Techmeme: 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 (Benj Edwards/Ars Technica)

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July 24, 2024, 12:25 PM

Top News

Politico:

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 — Would she bring continuity with Joe Biden's policies? A more centrist vibe? A sharper progressive bite?

Eva Roytburg / Fortune:

Elon Musk says “I am not donating $45M a month to Trump”, and that he created America PAC to support Trump, without revealing precisely how much he is donating — Elon Musk is not spending $45 million a month to elect former President Donald Trump, though he has created …

More: BBC, Gizmodo, The Hill, Reuters, The Sun, Quartz, Semafor, Cybernews.com, The Guardian, New York Times, Fortune, and New York Post

Threads: @lorakolodny, @karaswisher, @martinsfp, and @kbode

X: @kirstengrind, @mychaelschnell, @cameron, @elonmusk, @tomgara, @internethippo, @teddyschleifer, @levie, @elonmusk, @elonmusk, @faizsays, @elonmusk, @jason_kint, @teddyschleifer, @juddlegum, @pitdesi, @yashar, @teddyschleifer, and @stuartpstevens

New York Times:

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

More: Blockonomi. X: @datacatalystorg and @aaronmfisher

Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:

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 — “Open source AI is the path forward,” says Mark Zuckerberg, misusing the term. — In the AI world, there's a buzz in the air …

Simon Sharwood / The Register:

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” — CrowdStrike has blamed a bug in its own test software for the mass-crash-event it caused last week.

More: CrowdStrike, The Verge, BBC, BleepingComputer, Metacurity, CSO, Engadget, TweakTown, Wall Street Journal, Infosecurity, and Financial Times

Mastodon: @david_whitney@mastodon.social. X: @cyb3rops, @gossithedog, @mikeyearworth, @brody_n77, @patrickwardle, @jamestitcomb, @arekfurt, @gossithedog, @gossithedog, @dcuthbert, @rosyna, @kevincollier, @0xtib3rius, @_johnhammond, @niallm, @shumayl_, @gossithedog, @lukolejnik, @gossithedog, and @dennismald. Forums: r/microsoft

Giulio Piovaccari / Reuters:

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 — Ferrari (RACE.MI) said on Wednesday it would extend its scheme to accept payments in cryptocurrency for its luxury sports cars …

More: Ferrari, Bitcoin Insider, The Crypto Basic, The Block, Bankless Times, Tech Xplore, CoinDesk, CoinGape, Coinpedia Fintech News, Coinspeaker, Cryptonews, CryptoSlate, Watcher Guru, The Crypto Times, CoinJournal, and crypto.news. Forums: r/ethtrader

Michael Peel / Financial Times:

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 — Research suggests use of computer-made ‘synthetic data’ to train top AI models could lead to nonsensical results in future

More: Nature, The Independent, MIT Technology Review, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, Tom's Guide, and Forbes

Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:

Twitch introduces new policy and moderation updates to curb sexual harassment, including making its policy “easier to understand” and adding moderation tools — Twitch has introduced new policy and moderation updates that aim to help curb sexual harassment.

More: Twitch Safety Center, PCMag, Lifewire, GameSpot, Eurogamer.net, Game Rant, and Dexerto

Alphabet:

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 — MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - July 23, 2024 - Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG, GOOGL) today announced financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2024.

Jennifer Elias / CNBC:

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

More: Ars Technica, TechCrunch, Quartz, Lifewire, Electrek, The Last Driver License Holder, Tech Monitor, Benzinga, Shacknews, The National, The Robot Report, ShareCafe, and Business Insider

X: @techtekedra, @can, @techtekedra, and @dmitri_dolgov. LinkedIn: Jonathan Ng

Forums: r/sanfrancisco, r/technology, r/waymo, and r/MVIS

Jennifer Elias / CNBC:

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

Parmy Olson / Bloomberg:

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 — It's the second time in as many months that the tech giant has lost a deal to boost its lagging cloud business.

More: TechCentral.ie, Financial Times, and Associated Press. Forums: Hacker News

Bloomberg:

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

More: MediaPost, Dataconomy, TechSpot, Wall Street Journal, Finance Magnates, Runtime, Irish Examiner, and Fierce Network

X: @mhbergen, @lynnmdoan, @danprimack, and @mhbergen

Matt Day / Bloomberg:

Microsoft Copilot customers say the AI assistants are no plug-and-play offering and involve feeding them data; the Copilots only excel at distilling information — Early adopters say deploying the company's Copilot bots requires cleaning up corporate data and lots of employee training.

More: Benzinga. X: @mattmday

Sean Michael Kerner / VentureBeat:

Stability AI unveils Stable Video 4D, a model based on the existing Stable Video Diffusion model to take video input and generate videos from eight perspectives — Stability AI is expanding its growing roster of generative AI models, quite literally adding a new dimension with the debut of Stable Video 4D.

More: Stability AI. X: @stabilityai

Financial Times:

The US NCSC warns US tech startups that “foreign threat actors”, including China, might use private investment to exploit them and threaten national security — Counter-intelligence centre says hostile states such as China could gain sensitive data and intellectual property

More: Bloomberg and US National Counterintelligence and Security Center

Alexander Martin / The Record:

Law enforcement officials and experts: criminal groups are shying away from large ransomware-as-a-service platforms after disruption operations and an exit scam — Veteran cybercriminals involved in ransomware attacks are increasingly shying away from large ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) …

More: DataBreaches.Net. X: @alexmartin and @alexmartin

Paul Sawers / TechCrunch:

The Overture Maps Foundation, backed by Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, TomTom, and others, releases four global open maps datasets; Transportation remains in beta — It's not often you'll find Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta in the same room collaborating toward the same goals.

