Sunday, April 7, 2024

Elon Musk says X is "lifting all restrictions" it imposed in Brazil after a court ruling to block "certain popular accounts" and is defying the court's ruling (Anthony Boadle/Reuters)

Anthony Boadle / Reuters:
Elon Musk says X is “lifting all restrictions” it imposed in Brazil after a court ruling to block “certain popular accounts” and is defying the court's ruling  —  Elon Musk is challenging a decision by a Supreme Court justice in Brazil who ordered his social media platform X …



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 (Mathieu Dion/Bloomberg)

Mathieu Dion / Bloomberg:
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 (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
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 (Nikkei Asia)

Nikkei Asia:
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 …



Saturday, April 6, 2024

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 (Kia Kokalitcheva/Axios)

Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios:
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 (New York Times)

New York Times:
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 (Lewis Gordon/The Ringer)

Lewis Gordon / The Ringer:
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.



Friday, April 5, 2024

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 (Mary Ann Azevedo/TechCrunch)

Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
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 (Dan Milmo/The Guardian)

Dan Milmo / The Guardian:
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 (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
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



Docs: Israeli AI chip startup Hailo is pursuing an urgent IPO via a SPAC merger at a valuation of less than $500M; it was last valued at $1.2B in 2024 (Meir Orbach/CTech)

Meir Orbach / CTech : Docs: Israeli AI chip startup Hailo is pursuing an urgent IPO via a SPAC merger at a valuation of less than $500M; ...