Techmeme
August 20, 2024, 4:40 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
PitchBook: seven banks' ~$13B loans to Elon Musk to buy X have been “hung” for two years, weighing on balance sheets, the worst buyout for banks since 2008-2009  —  Loans of around $13 billion have remained ‘hung’ for nearly two years, bringing in interest payments but weighing on banks' balance sheets
Erin Woo / The Information:
A letter to investors claims Bolt is finalizing a $450M Series F at a $14B valuation with harsh terms for existing investors; Ryan Breslow aims to return as CEO  —  As startup founder comebacks go, this may rank as one of the most remarkable.  —  Bolt founder Ryan Breslow is returning …
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch:
Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana says Waymo is now giving 100K+ paid robotaxi rides every week in LA, San Francisco, and Phoenix, a few months after passing 50K+  —  Waymo disclosed Tuesday it's now giving more than 100,000 paid robotaxi rides every week across its three main commercial markets in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix.
CNBC:
Kate Knibbs / Wired:
Condé Nast makes a multiyear deal with OpenAI, letting ChatGPT and SearchGPT surface stories from The New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Bon Appetit, and Wired  —  The media company joins The Atlantic, Axel Springer, Vox Media, and a host of other publishers who have partnered with OpenAI.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Flight tracking site FlightAware, which claims 10M+ monthly users, reports a breach dating back to January 2021 that exposed names, SSNs, addresses, and more  —  Flight tracking site FlightAware has blamed a “configuration error” for exposing a raft of personal information of its customers …
Sankalp Phartiyal / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple plans to make the most expensive iPhone models in India for the first time, as Foxconn rushes to produce iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max in India  —  - Plan shows Apple making further progress with India assembly  — Company is shifting output to India to diversify beyond China
Daniel Tencer / Music Business Worldwide:
The AGs of 10 states join the US DOJ's antitrust lawsuit seeking to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster; 39 states, plus DC, are now part of the lawsuit  —  The attorneys general of 10 states have joined the US Department of Justice (DoJ)'s antitrust lawsuit seeking to break off Live Nation …
Blake Brittain / Reuters:
Writers and journalists Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Johnson sue Anthropic for misusing “hundreds of thousands of copyrighted books” to train Claude  —  Artificial intelligence company Anthropic has been hit with a class-action lawsuit in California federal court …
Bloomberg:
Chinese-made, Tencent-backed game Black Myth: Wukong became Steam's second most popular title ever within hours of its launch, gaining 2.1M+ concurrent players  —  - The made-in-China blockbuster surpasses Cyberpunk play record  — Monkey King epic on track to set records for concurrent gamers
Anna Gross / Financial Times:
Ofcom says it has 460+ people working on enforcing the Online Safety Act and plans to grow that by 20% to 550+ by March 2025, or 33% of its 1,500 total staff  —  Online safety rules in the spotlight after violent unrest sparked by spread of misleading news on social media
Connor Jones / The Register:
Cisco Talos says eight vulnerabilities in Microsoft's macOS apps could be abused by attackers to record video and sound from a device, log user input, and more  —  Windows giant tells Cisco Talos it isn't fixing them  —  Cisco Talos says eight vulnerabilities in Microsoft's macOS apps …

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More News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
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Earlier Picks

Nick Robins-Early / The Guardian:
Perry Stein / Washington Post:
Jaspreet Singh / Reuters:
Asa Fitch / Wall Street Journal: