Techmeme
May 21, 2024, 2:25 PM

Top News

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Microsoft launches Copilot Extension for GitHub, letting developers build third-party skills into Copilot, starting with DataStax, Stripe, MongoDB, and more  —  Build is Microsoft's largest developer conference and of course, it's all about AI this year.  So it's no surprise that GitHub's Copilot …
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Kevin Okemwa / Windows Central:
Ken Yeung / VentureBeat:
Kat Tenbarge / NBC News:
Scarlett Johansson says she declined OpenAI's ChatGPT voice offer and was “shocked, angered” that Sam Altman would pursue Sky, a voice “eerily similar” to hers  —  The “Her” actor released a statement following OpenAI pulling its “Sky” voice from ChatGPT, which many people said sounded like her.
More: NPR, Platformer, Washington Post, E! Online, OSnews, Global News, Wired, DataBreachToday.com, CNBC, The Verge, The Wrap, Variety, Proactive, TweakTown, The Decoder, The Hill, CCN.com, TechCircle, Cybernews.com, The Stack, and New York Times
Bloomberg:
Bloomberg:
Sources: in the event that China invades Taiwan, ASML and TSMC have ways to disable their sophisticated chipmaking machines; ASML reassured Dutch officials  —  - Firms can remotely shut off advanced EUV chip-making machines  — US officials concerned over risk of conflict to chip industry
Bradley Keoun / CoinDesk:
Farcaster, a blockchain-based social media project built on Ethereum, raised $150M in a round led by Paradigm and says it has 350K paid sign-ups  —  Dan Romero's Farcaster made waves earlier this year with the introduction of “Frames,” a feature allowing apps to run within posts, so users don't have to click off to another site.
Kris Holt / Engadget:
Joanna Stern / Wall Street Journal:
Joyce Lee / Reuters:
Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Amazon, IBM, and 10 other companies commit to safe AI development at the AI Seoul Summit 2024, hosted by South Korea and the UK  —  Sixteen companies involved in AI including Alphabet's Google (GOOGL.O), Meta (META.O), Microsoft (MSFT.O) and OpenAI …
Reuters:
EU countries vote to approve the landmark EU AI Act, agreed in December 2023, to ensure “trust, transparency, and accountability”, taking effect in June 2024  —  Europe's landmark rules on artificial intelligence will enter into force next month after EU countries endorsed …
Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple files a lawsuit at the EU's General Court to challenge a March 2024 decision to impose a €1.8B fine for thwarting competition in music streaming  —  - Company files suit at EU's General Court to topple penalty  — Fine was sparked by long-running dispute with top music rival
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Adobe adds generative AI tools to Lightroom, including Firefly-powered Generative Remove to let users “paint” over unwanted objects, available in early access  —  Adobe is adding some new generative AI tools to Lightroom that aim to make the photo editing platform easier to use …
Financial Times:
AI data labeling startup Scale AI raised $1B led by Accel at a ~$14B valuation, up from $7.3B in April 2021; a source says Scale AI had ~$700M in 2023 revenue  —  Alexandr Wang's company brings in $1bn in latest fundraising round as investors bet that data is the new oil
Financial Times:
AWS says it has “fully transitioned” its previous orders for Nvidia's Grace Hopper chips to the successor Grace Blackwell chips, announced in March 2024  —  Delay from the world's biggest cloud computing provider gives investors jitters over potential ‘air pocket’ in demand for AI chips
Paresh Dave / Wired:
Google plans to test search and shopping ads in its AI Overviews, drawing from advertisers' existing campaigns; AI Overviews rolled out to US users last week  —  Google is set to start mixing ads into its new AI-generated search answers.  It's a test of how the company's biggest revenue stream can adapt to the age of generative AI.
Mark Bergen / Bloomberg:
A French AI startup, simply called H and founded by ex-Google DeepMind scientists, raised $220M from Accel and others, and plans a model capable of reasoning  —  - Billionaires and VCs join round in company promising AGI  — DeepMind alums will partner with UiPath, other investors
More: Tech.eu and TechCrunch
Kenrick Cai / Forbes:
Coactive, which provides AI tools to categorize visual data, raised a $30M Series B co-led by Emerson Collective and Cherryrock Capital at a $200M valuation  —  The startup has raised $30 million, quadrupling its valuation to $200 million, signaling investors' interest in enterprise AI tools that aren't generative in nature.
More: Coactive

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