X is right to stand up to Brazil's unjust “hostage laws,” but Musk's fight highlights his cynical free speech stance after he caved to Modi's censorship demands — In the battle between Elon Musk and Brazil, there are no heroes — only two sides engaged in an epic display of hypocrisy and overreach.
A reporter tries fixing his reputation with AI chatbots, including by adding a “strategic text sequence” to data sources, and via an AI optimization startup — When I set out to improve my tainted reputation with chatbots, I discovered a new world of A.I. manipulation.
How the Israeli army's Unit 8200 became an incubator for cybersecurity startups, with its alumni starting Wiz, Palo Alto Networks, and other companies — Unit 8200 has become an incubator for cybersecurity startups defending the world's biggest companies against hackers
It's time for audio services like Spotify to deal with AI by using labels and banning or downweighting music made with AI tools that don't license training data — The following MBW Views op/ed comes from Ed Newton-Rex (pictured inset), CEO of the ethical generative AI non-profit, Fairly Trained.
A federal judge dismisses a lawsuit claiming Elon Musk and Tesla pumped up Dogecoin into a “pyramid scheme”, finding that Musk's statements were “aspirational” — Investors who lost tens of thousands of dollars investing in the cryptocurrency faulted Musk for promoting …
As Russia plans a trial of cross-border payments using crypto, some senior Russian leaders suggest it can help counter sanctions; experts doubt it will work — Experts doubt it will work, given the traceability of blockchains and the risk of even tougher sanctions for Russia.
China's top antitrust regulator says it has seen “effective results” that Alibaba has ceased the monopolistic practices that prompted an investigation in 2020 — - Antitrust watchdog says Alibaba has ceased monopolistic acts — Fallout from the crackdown years persists across the industry
Automattic plans to shift Tumblr's backend over to WordPress, in a bid to make sharing work across the platforms easier, after buying Tumblr for $3M in 2019 — Tumblr is making the move to WordPress. After its 2019 acquisition by WordPress.com parent company Automattic in a $3 million fire sale …
Huawei reports Q2 revenue up 33.7% YoY to ~$33.6B, rising for the sixth straight quarter, and net profit down 18.6% YoY to ~$5B, ahead of the Mate 70's launch — - IPhone has fallen from China's top five in smartphone ranking — Shenzhen-based company also chasing EV software demand
Web browser startup Brave lays off 27 employees, after cutting 9% of its workforce in October 2023; PitchBook estimates that Brave has ~191 employees — Web browser and search startup Brave has laid off 27 employees across the different departments, TechCrunch has learned.
X updates Grok to direct users to Vote.gov for election queries, after a letter from five US secretaries of state warned of spreading election misinformation — The social media platform X has made a change to its AI chatbot after five secretaries of state warned it was spreading election misinformation.
Samsung plans to offer seven years of free Tizen OS updates for its AI-powered TVs, available to TVs from March 2024 and some 2023 models — Samsung Electronics has announced a significant move to solidify its leadership in the AI TV market by offering a seven-year free upgrade for its Tizen operating system (OS) on AI TVs.
China's curbs on shipments of germanium and gallium, which are used to make chips, have led to an almost 2x increase in prices in Europe over the past year — Western customers say restrictions on supply could hit production of advanced microprocessors and optical products
Analysis: Elon Musk posted ~13,000 times on X in 2024 to July, or 61 posts per day, almost as much as in all of 2023, as he shifts to posting about politics — The billionaire's posts show his metamorphosis from a businessman who largely avoided politics to a vocal Trump supporter
Sources: IBM shuts its China R&D department, affecting 1,000+ employees, and plans to move some R&D functions overseas, the latest company to retreat from China — Jobs to be added in India, employees are told — IBM is shutting down its China research and development department …
⚖️ Telegram abides by EU laws, including the Digital Services Act — its moderation is within industry standards and constantly improving. ✈️ Telegram's CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe. 😵💫 …
How prominent games accessibility advocate Susan Banks, who worked with studios and raised awareness for accessibility in games, may never have existed at all — In 2019, the games accessibility community mourned the death of Susan Banks. Now, evidence suggests she may have never existed to begin with.
A look at Apple's robotics efforts; sources: Meta will unveil prototype “Orion” AR glasses, a cheaper Quest, and new AI features for Ray-Ban Meta at Connect — Also: Meta nears the launch of a cheaper Quest; Apple tries a new Vision Pro sales tactic; and the App Store chief is leaving as part of a reorganization.
An excerpt from the book Character Limit details the chaotic revamp of Twitter Blue, including Elon Musk's haphazard planning and Esther Crawford's involvement — By Nov. 9, 2022, anxiety was high among the Twitter employees gathered at the company's San Francisco headquarters.
A look at Germany-based discount retailer Lidl's foray into offering cloud computing services, signing up clients like SAP and making €1.9B in 2023 annual sales — A unit of Europe's largest retailer is offering IT services to companies wary of big providers such as Amazon and Google
An interview with Nomad List and Photo AI founder Pieter Levels, aka @levelsio on X, on launching 12 startups in 12 months, the digital nomad life, and more — This is a transcript of Lex Fridman Podcast #440 with Pieter Levels. The timestamps in the transcript are clickable links …
Midjourney CEO David Holz says anyone can now generate AI images on its website; previously, the site was limited to users who generated 10K+ images on Discord — Need a good AI image generator? You can now try Midjourney's dedicated website for free. On Wednesday, Midjourney CEO David …
A profile of TollBit, which has raised $7M and aims to create a marketplace where AI companies can pay publishers for their content on an ongoing basis — So far though, its business model of becoming a marketplace where AI companies can pay publishers directly for their data is a complete hypothetical
A look at the fading dominance of Apple Podcasts, as a study of 603 weekly podcast consumers finds 31% use YouTube, followed by Spotify at 21%, and Apple at 12% — Hello! Welcome back to Soundbite. Today we're looking at the fading dominance of Apple Podcasts.
Japanese chipmaker Kioxia applies for a Tokyo Stock Exchange listing; source: Kioxia plans to list as soon as October and raise $500M+ at a $10B+ valuation — Memory products maker could achieve $10bn valuation as investors pile into AI and chip stocks — Kioxia, the Japanese chipmaker taken private …
Twitch plans to raise its new Tier 1 sub and gift sub prices on mobile in 40+ countries on October 1; in an email, Twitch says Tier 1 will rise by $2 to $7.99 — Twitch has announced yet another increase to the price of subs after already raising the cost earlier in the summer.
Bloomberg : Google says it plans to counter Japan's FTC over claims that it hobbles rivals in search; a source says Japan's FTC s...
