Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Tel Aviv-based NoTraffic an AI-based traffic management service raised a $50M Series B led by M&G Investments following a $17.5M Series A in July 2021 (Rebecca Bellan/TechCrunch)

Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch:
Tel Aviv-based NoTraffic, an AI-based traffic management service, raised a $50M Series B led by M&G Investments, following a $17.5M Series A in July 2021  —  AI-based traffic management platform NoTraffic has bagged $50 million in Series B funding as it picks up momentum in cities across …



Oppo OnePlus and others may look at offering up to 24GB RAM in future smartphones

How much RAM is too much RAM? After all, tech companies have been consistently increasing the RAM on their phones and up until now, the highest we could have in a smartphone is 18GB, which is likely to come in Redmagic 8S Pro. In a recent development, it has been reported that BBK-owned brands like Oppo, OnePlus and Realme are planning to increase the RAM on their future smartphones. https://ift.tt/qX2ldEs

A look at Amazon's army of smaller AI-powered warehouse robots including Proteus which carries suitcase-sized bins of packages and works alongside humans (Will Knight/Wired)

Will Knight / Wired:
A look at Amazon's army of smaller AI-powered warehouse robots, including Proteus, which carries suitcase-sized bins of packages and works alongside humans  —  A wave of advanced machines is coming to the company's facilities thanks to better AI and robots smart enough to work with—and without—humans.



Some doctors say that their current best use for generative AI is to ease the heavy burden of documentation which takes hours a day and contributes to burnout (Steve Lohr/New York Times)

Steve Lohr / New York Times:
Some doctors say that their current best use for generative AI is to ease the heavy burden of documentation, which takes hours a day and contributes to burnout  —  The best use for generative A.I. in health care, doctors say, is to ease the heavy burden of documentation that takes them hours a day and contributes to burnout.



Monday, June 26, 2023

IBM plans to acquire cloud IT management startup Apptio for $4.6B in cash from Vista Equity Partners which paid $1.94B to take Apptio private in 2018 (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
IBM plans to acquire cloud IT management startup Apptio for $4.6B in cash from Vista Equity Partners, which paid $1.94B to take Apptio private in 2018  —  As cloud architecture continues to more ubiquitous among organizations, increasingly what is more apparent is that many organizations …



OnePlus' next Nord smartphone listed on Amazon

OnePlus is set to expand its Nord series of smartphones in India. The Chinese tech company is expected to launch the OnePlus Nord 3 smartphone in India. OnePlus has also opened applications for 'The Lab', its community review program for the next Nord series smartphones. While the company is yet to reveal the launch timeline of its upcoming Nord smartphone, the teasers for the smartphone are live on Amazon India and OnePlus India website. The smartphone is teased to feature a flat display and an Alert Slider– a feature that allows users to take control of volume and notifications. https://ift.tt/eiglBGv

A look at Harry and Meghan's Hollywood flop in streaming's era of slower growth; sources: Netflix is unlikely to renew their $100M deal which runs through 2025 (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
A look at Harry and Meghan's Hollywood flop in streaming's era of slower growth; sources: Netflix is unlikely to renew their $100M deal, which runs through 2025  —  They arrived three years ago with royal star power amid a streaming boom, but have notched more cancellations and rejections than produced shows



Japan announces a $6.3B deal to buy and privatize JSR a maker of photoresists that controls the global supply of key chipmaking chemicals with two other firms (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Japan announces a $6.3B deal to buy and privatize JSR, a maker of photoresists that controls the global supply of key chipmaking chemicals with two other firms  —  Japan's government unveiled a $6.3 billion deal to buy out and privatize JSR Corp., taking direct control of the world leader …



WhatsApp to soon roll out 'Message Pin Duration' feature: Heres what it means for users

WhatsApp recently rolled out two new privacy features on its platform. Now a new report has surfaced online revealing that the Meta-owned platform is working on a feature which will enable users to choose for how long messages stay pinned within chats and groups. https://ift.tt/lwmeHF2

Q&A with Microsoft's Jared Spataro on AI tools advancing knowledge work increasing worker creativity being "usefully wrong" automating work away and more (Kevin J. Delaney/Charter)

Kevin J. Delaney / Charter:
Q&A with Microsoft's Jared Spataro on AI tools advancing knowledge work, increasing worker creativity, being “usefully wrong”, automating work away, and more  —  Microsoft over the past few years has released some of the most interesting research about how people work …



Sunday, June 25, 2023

As the use of AI-generated ads in political campaigns increases lawmakers political consultants and election researchers push for creating new guardrails (New York Times)

New York Times:
As the use of AI-generated ads in political campaigns increases, lawmakers, political consultants, and election researchers push for creating new guardrails  —  Gaps in campaign rules allow politicians to spread images and messaging generated by increasingly powerful artificial intelligence technology.



Source: a group of investors led by Apollo Global Management plans to make a $1B debt investment in US chipmaker Wolfspeed which has a $6B market cap (Maria Heeter/The Information)

Maria Heeter / The Information:
Source: a group of investors led by Apollo Global Management plans to make a $1B+ debt investment in US chipmaker Wolfspeed, which has a $6B market cap  —  A group of investors led by Apollo Global Management is making a more than $1 billion debt investment in Wolfspeed …



Q&A with AWS Product VP Matt Wood on the generative AI boom the escalating AI battle between tech giants curating the best models for AWS and more (Reed Albergotti/Semafor)

Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
Q&A with AWS Product VP Matt Wood on the generative AI boom, the escalating AI battle between tech giants, curating the best models for AWS, and more  —  Matt Wood, vice president of product for Amazon Web Services, is at the tip of the spear of Amazon's response in the escalating AI battle between the tech giants.



How Apple is getting Vision Pro ready to ship and a look at its Mac plans including upgrading the current lineup to M3 and early work on a 30-inch iMac (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
How Apple is getting Vision Pro ready to ship and a look at its Mac plans, including upgrading the current lineup to M3 and early work on a 30-inch+ iMac  —  After debuting the Vision Pro, Apple is working on finishing up the device's software, expanding testing and finalizing the rollout strategy.



As TikTok CEO Shou Chew announces a five-year $10B investment in Indonesia experts say competition and regulation have made TikTok vulnerable in Southeast Asia (Mercedes Ruehl/Financial Times)

Mercedes Ruehl / Financial Times:
As TikTok CEO Shou Chew announces a five-year $10B investment in Indonesia, experts say competition and regulation have made TikTok vulnerable in Southeast Asia  —  Viral app's parent ByteDance targets large Indonesian market but faces growing regulatory scrutiny around the world



Arizona's Maricopa County is set to have the second largest concentration of US data centers by 2028, as the state races to increase electricity production (Pranshu Verma/Washington Post)

Pranshu Verma / Washington Post : Arizona's Maricopa County is set to have the second largest concentration of US data centers by 202...