and goals tied to executive compensation packages, following a scathing US Cyber Safety Review Board report in April 2024