Saturday, August 3, 2024

Filings: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway slashed its stake in Apple by ~50% in Q2, following a 13% cut in Q1, leaving it with a position worth $84.2B (Eric Platt/Financial Times)

Eric Platt / Financial Times:
Filings: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway slashed its stake in Apple by ~50% in Q2, following a 13% cut in Q1, leaving it with a position worth $84.2B  —  Cash holdings hit a record high as billionaire investor dumps $76bn of stocks  —  Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has slashed …



Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta boosted capex by 50% to a total of $106B in H1 2024, as they build AI infrastructure and pledge more investment hikes (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta boosted capex by 50% to a total of $106B in H1 2024, as they build AI infrastructure and pledge more investment hikes  —  Technology stocks have been volatile as Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Google report huge increases in their investments in artificial intelligence



How AI-formulated bioweapons became a security obsession inside Washington, DC, forcing officials to take tech advances in weaponizing disease seriously (Riley Griffin/Bloomberg)

Riley Griffin / Bloomberg:
How AI-formulated bioweapons became a security obsession inside Washington, DC, forcing officials to take tech advances in weaponizing disease seriously  —  A stunt got White House officials to take technological advances in weaponizing disease seriously.  —  Rocco Casagrande entered …



Friday, August 2, 2024

An Indian tribunal orders a halt on insolvency proceedings against Byju's, days after Byju's settled a $19M payments dispute case with the Indian cricket board (Arpan Chaturvedi/Reuters)

Arpan Chaturvedi / Reuters:
An Indian tribunal orders a halt on insolvency proceedings against Byju's, days after Byju's settled a $19M payments dispute case with the Indian cricket board  —  India's appeals tribunal on Friday ordered a halt on insolvency proceedings against embattled education startup Byju's …



A profile of, and interview with, former OpenAI board member Helen Toner, who is building a reputation in Washington, DC, as a trusted expert on AI (Shirin Ghaffary/Bloomberg)

Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg:
A profile of, and interview with, former OpenAI board member Helen Toner, who is building a reputation in Washington, DC, as a trusted expert on AI  —  Helen Toner is building a reputation in the nation's capital as a trusted expert on artificial intelligence.



Stability AI announces Stable Fast 3D, a generative AI model for rapid 3D asset generation, says it can generate a 3D asset from a single image in 0.5 seconds (Sean Michael Kerner/VentureBeat)

Sean Michael Kerner / VentureBeat:
Stability AI announces Stable Fast 3D, a generative AI model for rapid 3D asset generation, says it can generate a 3D asset from a single image in 0.5 seconds  —  Not all that long ago, it used to be hard, really hard to generate 3D images.  It was a process that involved complex wireframes, complicated software and beefy hardware.



Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Faye, which offers travel insurance and fintech services via a single smartphone app, raised a $31M Series B led by Portage; Faye raised a $10M Series A in 2023 (Mike Butcher/TechCrunch)

Mike Butcher / TechCrunch:
Faye, which offers travel insurance and fintech services via a single smartphone app, raised a $31M Series B led by Portage; Faye raised a $10M Series A in 2023  —  We've been covering US-based Insurtech startup FAYE way back since 2022 with its Seed round, and the Series A round in 2023 …



Flipkart consolidates its various fintech offerings, including UPI and BNPL, under Flipkart Pay; the move follows recent expansions and a spinoff of PhonePe (The Economic Times)

The Economic Times:
Flipkart consolidates its various fintech offerings, including UPI and BNPL, under Flipkart Pay; the move follows recent expansions and a spinoff of PhonePe  —  Flipkart has integrated its various fintech services into a single vertical named ‘Flipkart Pay’.



Qualcomm debuts the 4nm Snapdragon 4s Gen 2, a feature limited version of the Snapdragon 4 Gen 2, to make 5G accessible to smartphones in the sub-$100 category (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Qualcomm debuts the 4nm Snapdragon 4s Gen 2, a feature limited version of the Snapdragon 4 Gen 2, to make 5G accessible to smartphones in the sub-$100 category  —  Qualcomm Tuesday announced the Snapdragon 4s Gen 2.  The entry-level chip aims to make 5G accessible to 2.8 billion smartphone users …



A look at Jony Ive's work with LoveFrom; Ive bought a city block in SF's Jackson Square and could raise ~$1B with Sam Altman by end of 2024 for an AI device (Tripp Mickle/New York Times)

Tripp Mickle / New York Times : A look at Jony Ive's work with LoveFrom; Ive bought a city block in SF's Jackson Square and could...