Techmeme
April 16, 2024, 1:25 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:
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 …
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 …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
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 …
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 …
The Guardian:
The UK announces 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
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 …
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.
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 …
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
EU antitrust regulators are questioning Broadcom about changes to VMware's licensing conditions, following complaints from EU business users and a trade group  —  U.S. chipmaker Broadcom (AVGO.O) is being asked by EU antitrust regulators about changes to newly acquired cloud computing company …
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
Jennifer A. Kingson / Axios:
Meta plans to launch a new education product for Quest that will let teachers access education apps for students ages 13+ and manage multiple headsets at once  —  - In time for the fall semester, it'll make available a suite of visually engrossing education apps that teachers can use with students ages 13+.
David Pierce / The Verge:
Limitless unveils the $99 Limitless Pendant, a wearable AI gadget that transcribes meetings and provides real-time notes and summaries, shipping in August 2024  —  The Limitless Pendant doesn't exactly scream “AI.”  As Dan Siroker, the CEO of the company behind the new device …

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