Meta reports Q2 revenue up 22% YoY to $39B, net income up 73% to $13.5B, and family daily active people up 7% to 3.27B on average for June 2024; META jumps 5%+
Meta Platforms, Inc. (Nasdaq: META) today reported financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2024.
Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.1 beta hands-on: meaningful Siri language understanding improvements and Siri text input is nice, but few other notable features
In iOS 18's latest developer preview, Siri gets a glow-up. Like, the whole phone actually glows around the edges when you invoke Siri.
Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian says the CrowdStrike-caused outage will cost the company $500M, after canceling 6,000+ flights, and Delta will seek damages
WATCH NOW — Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said Wednesday that the massive IT outage earlier this month that stranded thousands of customers will cost it $500 million.
On Meta's earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg said Llama 4 will need almost 10x more compute to train than Llama 3.1, Quest 3 sales exceeded expectations, and more
Alex Heath / The Verge :
Discord on Xbox gets the ability to watch friends' Discord streams whether they're sharing from a PC, a phone, or an Xbox, rolling out over the coming weeks
Microsoft and Discord are greatly improving the integration of the communication platform into Xbox consoles.
Meta's Reality Labs posts Q2 revenue up 28% YoY of $353M, vs. $371M est., and a $4.48B operating loss, vs. $4.55B est.; Reality Labs has lost ~$50B since 2020
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC :
WBD, Disney, and Fox plan to launch their joint sports streaming venture Venu for $42.99 per month initially, with a seven-day free trial, expected in fall 2024
Streaming sports on a stand-alone basis won't be cheap. … The service is expected to debut in the fall in conjunction with the start of the next NFL season.
Don Lemon sues Elon Musk and X, arguing Musk refused to pay him after a $1.5M/year exclusive X content deal fell apart; Lemon did not sign a formal contract
The former CNN reporter said in a lawsuit that X had refused to pay him after a testy interview with its billionaire owner.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman says Microsoft, Anthropic, and Perplexity need to pay to scrape Reddit's data, and blocking them has been “a real pain in the ass”
After striking deals with Google and OpenAI, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is calling on Microsoft and others to pay if they want to continue scraping the site's data.
Google unveils updates to its Gemma family of open models, including Gemma 2 2B, which it claims surpasses GPT-3.5 and Mixtral 8x7B on the LMSYS Chatbot Arena
Google has unveiled updates to its Gemma 2 family of open-source language models, focusing on improved performance, safety, and transparency.
OpenAI tells US lawmakers that it is “dedicated” to “rigorous safety protocols at every stage of our process” and is working with the US AI Safety Institute
OpenAI, responding to questions from US lawmakers, said it's dedicated to making sure its powerful AI tools …
Telegram rolls out a Mini App Store to help users find apps, a new in-app browser that supports multiple tabs, and says mini apps have 500M+ out of 950M MAUs
Telegram is refining the in-app expereince, adding a new way to interact with the browser and a Mini App Store for native applications.
A ransomware attack hits blood donation nonprofit OneBlood, which has asked over 250 hospitals in the US to activate their critical blood shortage protocols
A cyberattack has hit a blood-donation nonprofit that serves hundreds of hospitals in the southeastern US.
The EU's AI Act takes effect, triggering compliance deadlines for a range of AI developers and apps; most provisions will be fully applicable by mid-2026
It's official: The European Union's risk-based regulation for applications of artificial intelligence has come into force from Thursday, August 1, 2024.
The CISA names Lisa Einstein as its first chief AI officer; Einstein has been a senior AI adviser at the agency since 2023 and helped craft CISA's AI roadmap
- She had been a senior adviser at the agency since last year, focused on AI issues — she helped craft CISA's AI roadmap …
Investigation: 2020 to 2023 data shows how thousands of middlemen game the H-1B program and companies farm out IT workers to exploit the US visa lottery system
Each year in April, the US government conducts a lottery that shapes the lives of hundreds of thousands of people — and America's future as an economic power. X: @deedydas , @yask123 , @ericfan_journo...
Bungie says it will lay off 220 employees, or 17% of its workforce, and integrate an additional 155 roles into its parent company Sony Interactive Entertainment
The New Path for Bungie has Bungie's announcement of “difficult changes … X: Jason Schreier / @jasonschreier : Sony's Bungie is shrinking from 1,300 people to 850: - 220 laid off - 155 moving to Sony ...
Roblox reports Q2 revenue up 31% YoY to $894M, bookings up 22% YoY to $995M, a $206M net loss, average DAUs up 21% YoY to 79.5M, projects Q3 bookings above est.
- Daily users jumped 21% in second quarter from a year ago — CFO Michael Guthrie stepping down to pursue personal interests
Google Cloud expands its database portfolio with new AI capabilities, including updates to its Spanner SQL database, which now supports graph and vector search
Google is hosting a version of its Cloud Next conference in Tokyo this week, and it's putting the focus squarely on tweaking …
Tether reports a “record” $5.2B net profit in H1 2024, net operating profit of $1.3B in Q2, and $97.6B US debt holdings, more than Germany and other countries
Krisztian Sandor / CoinDesk :
Analysis: Indian startup VC funding has dwindled, depriving India of capital needed to grow its economy, as the valuation of top companies like Byju's implodes
Byju's, Paytm falter in stark reminder of the unique risks and challenges facing the country's tech economy. X: @sankalp_sp . Forums: Hacker News X: Sankalp Phartiyal / @sankalp_sp : For a brief, shin...
Sources: the US considers unilateral restrictions on China's access to AI memory chips and equipment, to keep Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung from supplying China
- SK Hynix and Samsung could be affected by the new US rule — China's AI memory chip capability lags behind global rivals
The Premier League, Bundesliga, DAZN, Sky, UEFA, CONMEBOL, and others write to X CEO Linda Yaccarino demanding more action against illegal soccer content on X
Some of Europe's main broadcasters and top soccer leagues have sent a letter to the CEO of social media platform X, Linda Yaccarino …
US senators unveil the bipartisan NO FAKES Act, which would make individuals and companies liable for producing, hosting, or sharing unauthorized AI deepfakes
Industry Responses Are Overwhelmingly Positive Malder / FedScoop : Copyright Office cites ‘urgent’ need for digital replicas law as legislation introduced PYMNTS.com : Senate Introduces Bipartisan Bil...
UAE-based G42 is working with the US and Emirati government “to comply with the highest global standards” in AI, after US lawmakers questioned its China ties
UAE-based artificial intelligence company G42 is actively working with U.S. partners and the Emirati government to comply …
Sources: the UK told tech companies the AI bill will make existing voluntary agreements legally binding and the AI Safety Institute into an Arm's Length Body
Minister assures tech firms that upcoming legislation will be highly targeted — UK tech secretary Peter Kyle … X: @annasophiegross X: Anna Gross / @annasophiegross : NEW: Tech sec Peter Kyle has tol...
Qualcomm reports Q3 revenue up 11% YoY to $9.39B, vs. $9.21B est., handset chip sales up 12% YoY to $5.9B, and forecasts Q4 revenue above estimates
Ian King / Bloomberg :
Microsoft says that a nine-hour outage on July 30, which disrupted multiple Microsoft 365 and Azure services worldwide, was triggered by a DDoS attack
Protect AI, which develops software to help enterprises secure AI models and applications, raised $60M led by Evolution Equity Partners at a $400M valuation
The funding round, led by Evolution Equity Partners, values the startup at $400 million. New investors in the deal include 01 Advisors …
A look at Hamster Kombat, a Telegram “mini-game” with 53M channel subscribers, the most on Telegram; in June 2024, Iran said the crypto game distracted voters
In June, Iranian authorities claimed the crypto game was distracting voters during the presidential election.
Staff memo: Samsung's chip business head Jun Young-hyun warns Samsung risks getting into a “vicious cycle” if the company does not revamp its workplace culture
- Jun Young-hyun replaced his predecessor just a few months ago — It's trying to catch SK Hynix in the hot AI memory chip market
A look at Baidu's experiment with driverless taxis in Wuhan, which became China's biggest proving ground for Baidu's taxis due to a relaxed regulatory approach
Wuhan's experiment with driverless taxis could help China lead the world on the emerging technology. It also risks putting thousands of people out of work.
The European Commission unconditionally approves HPE's $14B takeover of networking gear maker Juniper Networks after finding no competition concerns
Bart Meijer / Reuters :
Outbrain confirms plans to acquire Altice-owned Teads, in a transaction valuing the SSP and video monetization company at $1B+; Outbrain will pay $725M in cash
Alyssa Boyle / AdExchanger :
Infosys confirms that Indian authorities hit the IT giant with a $3.9B tax demand, covering July 2017 to March 2022, the latest company to get such a demand
Chris Kay / Financial Times :
The US SEC sues former IRL CEO Abraham Shafi, accusing him of a $170M fraud by misleading investors about the company's growth and concealing personal expenses
Joe Miller / Financial Times :
Sources: US Commerce Department officials inform Applied Materials that its planned $4B Silicon Valley R&D facility doesn't qualify for CHIPS Act grants
a decision that highlights gaps in how the US government is approaching semiconductor research https://www.bloomberg.com/... Forums: r/politics : Applied Materials Denied US Chips Grant for $4 Billion...
Document: FirstCry, India's leading e-commerce platform for baby products, is seeking to raise up to $501M in an IPO, valuing the company at as much as $2.9B
While jointly owning less than 1%, the number of retail TSMC shareholders hit a new high in 2024, as locals believe TSMC's success helps Taiwan fend off China
Bloomberg :
Source: TikTok was paying Microsoft ~$20M/month to use OpenAI's models in Azure OpenAI Service as of March, ~25% of the total revenue the service was generating
Arm reports Q1 revenue up 39% YoY to $939M vs. $905.4M est., license and other revenue up 72%, and maintains its outlook for FY 2025; ARM drops 10%+
Ian King / Bloomberg :
OpenSecrets: the number of groups lobbying the US government on AI grew from 459 in 2023 to 556 in H1 2024; OpenAI spent $800K in H1 2024, up from $260K in 2023
good piece from @Kyle_L_Wiggers https://techcrunch.com/...
eBay reports Q2 revenue up 1% YoY to $2.57B, vs. $2.53B est., GMV up 1% to $18.4B, net income up 31% to $226M, and forecasts Q3 revenue below estimates
New York-based Spring Health, which offers a mental health app that matches patients with care providers, raised a $100M Series E at a $3.3B valuation
Eight years ago, Spring Health started with Adam Chekroud's Lancet paper …
Some UK business leaders and academics worry the UK rejecting a record number of Chinese students due to fears of espionage puts the UK's tech ambitions at risk
Yazhou Sun / Bloomberg :
Ema, which helps companies set up and deploy no-code AI agents it calls “universal AI employees”, raised $36M as part of a Series A led by Accel and Section 32
Delivery Hero plans to merge two of its European businesses, Foodora and Yemeksepeti, with its Asian business, Foodpanda, and cut fewer than 200 employees
Michael Hennessey / 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.