The US Senate passes the ByteDance-TikTok divestment bill by 79-18, after the House passed the bill on April 20; President Biden signs the bill into law
A bill that would force China-based company Bytedance to sell TikTok — or else face a US ban of the platform — is all but certain …
Legal scholars discuss how the TikTok divestment bill could survive a First Amendment challenge and why the US will likely rely on a national security argument
The First Amendment is a major obstacle, scholars say — but it isn't insurmountable — On Tuesday, the Senate voted overwhelmingly …
Biden signing the TikTok divestment bill starts a 270-day countdown for a sale or a US prohibition; sources say ByteDance sees a divestiture as a last resort
- China's ByteDance faces deadline to sell app under new US law — Company braces for legal fight against divest-or-ban efforts
Sources: Apple cut 2024 Vision Pro shipments to 400K to 450K units, compared to a 700K+ market consensus, and US demand has “fallen sharply beyond expectations”
My latest survey is as follows: — Apple has cut its 2024 Vision Pro shipments to 400-450k units (vs. market consensus of 700-800k units or more).
The US FTC bans noncompete clauses that restrict job switching, the first time in 50+ years that the FTC has issued a regulation mandating an economywide change
Move sets up high-stakes legal clash with business groups over the agency's power — WASHINGTON—The Federal Trade Commission …
Whether TikTok is banned or not, this is the end as we know it for the money-losing app, which may lose focus due to advertiser, creator, and staff uncertainty
Here's How Long ByteDance Has to Sell, and Why TikTok Is Preparing for a Legal Battle Vassia Barba / The Mirror : FBI chief issues TikTok warning as he says China is trying to ‘steal AI and hack US te...
Microsoft begins rolling out Windows 11 Start menu ads that show app “recommendations” from “a small set of curated developers”; users can disable the ads
Microsoft is starting to enable ads inside the Start menu on Windows 11 for all users.
Filings: in 2024, ByteDance and TikTok spent $7M+ combined on lobbying against the US' TikTok bill; AdImpact: TikTok spent $4.5M+ on TV and digital ads in 2023
Brian Schwartz / CNBC :
The US DOJ argues Binance founder Changpeng Zhao should spend three years in prison and pay $50M for helping Binance violate sanctions and money laundering laws
The DOJ wants Zhao to serve 36 months after his guilty plea last year. — Binance's founder and former chief executive …
How a tiny group of US lawmakers and aides wrote the TikTok divestment bill, hiding their efforts to avoid TikTok's lobbying, alongside the DOJ and White House
New York Times :
Qualcomm details its Snapdragon X Plus and X Elite chips; benchmarks from a demo suggest the chips match Apple's M3, Intel's Core Ultra 9, and AMD's Ryzen 9
On Wednesday, Qualcomm announced the impending arrival of its Snapdragon X Plus laptop processor alongside more information …
Emails released as part of US vs. Google show how Google's finance and ad teams led by Prabhakar Raghavan made Search worse to make the company more money
This is the story of how Google Search died, and the people responsible for killing it. — The story begins on February 5th 2019 …
The Biden campaign plans to continue using TikTok for at least the next year, with “enhanced security measures”, to help “meet voters where they are”
here's what happens next X: Allan Smith / @akarl_smith : Scoop from @albamonica: Biden's campaign says it plans to keep using TikTok through the election after the president signed legislation that co...
For the third time, Google delays the deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome, pushing back its plans to early 2025, after the UK CMA expressed concerns
Google is delaying the end of third-party cookies in its Chrome browser — again. In other unsurprising developments, water remains wet.
The European Parliament adopts right-to-repair rules clarifying manufacturers' obligations to provide repair services, consumer access to spare parts, and more
The new rules will give customers new ways to claim support for a product throughout its lifetime, and also aid independent repair shops.
