Amazon announces an updated $79 Echo Spot alarm clock, with a revamped design and improved audio quality, the first update to the device since its 2017 launch
Amazon on Monday announced a new $79 Echo Spot alarm clock with a revamped design and improved audio quality.
Microsoft quietly adds spellchecking and autocorrect to Notepad in Windows 11, after testing the features in March 2024; Windows Notepad first launched in 1983
Feature rolled out to insiders back in March, now available to the masses. — Microsoft tested an updated Notepad app with integrated spellchecking back in March.
Sam Altman and Arianna Huffington announce Thrive AI Health, a new startup backed by OpenAI and Thrive Global to build a “hyper-personalized AI health coach”
A staggering 129 million Americans have at least one major chronic disease—and 90% of our $4.1 trillion …
Australia, backed by the US, the UK, Japan, and other allies, accuses a Chinese state-backed hacking group of targeting government and private sector networks
US, UK, Germany and Japan back report alleging APT40 conducted ‘malicious’ cyber espionage activities
Memo: Microsoft tells staff in China they must use iPhones for work from September, saying that Google services like the Play Store are not available in China
- Company will block corporate access from Android in China — Microsoft has been tightening cybersecurity following attacks
Etsy CEO Josh Silverman says Etsy is positioning itself “to answer the call for original goods and real people” by overhauling its policies and adding labels
When Etsy launched almost two decades ago, the site attracted artisans and craft makers, who finally had a place online …
Spotify adds the ability for users to leave comments on podcasts, expanding on polls and Q&As comments will be private by default, and creators can opt out
The company already lets Spotify podcasters offer polls and Q&As, so this new feature could give creators new ways to interact with their audiences.
Nothing unveils the $199 CMF Phone 1, with swappable parts, a 6.67" AMOLED, a MediaTek SoC, and Nothing OS, plus the $69 CMF Watch Pro 2 and $59 CMF Buds Pro 2
Phone 1, Watch Pro 2, and Buds Pro 2 — and came away pretty impressed about what you get for a modest amount of money, these days. [image] @nothing : Today is the day. Tune into our Community Update a...
Q&A with Canva CEO Melanie Perkins on the startup's history, its 4,500 headcount, going global, trust and safety, Adobe, attracting enterprise clients, and more
To her, AI is just an extension of what Canva has always done: make accessible design tools that cost less than Adobe's.
Meta plans to remove more Facebook and Instagram posts that attack “Zionism” or threaten “Zionists” when the term is used to represent Jewish people or Israelis
Company will pull down ‘Zionism’ posts when used generally to threaten Jewish people
Quora's Poe launches Previews, letting users create web apps like data visualizations and games using more than one LLM, like GPT-4o and Gemini 1.5 Pro
Poe, Quora's subscription-based, cross-platform aggregator for AI-powered chatbots like Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's GPT-4o …
Illinois enacted new provisions in its Child Labor Law on July 1 to mandate influencer parents pay their children for appearing in their social media content
Many influencer parents like to incorporate their family into their TikToks, YouTube videos and other types of short-form content.
Despite OpenAI's move to shut out Chinese developers from its tech, OpenAI's models are still available in China via Microsoft's Azure China
OpenAI last month announced plans to crack down on China-based artificial intelligence developers covertly accessing the startup's technology, which it doesn't offer in China.
Investigation: the US Cyber Safety Review Board didn't investigate, for unclear reasons, the weaknesses in Microsoft tools that the SolarWinds hack exploited
NFT and metaverse content creation company Infinite Reality raised $350M at a $5.1B valuation and acquires Roblox game developer Landvault for $450M in stock
Infinite Reality, the company working on metaverse-like technologies, has raised $350 million and acquired Roblox game developer Landvault for $450 million.
The National Samsung Electronics Union goes on a three-day strike for better pay; analysts say the strike is unlikely to have an impact due to low participation
Austin-based Command Zero, which uses automation and LLMs to help with cybersecurity investigations, emerges from stealth with $21M in seed funding led by a16z
Command Zero has emerged from stealth mode with $21 million in a seed funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
How the US is trying to transform the world's chip supply chain, including getting more countries to set up factories to do final chip assembly and packaging
New York Times :
Remittance startup Nala, which lets users in the EU, UK, and US send money to 11 African markets, raised a $40M Series A led by Acrew, after a $10M seed in 2022
Annie Njanja / TechCrunch :
The FTC bans teen messaging app NGL from serving users under 18, a first; NGL agreed to pay $5M and stop marketing to kids and teens to settle the FTC's lawsuit
real consequences for exploiting teens. U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor / @usrepkcastor : Deceptive marketing practices are harming children online. I am glad the @FTC is taking action against NGL Labs for sen...
A study of GPT-3.5-based ChatGPT's ability to solve 728 coding problems: fairly good at solving problems that existed before 2021, but struggles with newer ones
Hong Kong proposes stiffer penalties for illegal ride-hailing services and use of licensing to regulate platforms such as Uber, potentially limiting their scope
South China Morning Post :
What to expect from Samsung Galaxy Unpacked on July 10: Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Flip 6, Galaxy AI updates, Galaxy Buds 3, Galaxy Watch 7 and Watch 7 Ultra, and more
Chinese self-driving cars from WeRide, Apollo, AutoX, Pony.ai, and DiDi have driven 1.8M miles in California since 2017, collecting data with little scrutiny
like this one for Apollo's parent company Baidu (aka “Chinese Google"). [image] Rachyl Jones / @rachyljones : Meanwhile, China makes it extremely difficult for US robotaxi companies to test in the cou...
Volley, which makes AI-based games played via voice commands on Amazon Alexa, Fire TV, and Roku TV, raised a $55M Series C, bringing its total funding to $75M+
If you've ever wanted to play “Jeopardy” with Scarlett Johansson, you might soon get your chance. X: @turnernovak X: Turner Novak / @turnernovak : Big fan of Max and James - Volley is one of the coole...
A Sequoia Capital analyst estimated on June 20 that companies developing AI models must collectively generate ~$600B per year to pay for their AI infrastructure
Sources: HongShan, formerly Sequoia China, raised a ~$2.5B fund in Chinese yuan, which can more easily invest in sensitive tech than its $9B USD fund from 2022
Financial Times :
Captions, which uses AI to let people create and edit videos, raised $60M led by Index Ventures at a $500M valuation, taking its total funding to $100M
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg :
IDC: ~3% of PCs shipped in 2024 will meet Microsoft's AI PCs processing power threshold; a source says some big app makers rebuffed a push for on-device AI
Bloomberg :
New York-based Hebbia, which uses AI to help companies sift through documents, raised $130M led by a16z, a source says at a ~$700M post-money valuation
How Scale AI's $13.8B valuation from May 2024's $1B funding round is almost certainly too high, given below-average margins, a reliance on few clients, and more
Cory Weinberg / The Information : Threads: @paul_rietschka . X: @coryweinberg and @coryweinberg Threads: Paul Rietschka / @paul_rietschka : This company with its high school graduate CEO is absolutel...
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