More: Overture Maps Foundation, WinBuzzer, The Verge, and NewsBytes. X: @overturemaps

Allison Johnson / The Verge:

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 review: very good battery life, easy multitasking, and seven years of updates, but narrow cover screen, bulky, heavy, and expensive — Samsung's flagship foldable is as good as ever, but it feels anything but fresh. … The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is like staying in a really fancy Airbnb.

More: The Independent, Forbes, Engadget, PCMag, PhoneArena, Sammy Fans, The Guardian, CNET, and SamMobile

Chris Welch / The Verge:

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 — Google is bringing a handful of new features to its Google Play store on Android today.

More: Android Police, Android Faithful, Thurrott, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Android Authority, 9to5Google, Android Police, GSMArena.com, Lifewire, Tom's Guide, Forbes, and Mashable

Sarah McBride / Bloomberg:

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 — Sequoia Capital led the financing, which the company said it would use in part to accelerate work in artificial intelligence.

More: TechCrunch, FinTech Global, FinSMEs, Reuters, SiliconANGLE, VentureBeat, Forbes, Tech Startups, Vanta, SecurityWeek, and Help Net Security. X: @alex

Keith Broni / Emojipedia:

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 — X (fka Twitter) has quietly redesigned its 🔫 Water Pistol emoji to display as a firearm. This diverges from the cross-platform conversion …

More: The Verge, AppleInsider, TechIssuesToday.com, Android Police, and iPhone in Canada Blog

Threads: @mattnavarra. X: @yacinemtb, @yacinemtb, @xsphi, @emojipedia, and @emojipedia. Forums: r/Twitter

Jillian Ambrose / The Guardian:

Irish government data: data centers in Ireland used 21% of its electricity in 2023, up 20% YoY, more than the 18% of electricity used by all urban homes — Statistics raise concerns that rise in demand for data processing driven by AI could derail climate targets

More: Central Statistics Office, RTÉ, DatacenterDynamics, and Silicon Republic

Mastodon: @jbond@mastodon.social and @ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us

X: @xvrmdf, @sean_fearon, @marxculture, @tggleeson, and @jp_biz

Forums: Hacker News, r/news, r/collapse, r/Futurology, r/europe, r/ireland, and r/irishpolitics

Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg:

All Raise: ~18% of US VC firms have one or more female partners, double from 2018; PitchBook says female founders secured ~28% of total US deal value in 2023 — - Advocacy group reports women partners are part of more firms — All Raise CEO says progress at risk from diversity criticisms

Bloomberg:

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 — - Trading volume still trailed amount posted by Bitcoin ETFs — Debuts for two of the funds rank among some of the best ever

More: Wu Blockchain, Decrypt, Unchained, Protos, Cryptonews, The Crypto Times, Cryptopolitan, Crypto Briefing, CoinGape, Crypto Adventure, and The Block

X: @ericbalchunas, @ericbalchunas, @defiyst, @trustlessstate, @ericbalchunas, @jseyff, and @matt_hougan

New York Times:

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) — Today, Blake Benthall runs a start-up that aims to help track digital currency transactions.Gili Benita for The New York Times

X: @rmac18, @kashhill, @eddyelfenbein, and @emers0nian

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From Mediagazer

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:

Memo: WaPo CEO Will Lewis tells staff they'll be expected to work from the office five days a week, instead of three, by June 2, and by February 3 for managers

Dade Hayes / Deadline:

In an earnings call, David Zaslav says the Trump Administration may be more merger friendly, enabling a “real positive and accelerated impact on this industry”

Taylor Lorenz / User Mag:

How conservatives nurtured and funded a vast network of online influencers and creators, and how structural disadvantages prevent the left from replicating it

More News

Katie Roof / Bloomberg:

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

More: TechCrunch

Phil Serafino / Bloomberg:

French cybersecurity company Exclusive Networks receives a binding buyout proposal from private equity firms CD&R and Permira valuing Exclusive at ~€2.2B

More: Exclusive Networks and Exclusive Networks

Natalie Lung / Bloomberg:

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

More: Los Angeles Times and Moneycontrol. X: @kirker

Reuters:

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

More: South China Morning Post

Echo Wang / Reuters:

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

More: Bloomberg

Eva Dou / Washington Post:

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

More: Reuters, The Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post, and Bloomberg

X: @elonmusk, @ihcentoo, @treyyingst, @frances_coppola, and @abzayed

Kelly Le / South China Morning Post:

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

More: Nikkei Asia, TechNode, Benzinga, and TechNode. X: @nikkeiasia

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

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

Earlier Picks

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

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

More: SiliconANGLE, QA Wolf, and GeekWire

Ian King / Bloomberg:

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

More: Texas Instruments, Elliott Investment …, MarketWatch, Yahoo Finance, Investor's Business Daily, Benzinga, Reuters, Barron's Online, and NXP USA, Inc.. X: @neilksethi

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

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

More: ACCESSWIRE, SiliconANGLE, and eWeek

Reuters:

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

More: Android Headlines, SamMobile, The Information, KrASIA, KED Global, Benzinga, Sammy Fans, KBS WORLD Radio, Korea Joongang Daily, and Asia Times

Brian Heater / TechCrunch:

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

More: VC News Daily. X: @mikecollett. LinkedIn: Brian Kembel

The Information:

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

More: Spyglass. Threads: @_hadasgold, @guillecummings, and @drewharwell