The US OFAC sanctions four Iranian nationals over cyberattacks on the US government, defense contractors, and private companies, and the DOJ unseals indictments
The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned four Iranian nationals for their involvement …
Hands-on with the Meta AI chatbot: fails at basic search queries, stinks at counting, excels at editing existing paragraphs, quickly creates images, and more
Despite Mark Zuckerberg's hope for the chatbot to be the smartest, it struggles with facts, numbers and web search.
Tesla teases a ridehailing function in its app and says its robotaxi will be “purpose-built”, suggesting it will be built from the ground up to be self-driving
The company's CEO, Elon Musk, has said that Tesla will unveil a long-gestating robotaxi in August.
Meta, Google, Snap, and Amazon all benefit from the US' TikTok ban; Mark Zuckerberg criticized TikTok's Chinese roots in 2019, part of Meta's broader campaign
There are no coincidences when it comes to corporate lobbying. X: @jbulltard1 : when tiktok is divested. Google, Meta and Amazon won't be allowed to bid, we'll just hand deliver it to Microsoft though...
Meta's Ray-Ban Smart Glasses get support for video calling via WhatsApp and Messenger, hands-free Apple Music controls, and a new frame style
A look at the restaurant reservation ecosystem in New York City, where new apps have sprung up to help diners book a table at buzzy restaurants for a price
How bots, mercenaries, and table scalpers have turned the restaurant reservation system inside out. Mastodon: @dangillmor@mastodon.social . X: @theattack5 , @blackbird_xyz , @matthewichoi , @guyfieris...
An interview with Embracer Group CEO Lars Wingefors on criticism over mass layoffs and studio closures, splitting the company into three, rising debt, and more
Group owner defends teams and their leaders, says he still believes in the company's mission — News by James Batchelor Editor-in-chief
Nvidia acquires AI infrastructure orchestration and management service Run:ai, a source says for ~$700M; Run:ai, founded in 2018, had raised $118M to date
Run:ai enables enterprise customers to manage and optimize their compute infrastructure, whether on premises, in the cloud or in hybrid environments.
Block says it has finished developing its own 3nm bitcoin mining chip and is working through the design with a “leading global semiconductor foundry”
Jack Dorsey says that his payments company, Block (formerly Square), is expanding its bitcoin mining ambitions from designing chips …
Sources: Qualcomm is cheating on Snapdragon X Plus and Elite benchmarks given to OEMs and the press; the numbers are not achievable with the claimed settings
Opinion: Why do they keep digging? — Qualcomm is cheating on the Snapdragon X Plus/Elite benchmarks given to OEMs and the press. X: @kepler_l2 , @aadetugbo , @cdemerjian , and @ghost_motley Forums: ...
Samsung starts mass production of its 9th-generation 286-layer 3D NAND memory chips, which increases data I/O speeds by 33% compared to 8th-gen 236-layer chips
286-layer product boosts data storage capacity by 50%, aiding AI — SEOUL — Samsung Electronics said Tuesday …
A deep dive into how Bluesky is built, including its growth from three engineers to 12 in just over two years and its infrastructure move from AWS to on-prem
Bluesky is built by around 10 engineers, and has amassed 5 million users since publicly launching in February this year.
Klarna partners with Uber to power Uber and Uber Eats payments, adding its Pay Now option in the US, Germany, and Sweden, but not installment-based payments
The Swedish “buy now, pay later” pioneer said Tuesday that its new design would help users find the items they want by using …
Microsoft must take security seriously again by being transparent about breaches and no longer charging its subscribers extra for must-have security features
Microsoft charges extra for many core security and compliance features. What can customers do to try to minimize risk and save money? Mastodon: @zackwhittaker@mastodon.social Mastodon: Zack Whittaker...
Larry Ellison says Oracle is moving its world headquarters from Austin to Nashville to be closer to a major healthcare epicenter
Interviews with 20+ current and former TSMC staff at its Arizona plant finds struggles over bridging Taiwanese and US norms, rigid hierarchies, and other issues
the company's new chip plant allegedly plagued by worker abuses Charlesarthur / The Overspill : Start Up No.2207: TSMC's Arizona culture clash, Apple preps new iPads, Vision Pro forecasts cut, AI pois...
