A look at the recent debates in the AI industry over existential risks, as what were once considered extreme views have now become mainstream talking points
“Ghost stories are contagious.” — Who's afraid of the big bad bots? A lot of people, it seems.
Amazon plans to hold Prime Day on July 11 and July 12 and introduce an invite-only Prime Days deals program; an Indian version will be held “later this summer”
Amazon will hold its 2023 Prime Day sales event on Tuesday, July 11, and Wednesday, July 12, the Seattle-based e-commerce giant announced tonight.
In a major reorganization, EA splits EA Games and EA Sports, and renames the former as EA Entertainment, signaling the company's possible expansion beyond games
EA is undergoing a major internal reorganization, with EA Games being renamed “EA Entertainment.”
The US FTC files a lawsuit against Amazon over allegedly using “dark patterns” to enroll customers in Prime without consent and “sabotaged” attempts to cancel
- The FTC on Wednesday sued Amazon, alleging it tricked customers into signing up for its Prime subscription program …
Reddit suspended some moderators after they changed their subreddits to NSFW as “incorrectly marking a community as NSFW” violates its content and mod policies
Reddit has started removing moderator teams managing subreddits that switched the labeling on their communities to Not Safe For Work …
A look at the White House's urgent push for AI regulation, as Biden meets with a group of AI experts for a non-industry perspective on risks and opportunities
President Joe Biden huddled in the Oval Office with several of his top advisers in early April as an aide typed prompts into ChatGPT …
A look at the vast and mostly hidden “tasker” underclass, including subject-matter experts, hired by companies like Scale AI to annotate data for AI training
As the technology becomes ubiquitous, a vast tasker underclass is emerging — and not going anywhere. Bluesky: @sarahjeong.bsky.social , @knguyen.bsky.social , and @yoyoel.com Mastodon: @stshank@mstdn....
Ali Selim, executive producer of Marvel's Secret Invasion, says Method Studios used AI to create the opening credits
‘It just came right out of the shape-shifting, Skrull world identity’ — The world of Secret Invasion is decidedly sketchy. With thousands of shapeshifting Skrulls on Earth …
In a tweet reply, Elon Musk says Twitter considers “cis” and “cisgender” slurs and “the contemptible creep” who “manufactured” the term “has serious problems”
- Elon Musk said terms like “cisgender” and “cis” are now considered “slurs” on Twitter.
Masayoshi Son says SoftBank plans to go on the “counteroffensive” soon by resuming AI investments; the group has $35B+ after halting investments in recent years
Billionaire chief talks up AI and reveals he had breakdown in October where he questioned his achievements as an entrepreneur
Discord plans to let creators sell “Downloadables”, one-time digital purchases, and rolls out Media Channels in beta, designed for videos, photos, and files
Discord plans to give creators a new way to make money from their communities by selling digital products via one-time purchases.
Twitch plans to require that streamers add new content labels for streams with sexual themes, graphic violence, drug use, gambling, or “significant” vulgarity
Twitch is rethinking the way it flags mature content, swapping its existing toggle for a more granular set of topic-specific labels.
Netflix tweaks its weekly top 10 rankings to sort by “views”, calculated by dividing the time spent watching a film or a show in a week by its running time
The streamer's weekly rankings will now show the most popular titles by number of accounts watching as well as total time.
Memo: Grab CEO Anthony Tan tells staff the company plans to cut 1,000+ jobs, or 11% of its workforce, citing costs and ensuring “even more affordable services”
Singapore-based Grab Holdings (GRAB.O), Southeast Asia's leading ride-hailing and food delivery app …
Instagram now lets US users download Reels posted by public accounts, adding a watermark logo and the account name for sharing, which TikTok has done for years
Instagram is finally letting users download Reels posted by others so they can share them outside the app.
Q&A with Christopher Nolan, the director of Oppenheimer, on AI improving images in filmmaking, the parallels between nuclear weapon development and AI, and more
The Oppenheimer director says AI is not the bomb. His new movie might still scare you shitless.
Sources: YouTube plans to launch its first official shopping channel for live commerce, set to open in South Korea on June 30 with content from ~30 brands
YouTube will launch its official shopping channel in South Korea for live commerce later this month for the first time in the world …
Bernie Sanders opens a Senate investigation into Amazon's warehouse safety practices and writes to Andy Jassy about “egregious health and safety violations”
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has opened a Senate investigation into Amazon's warehouse safety practices …
Dropbox debuts two AI tools: one for summarizing documents, and Dash, an ambitious universal search engine that aims to be the “Google for your personal stuff”
Dropbox is launching two different but related AI-powered services into its platform.
Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Activision's Bobby Kotick, and Sony's Jim Ryan plan to testify in court over the US FTC's bid to block Microsoft's Activision deal
Microsoft is sending CEO Satya Nadella, Xbox chief Phil Spencer, and many other Xbox executives to defend against its Federal Trade Commission …
Sources: during the Trump administration, the US tracked Huawei and ZTE workers in Cuba, suspecting the companies were helping China expand its spying abilities
Intelligence bolstered suspicions telecom giants might be playing role in expansion of China's capabilities on island
In his new book, The Coming Wave, DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman proposes a “modern Turing test” to measure if an AI is “artificial capable intelligence”
A new book floats a provocative idea for testing whether machines are capable of human-like intelligence.
