Saturday, August 3, 2024

A look at Bungie's future after it laid off 220 staffers, as current and former employees say it grew too fast and tried to develop too many projects at once (Jason Schreier/Bloomberg)

Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
A look at Bungie's future after it laid off 220 staffers, as current and former employees say it grew too fast and tried to develop too many projects at once  —  The creator of Halo and Destiny laid off more than 200 people this week including several top executives  —  Hi everyone.



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...