US companies racing to build data centers to serve AI demand is causing a shortage of parts, property, and power; cooling system lead times are now 5x longer
Supply bottlenecks slow the scramble to build bigger, more powerful facilities
SK Hynix plans to spend ~$3.86B to build a new DRAM chip facility in South Korea, starting construction this month and aiming for completion by November 2025
Joyce Lee / Reuters :
Xaira Therapeutics, which aims to use AI models to find new drugs to treat diseases, emerged from stealth with $1B in commitments from Sequoia and others
read it only @endpts: https://endpts.com/... LinkedIn: Xaira Therapeutics : Incubated by ARCH Venture Partners and Foresite Labs, Xaira Therapeutics is on a mission to drive advances in artificial int...
Sources: IBM is nearing an acquisition of HashiCorp, which helps companies manage cloud infrastructure, in the coming days; HashiCorp's stock jumps 22%+
Not only has GM sold driving data to insurers without telling users, but a GM app “bug” meant users who were enrolled in Smart Driver were told they weren't
Taser company Axon launches an AI tool that turns body cam audio into police reports to save time; critics worry it will introduce errors into crucial evidence
Should be a supplement to conventional, signed police reports. Anyything that adds searchable text to the public record, especially for videos that are currently inaccessible to the public (unsearcha...
OpenAI announces new enterprise-grade features for API customers, including enhanced security, administrative controls, and new Assistants API capabilities
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat :
Dublin-based Tines, which offers no-code automation tools for security teams, raised a $50M Series B extension, sources say at a near $600M post-money valuation
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch :
An interview with Apple Arcade Senior Director Alex Rofman: the service hit record highs on all “critical metrics” in 2023 and will feature Vision Pro games
Keith Stuart / The Guardian :
Paris-based FlexAI, which is developing an on-demand cloud service for AI training, emerges from stealth with $30M in seed funding
Paul Sawers / TechCrunch :
Berlin-based Parloa, which uses conversational AI to automate call center operations, raised a $66M Series B led by Altimeter, after a $21M Series A in 2023
Paul Sawers / TechCrunch :
Apptopia: Threads is now consistently surpassing X in US DAUs, up to ~28M in April, after it first began eclipsing X in Dec. 2023, but X still has more US MAUs
SenseTime's stock rises 30%+ after the company unveiled the latest version of its SenseNova AI model; its stock is down 80%+ since its 2021 Hong Kong IPO
Bloomberg :
As software gets better at labeling photos, CAPTCHA designers are adopting more difficult logic-based prompts to thwart nefarious bots
Katie Deighton / Wall Street Journal : X: @shantharmohan and @dollydeighton . Forums: r/Weird X: @shantharmohan : “I haven't been able to spot 10 [stop]lights in a row. I'm either a robot or a cyclis...
NYC-based Campus, which is building an online alternative to traditional community colleges, raised a $23M Series A extension, following a $29M Series A in 2023
Marina Temkin / TechCrunch :
Mobvoi, a Google-backed Chinese smartwatch and AI company, fell as much as 22% in its first day of trading, after raising $41M in its Hong Kong IPO
Filipe Pacheco / Bloomberg :
Huawei unveils Qiankun, a new business unit focused on providing self-driving systems, marking the company's latest push to become a major EV industry player
How Palantir, which doesn't have a traditional salesforce, is using software boot camps to attract customers, hosting an average of about five per day in 2024
Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg : X: @lizette_chapman and @xjmejid X: Lizette Chapman / @lizette_chapman : PLTR stock price has more than doubled during past 12 months, largely on the promise of AI. Here...
China approves the US listing of self-driving startup Pony.ai, which plans to sell up to 98M shares and list on Nasdaq or NYSE, signaling an easing crackdown
Bloomberg :
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26
Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control
Picture this: It's Monday morning. You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data
Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.