Techmeme
August 2, 2024, 10:10 PM

Top News

New York Times:
The US DOJ sues TikTok, saying it collected children's data without parents' permission, knowingly let users under the age of 13 create accounts, and more  —  The Justice Department said that TikTok illegally collected children's data and knowingly allowed users under the age of 13 to create accounts.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Character.AI co-founders Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, and some employees, are joining Google; Google has signed a non-exclusive agreement to use its tech  —  In a big move, Character.AI co-founder and CEO CEO Noam Shazeer is returning to Google after leaving the company in October 2021 to found the a16z-backed startup.
The Information:
Character.AI told staff that investors will be bought out at a valuation of ~2.5x its $1B 2023 valuation, and it plans to adopt open-source models for products  —  Google has agreed to pay a licensing fee to chatbot maker Character.AI for its models and will hire its cofounders and many of its researchers, the companies said.
CNBC:
Intel shares fall 26% to close at $21.48 in their biggest drop since 1974, after the company reported a big earnings miss; Intel's market cap is now below $100B  —  Intel shares plunged the most in 50 years on Friday, reaching a price not seen since 2013, after the chipmaker reported …
Gaby Del Valle / The Verge:
Trump says Zuckerberg called him after the assassination attempt and told Trump he wouldn't endorse a Democrat because he “respected” Trump's reaction that day  —  Former President Donald Trump has expressed a newfound fondness for Mark Zuckerberg after years of railing against him.
Brian Schwartz / CNBC:
Asa Hiken / Ad Age:
Google pulled an Olympics TV ad where a father uses Gemini to help his daughter write a personal letter to an athlete, after criticisms that the ad is tone-deaf  —  ‘Dear Sydney’ had been criticized for appearing tone-deaf to AI concerns  —  Google has pulled an ad from its Olympics' TV rotation …
Patpicha Tanakasempipat / Bloomberg:
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Data breach notifications show US pharmaceutical giant Cencora has notified at least 1.43M individuals that their data was compromised in a February data breach  —  Cencora has so far notified over a million people around the U.S. that their personal and protected health information …
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Sources: Meta is offering Hollywood celebrities like Judi Dench millions of dollars for the right to use their voices for AI projects; SAG-AFTRA agreed to terms  —  - Judi Dench, Awkwafina are among the celebrities holding talks  — Some terms sought by Meta trigger actors' fears of AI
Nathan Edwards / The Verge:
Surface Pro 11 review: OLED display is vibrant, Flex Keyboard is magic, hardware is solid, but it's costly, not all x86 apps run well, AI features are skippable  —  Microsoft's latest 2-in-1 is all in on Arm, and it's the closest the company's come to merging the power of a laptop with the battery life and flexibility of a tablet.
Forums: r/Surface and r/gadgets
Olga Kharif / Bloomberg:
Crypto lender Genesis and related companies complete their bankruptcy restructuring and begin distributing ~$4B in digital assets and cash to creditors  —  - Bitcoin creditors will receive 51% recovery on in-kind basis  — Genesis distributions come soon after Mt Gox repaid billions
Akila Quinio / Financial Times:
Sources: Revolut has told staff it is launching a sale of up to $500M worth of existing shares at a $45B valuation; former employees are ineligible  —  Revolut has told staff it is launching a sale of up to $500mn worth of existing shares at a $45bn valuation, in a move that would cement …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Intel plans to cut 15%+ of its workforce, the majority by the end of 2024, as part of a $10B cost reduction plan and to suspend its dividend starting in Q4 2024  —  Intel announced that it will lay off 15% of its workforce as part of a broad cost-reduction program.
Sean Michael Kerner / VentureBeat:
Stability AI announces Stable Fast 3D, an AI model for rapid 3D asset generation, which it says can generate a 3D asset from a single image in 0.5 seconds  —  Not all that long ago, it used to be hard, really hard to generate 3D images.  It was a process that involved complex wireframes, complicated software and beefy hardware.

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Zoe Kleinman / BBC:
Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg:
Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:
The Canadian Press:

Earlier Picks

Tuvan Gumrukcu / Reuters:
Pei Li / Bloomberg:
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Josh Sisco / Politico:
Paul Alcorn / Tom's Hardware:
Bill Donahue / Billboard:
Bill Peters / MarketWatch:
Kif Leswing / CNBC: