OpenAI raised $6.6B led by Thrive Capital, the largest VC deal of all time, valuing it at $157B, with participation from Microsoft, Nvidia, SoftBank, and others
- Not taking part, a source confirms, is Apple, which reportedly had been in talks to invest.
Two Harvard students demo using Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, PimEyes, and other tools to instantly identify strangers' names, phone numbers, addresses, and more
The technology, which marries Meta's smart Ray Ban glasses with the facial recognition service Pimeyes and some other tools …
Source: Thrive invested ~$1.3B in OpenAI's $6.6B round, with an exclusive option to invest up to $1B more at the same $157B valuation through 2025
Cade Metz / New York Times :
WP Engine files a lawsuit in California against Automattic and WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, accusing them of “abuse of power, extortion, and greed”
Web hosting provider WP Engine has filed a lawsuit against Automattic, and WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, accusing them of extortion and abuse of power.
Researchers: hackers are actively exploiting an RCE vulnerability in Zimbra email servers, disclosed on September 27, triggered by emailing the SMTP server
Hackers are actively exploiting a recently disclosed RCE vulnerability in Zimbra email servers that can be triggered simply …
Oura unveils the $349+ Oura Ring 4, featuring a slimmer design, improved accuracy, and more sizes, shipping October 15, and completely redesigns the Oura app
Oura is giving its popular smart ring and app a substantial makeover. The company just announced the $349 Oura Ring 4 …
Source: on top of the $6.6B in funding, OpenAI got a $4B revolving line of credit from JPMorgan Chase, Citi, and others, bringing its total liquidity to $10B+
OpenAI has a $4 billion revolving line of credit, bringing its total liquidity to more than $10 billion, CNBC has learned.
The US SEC files a notice of appeal in its Ripple case, seeking to reverse a July 2023 ruling that XRP sales on retail exchanges didn't violate securities rules
A federal judge ruled last year that the SEC had not made its case that Ripple violated securities law by selling XRP to retail customers through exchanges.
Co-founders Tim Berners-Lee and Rosemary Leith plan to close the World Wide Web Foundation after 15 years of fighting to make the web safer and more accessible
Who wants to join his so Solid crew? — After fifteen years of fighting to make the web safer and more accessible, the World Wide Web Foundation is shutting down.
Gurbir Grewal, the US SEC's top enforcement official since 2021, who oversaw 2,400+ enforcement actions and the crypto crackdown, plans to leave on October 11
- Grewal helped lead WhatsApp probes, crypto industry crackdown — SEC official was previously New Jersey's attorney general
Google expands conversational AI voice chat Gemini Live's language support to French, German, Portuguese, Hindi, and Spanish, after launching in English
Google initially rolled out Gemini Live, its conversational AI voice chat, in just one language: English.
Spotify launches Offline Backup, which automatically makes recently streamed and now playing queued songs available as an offline playlist for Premium users
Spotify introduced a new feature today called Offline Backup. This feature for premium users is essentially a list of songs …
As Satya Nadella says AI models are becoming “more of a commodity”, OpenAI faces formidable challenges, including burning $5B+ in 2024 and intense competition
Latest funding round has boosted the company's valuation to $150bn, but it faces formidable challenges
Analysis: OpenAI, the third-most valuable VC-backed company after ByteDance and SpaceX, is now worth far more than any VC-backed startup at the time of its IPO
Axios Local All topics — 📣 Dude Perfect, the sports … Bailey Lipschultz / Bloomberg : JPMorgan Says IPO Market for PE-Backed Companies Is ‘Very’ Open
Black Forest Labs, whose Flux.1 model powers Grok's image generator, launches an API in beta and its latest image generation model Flux1.1 Pro
Black Forest Labs, the Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup behind the image generation model in xAI's Grok assistant, has launched an API in beta — and released a new model.
PitchBook: Q3 US VC investments rose ~8% YoY to $37.9B across 3,777 deals; AI startups got 36% of the deal value and 27% of the deal count from Q1 to Q3 2024
Artificial intelligence firms received more than one-third of the funds in the third quarter.
PayPal completes its first business payment using its proprietary PYUSD stablecoin, paying an E&Y invoice on September 23 via SAP's digital currency hub
SAP's platform, known as the digital currency hub, allows enterprises to send and receive digital payments instantly, around the clock.
YouTube unveils Shorts updates, including letting creators upload three-minute videos, updating the Shorts player, introducing templates, and a new trends page
YouTube on Thursday announced a series of updates for its short-form video product, YouTube Shorts.