TikTok tests Trendy Beat, a new section selling popular items from videos, in the UK; filings and sources say the products are sold by a ByteDance-owned entity
ByteDance experiments with selling its own products through viral app as it prepares to challenge Shein and Amazon
Ant is developing LLM tech for ChatGPT-style services under “Zhen Yi”, a project by a dedicated unit using in-house research; Ant invested ~$2.8B in R&D in 2022
Jack Ma-backed Ant Group Co. is developing large-language model technology that will power ChatGPT-style services …
A look at the vagueness and implications of the EU's plan to require that portable batteries, like those in smartphones, are “readily removable and replaceable”
what you need to know Asma Hussain / iThinkDifferent : Apple braces for change as EU demands easy battery replacement for smartphones Stan Schroeder / Mashable : Future iPhones might have an easily re...
Patreon adds a free membership tier for the first time and plans to let creators sell one-off downloadable products such as videos and podcasts, taking a 5% cut
Patreon built a user base with creators who wanted to charge a fee for the content they create.
The US, the EU, Japan, and India have committed $100B+ combined for chip subsidies; chipmakers argue inflation, energy, and tech advances increased plant costs
The global race to build domestic factories and sever dependency on overseas suppliers for these critical components is spurring a spending boom …
Spotify updates its desktop app with redesigned “Your Library” and “Now Playing” user interfaces, meant to align the experience with the company's mobile app
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch :
Q&A with Jason Del Rey, the author of Winner Sells All, on how Walmart plays catch up to Amazon, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon's tenure, Amazon's missteps, and more
Jason Del Rey has spent the last 15 years reporting on e-commerce businesses, including Walmart and Amazon.
Google updates Chrome on iOS with a new mini Google Maps view and an option to add Calendar events by tapping a date on a site, and promises Google Lens support
The US DOJ announces NatSec Cyber, a new section within its National Security Division focused on disrupting and prosecuting malicious foreign cyber activity
Martin Matishak / The Record :
A profile of Joseph Tsai, the Taiwan-born, US-educated Alibaba co-founder, its next chairman, a longtime Jack Ma ally, and now a prominent blockchain proponent
Here's who they are Jane Zhang / Fortune : In a surprise shakeup, Alibaba names Eddie Wu as its CEO, replacing Daniel Zhang, effective September 10; Zhang will remain CEO of Alibaba Cloud Florence Muc...
NYC-based ElevenLabs, whose AI can turn text into speech using synthetic or cloned voices, raised a $19M Series A, a source says at a $99M post-money valuation
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch :
Render, which offers developers cloud services for building, deploying, and running apps and websites, raised a $50M Series B led by Bessemer Venture Partners
Neesha A. Tambe / TechCrunch :
Apple machine learning leader Ali Farhadi, who sold Xnor.ai to Apple for ~$200M in 2020, departs to become the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence's CEO
Todd Bishop / GeekWire :
Filing: Embracer paid ~$395M for Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit rights in 2022, far below ~$2B estimates; Amazon reportedly paid $250M for just the TV rights
K.J. Yossman / Variety :
KoBold Metals, which uses data science and ML to identify deposits of cobalt, copper, nickel, and lithium, raised $195M led by T. Rowe Price at a $1B+ valuation
Julie Steinberg / Wall Street Journal :
Toronto-based Rose Rocket, which sells SaaS tools for trucking companies, raised a $38M Series B led by Scale Venture Partners, taking its total funding to $69M
Google Cloud launches Anti Money Laundering AI, an API used by HSBC, Banco Bradesco, and Lunar that relies on AI instead of the industry's rules-based system
The company is looking to set itself apart from a crowded field of surveillance platforms by reducing the amount of human input …
London-based Volt, which offers open banking APIs in the UK, Europe, and Brazil, raised a $60M Series B led by IVP, a source says at a $350M+ valuation
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch :
Retail marketing company Neptune plans to acquire Quotient, the parent company of Coupons.com and other digital marketing platforms, in a $430M all-cash deal
Samrhitha Arunasalam / Reuters :
In a proposed class-action lawsuit, current and former Twitter staff allege the company refused to pay 2022 bonuses, despite promising to pay 50% of the amounts
Joel Rosenblatt / Bloomberg :
Months before the SEC's lawsuit, Coinbase filed amicus briefs in two crypto-related SEC cases, aiming to aid its own defense, an unusual federal court strategy
Jody Godoy / Reuters :
How Big Telecom lobbied US lawmakers to squeeze out new municipal networks, ensuring much of President Biden's $41.6B broadband funding goes to large companies
Sean Hollister / The Verge : Twitter: @communitynets and @karlbode . Forums: r/politics . Thanks: @ants000 Twitter: Christopher Mitchell / @communitynets : We need to make sure communities have the f...
As Indian consumer tech companies refocused on profits, shares rallied in 2023; Paytm grew 69%, adding $2.7B+ in market cap, Zomato 28%, and Policybazaar 47%
Ashutosh Joshi / Bloomberg :
Document: LexisNexis' $16.8M contract with ICE describes software that purports to detect and scrutinize migrants' activity by using license plate reader data
Sam Biddle / The Intercept : Bluesky: @taco.cat Bluesky: Scott Andreas / @taco.cat : Used to think of Lexis as the most incredible library on earth for legal / legislative research. But you can't be...
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