Sources: the EU plans to fine Apple around €500M for allegedly breaking EU law over access to music streaming services, following a 2019 complaint by Spotify
Move is culmination of long-running European Commission antitrust probe after a complaint by Spotify
Apple Store sources: Vision Pro returns are between average and above average compared to other products; in-store demo conversion rate is as high as 10% to 15%
The Apple Vision Pro has now been available for two weeks — and some of Apple's most dedicated customers are returning the device to get back their $3,500.
SPEC invalidates 2,600 benchmark results for some Intel Xeon CPUs, saying their compiler artificially inflated the results of its benchmark by as much as 9%
Benchmarks, while inherently contentious and not always representative of real-world performance, are an important tool in any kind of quantitative evaluation.
A Florida court filing accuses the Bahamas-based Deltec Bank of giving Alameda Research a short-term line of credit worth billions of dollars to buy Tether
- Deltec is alleged to have provided a short-term line of credit — Court documents suggest a tighter web than previously known
Sources: the UK, the US, and other allies are working to provide Ukraine with thousands of new AI-enabled drones that could swarm Russian targets simultaneously
- Technology could help Ukraine overwhelm some Russian targets — Germany's Scholz calls on EU allies to increase Ukraine aid
Sources: Reddit signed a deal early in 2024, worth ~$60M on an annualized basis, allowing a large unnamed AI company to train its models on Reddit's content
- Social media firm agrees $60 million deal with AI company — Reddit advised to seek at least $5 billion IPO valuation
Sources: Nintendo told game publishers the Switch 2's launch is delayed from late 2024 to Q1 2025; source: Nintendo needs more time to prepare its own games
Andy Robinson / Video Games Chronicle :
Apple's Vision Pro could become a valuable multiuser device, but it undermines that fantasy at every turn through its single-user setup and more
Adi Robertson / The Verge : Threads: @jwolman . X: @mahyarm8 Threads: Jacob Wolman / @jwolman : Apple's years-long insistence on making its devices impossible to share is truly infuriating, and in ma...
Amsterdam-based Monumental, which is developing AI-powered bricklaying robots, emerges from stealth and raised $25M co-led by Plural and Hummingbird
Monumental, a trailblazing robotics startup, has raised $25 million in funding co-led by Plural and Hummingbird.
Sources: UK chip designer Graphcore explores a sale to foreign owners in a deal that could be worth $500M+; rumored buyers include OpenAI, SoftBank, and Arm
Graphcore in talks with major tech companies after struggling to cash in on AI boom — The British microchip champion Graphcore …
Elon Musk says his companies “have probably done more to undermine Russia than anything” and calls accusations that he is a Vladimir Putin apologist “absurd”
all the evidence points to the... Garry Kasparov / @kasparov63 : It's a war. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the front line, but it extends to every aspect of the free world vs authoritarians. Trump &...
Apple's reversal on RCS wasn't forced by the EU, but likely by China, whose government began codifying in 2023 a requirement for new 5G devices to support RCS
John Gruber / Daring Fireball :
Despite Google and OpenAI's promises, Gemini and ChatGPT appear to have almost no safeguards against creating AI disinfo for the 2024 US presidential election
Maxwell Zeff / Gizmodo :
An interview with Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor, co-founders of conversational AI startup Sierra, on using several AI models at once, building AI agents, and more
Sierra hopes every company will use its empathetic AI chatbots for customer interactions. — I might have inadvertently … X: @wired , @fractaldoctor , and @artsjournalnews LinkedIn: Steven Levy and M...
Sources: OpenAI completed a deal valuing the startup at $80B or more, planning to let employees cash out their shares in a tender offer led by Thrive Capital
New York Times :
A look at the data center economy of Ireland, which had 82 data centers in 2023, amid concerns about rolling blackouts due to pressure on the electrical grid
Datacentres are part of Ireland's vision of itself as a tech hub. There are now more than 80, using vast amounts of electricity. Mastodon: @TeamMidwest@glammr.us , @icing@chaos.social , @jbond@mastod...
Court filing: Amazon claims the NLRB is unconstitutional, after the agency said Amazon illegally retaliated against workers; SpaceX has made a similar claim
like SpaceX — claims the labor board is unconstitutional Ananya Gairola / Benzinga : Jeff Bezos' Amazon Joins SpaceX And Trader Joe's In Slamming NLRB Amid Labor Union Dispute Pranav Dixit / Engadget ...
A look at Nvidia's AI startup investments through Nventures and its corporate development team, deals that come with intangibles, like access to research teams
The trillion-dollar chipmaker has done over two dozen deals, through its Nventures investing arm and corporate development team. X: @alexvoica , @alexrkonrad , @hkanji , and @richardjnieva X: Alexandr...
Q&A with Figma CEO Dylan Field on managing the company after the failed sale to Adobe, maintaining culture, using the $1B breakup fee, expansion plans, and more
Figma has a billion dollars and big plans for expansion as it emerges from the acquisition with its ‘foot on the gas.’ — Happy Friday. Mastodon: @marcedwards@mastodon.social . X: @carnage4life , @ca...
A look at the global outreach of India's UPI, which has expanded to seven other Asian countries and now lets Indian tourists buy tickets at the Eiffel Tower
signs that show UPI is accepted there — could take up to 12 months and only then will transaction traffic pick up. India Edition by @menakadoshi LinkedIn: Menaka Doshi : 🌏Seven done, 23 more to go on ...
Sources: FISA's Section 702 bill was shelved over a rule that would end the government's ability to pay US firms for information rather than serving a warrant
https://www.wired.com/... “A surprise disclosure of a national security threat by the House Intelligence chair was part of an effort to block legislation that aimed to limit cops and spies from buyin...
How tech workers, spurred by geopolitical threats, are embracing battlefield tech; PitchBook: VCs invested $108B in defense tech companies between 2021 and 2023
Washington Post : Mastodon: @nitashatiku@mastodon.social . X: @g_delta753 , @edwardmehr , @sunofjackson , @landsmanwayne , @aphysicist , @adoricko , and @filarons . LinkedIn: William Schlickenmaier M...
Meta is matching existing fact checks to “near-identical content on Threads”, and says it will soon let fact-checkers rate content directly on Threads
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch : Threads: @mikehos3 , @vintagemillennial81 , @renee.diresta , @culturecrave , @mattnavarra , @mattnavarra , and @cformiles Threads: Mike / @mikehos3 : When you forget the pe...
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