Canada unveils a CA$2.4B fund to boost its AI sector by giving access to computing capabilities and technical infrastructure and creates its AI Safety Institute — - The centerpiece is money for ‘technological infrastructure’ — Canada has yet to pass law regulating artificial intelligence
Thoughts on Apple's search for a new growth engine, Spatial Personas, and Kevin Lynch's move to the AI group; sources: new iPads may launch the week of May 6 — Apple's search for a bold new product category is back on, and it includes a foray into robots.
A look at Huawei's efforts to make HarmonyOS a formidable rival to iOS and Android; Counterpoint: 16% of smartphones sold in China in Q4 2023 used HarmonyOS — Chinese tech giant unveiled new operating system in January — Huawei Technologies may be close to succeeding where Microsoft …
Source: Y Combinator is inviting some alumni entrepreneurs to invest a minimum of $250,000, which will be split among the three funds it is currently raising — - The accelerator is requiring limited partners invest in all three of its new funds, a somewhat bold move in the current environment.
Sources: OpenAI transcribed 1M+ hours of YouTube videos through Whisper and used the text to train GPT-4; Google also transcribed YouTube videos to harvest text — OpenAI, Google and Meta ignored corporate policies, altered their own rules and discussed skirting copyright law …
A look at Monument Valley, a puzzle game developed by ustwo that won Apple's design award in 2014 and stood out in a market dominated by free-to-play titles — A scene as still and pure as it is confounding: towers stretching up, flags billowing gently in the wind, stone walkways appearing to defy the principles of architecture.
CB Insights: global VC investment in fintech fell 16% QoQ to $7.3B over 904 deals in Q1 2024, the lowest amount of funding the sector has seen since 2017 — When it comes to funding, the fintech sector didn't have a very good start to the year. — Fintech funding slid by 16% quarter …
Microsoft warns that China plans to disrupt elections in the US, South Korea, and India this year with AI-generated content after making a dry run in Taiwan — Beijing did a test run in Taiwan using AI-generated content to influence voters away from a pro-sovereignty candidate
Sources: Samsung plans to more than double its total chip investment in Taylor, Texas to ~$44B, a significant breakthrough for US' chip manufacturing plans — South Korean firm plans to add a second semiconductor factory and advanced-packaging facility at its new hub outside Austin
Paris-based Pigment, a subscription-based business planning and forecasting service, raised $145M, sources say at a $1B+ valuation, for $393M in total funding — - French software startup said to be valued above $1 billion — Funding round comes as VC financing remains sluggish globally
Patreon rolls out a Reddit-like community moderation feature that lets podcasters, artists, writers, and other creators assign community members as moderators — Patreon is taking a page out of Reddit's book. Now, podcasters, artists, writers, and other creators on the subscription-focused creator platform …
Stability AI releases Stable Audio 2.0, letting users create three minute sound clips from copyright-free audio samples, available for free via its website — Stable Audio 2., an audio generation model for Stability AI, now lets users upload their own audio samples which they can then transform using prompts …
Opera now lets Opera One users download and run 150 LLMs from 50+ families locally, including Llama and Google's Gemma, via the Ollama open source framework — Web browser company Opera announced today it will now allow users to download and use Large Language Models (LLMs) locally on their computer.
Sources: crypto VC firm Paradigm is in talks to raise $750M to $850M for a new fund, which would be the largest since the crash; a16z raised $4.5B in May 2022 — - New fund would be industry's largest since crypto downturn — Paradigm was a major investor in bankrupt exchange FTX
A profile of MIT labor economist David Autor, an unlikely AI optimist who says AI may help restore “the middle-skill, middle-class heart of the US labor market” — David Autor, an M.I.T. economist and tech contrarian, argues that A.I. is fundamentally different from past waves of computerization.
Gleb Bryanski / Reuters : Russia's finance minister says Russian companies have begun using bitcoin and other digital currencies in i...