Google Search rolls out “Organized with AI”, grouping results with “unique, AI-generated headlines” in the US, and brings ads to mobile US search AI Overviews
Google will begin to show ads in AI Overviews, the AI-generated summaries it supplies for certain Google Search queries …
PitchBook and the NVCA: global VC activity declined in Q3; VC investments in Asia hit $14.9B, the lowest figure since Q1 2017, impacted by China's deep decline
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat :
Barcelona-based Submer, which submerges data center server racks in a proprietary coolant, raised a $55.5M Series C led by M&G at a ~$500M post-money valuation
The race is on for better chips and data center capacity to handle AI workloads, but all that activity comes with a catch.
Amazon plans to increase the number of ads on Prime Video in 2025 after not seeing a sharp drop in subscribers since adding advertisements in January 2024
here's why Parker Herren / Ad Age : How streaming TV pricing and transparency issues are impacting advertisers William Hughes / AV Club : Excited Prime Video exec announces even more ads are coming Ha...
Analysis: London police used facial recognition 117 times in 2024 to August, up from 32 times total from 2020 to 2023; ~770,966 people were scanned since 2020
Yasemin Craggs Mersinoglu / Financial Times :
Accenture says it will train 30K employees on Nvidia's AI tech and start a new Nvidia Business Group focused on driving enterprise adoption of AI agents
Nvidia deal: A first peek into the new world of genAI-centric strategies Surbhi Jain / Benzinga : Nvidia's AI Leadership To Drive $1 Trillion Market Growth, With Accenture Partnership Accelerating Ado...
Uber partners to use Avride's sidewalk robots for Eats in Austin now and in Dallas and Jersey City later in 2024, and Avride's autonomous cars in Dallas in 2025
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge :
Analysis: Microsoft's finance leases, mainly for data centers and set to start between FY 2025 and FY 2030, have risen by nearly $100B in two years to $108.4B
However, we need a more sustainable approach … Kenneth Chan : • Microsoft's bet on AI is driving massive investments in data center infrastructure, with over $100 billion in finance leases that have y...
A US judge temporarily blocks California's AG from enforcing AB 2839, which Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law on September 17 to remove election deepfakes
Musk Says Its ‘Score One’ For Free Speech Rocket Drew / The Information : Judge Blocks California Deepfake Law Eugene Volokh / Reason : Judge Blocks California Law Restricting “Materially Deceptive” E...
A look at the prevalence of deepfake porn in South Korea, where its parliament has revised a law to make watching or possessing deepfake porn content illegal
also mostly minors — as a prank, out of curiosity or misogyny. https://apnews.com/... Tong-hyung Kim / @kimtonghyung : Three years after the 30-year-old South Korean woman received a barrage of online...
Google updates Gmail for Android and iOS with new summary cards that are more glanceable and actionable and a new “Happening soon” section above the inbox
with “Happening soon” section Benzinga : Gmail Introduces Dynamic Summary Cards For Easier Tracking Of Purchases, Events, And More RM Update News : Gmail Redesigned Summary Cards with The ‘Happing Soo...
Amazon announces a new lineup of Fire HD 8 tablets, with 50% more RAM than the previous models, and three new generative AI features for compatible Fire tablets
Get It for $55 for a Limited Time Michael Kozlowski / Good e-Reader : Amazon releases new Fire HD 8 2024 with AI features Sarah Chaney / Laptop Mag : Amazon's new Fire tablets get an AI infusion and a...
An in-depth account of how CD Projekt Red recovered from the disastrous launch of Cyberpunk 2077, using a fully parallelized engine to test and resolve issues
Chris Tapsell / Eurogamer.net : X: @paultassi , @christapsell , and @riotrmd . Forums: r/xbox X: Paul Tassi / @paultassi : A very good article about my favorite game of all time https://www.eurogamer...
President Biden signs legislation that will exempt some US chip manufacturing facilities receiving government subsidies from federal environmental reviews
Here's What To Know X: Aaron Levie / @levie : It's increasingly clear that to lead in many critical industries of the future like chips, climate tech, energy, biotech, space, or AI, America is going t...
How chips made by US companies like Analog Devices, Germany's Infineon, and others power Russian missiles used to attack Ukraine, despite US export controls
Bloomberg : Mastodon: @hanse_mina@mastodon.social . X: @rfriedman305 and @stephanibaker Mastodon: Hanse Mina / @hanse_mina@mastodon.social : Oleksandr Vysikan's job, studying components from weapons ...
Twitch now includes raids, which lets streamers who are going offline send viewers to others, in its average viewer count, easing the path to becoming a Partner
James Hale / Tubefilter :
Investigation: over a dozen crypto companies unknowingly hired North Korean IT workers who used fake IDs, successfully navigated interviews, and passed checks
Sam Kessler / CoinDesk :
Analysis: Nvidia execs and directors have sold nearly 11M shares, worth $1.8B+, in 2024 so far, the most since at least 2020; there are 24.5B outstanding shares
Bloomberg :
Dogecoin has become surprisingly popular among businesses looking to accept crypto for real-world purchases, largely due to the memecoin's low transaction costs
Teresa Xie / 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.