Perplexity says its AI search engine answered ~250M queries in July vs. 500M in all of 2023; sources: Perplexity recently raised $250M at a $3B valuation (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
Perplexity says its AI search engine answered ~250M queries in July vs. 500M in all of 2023; sources: Perplexity recently raised $250M at a $3B valuation  —  Artificial intelligence app boosts usage and sales despite controversy over its data-gathering techniques

Interviews with 12 TSMC staff detail ongoing culture clashes in Arizona, as well as Japan and Germany; about 50% of the 2,200 Phoenix workers came from Taiwan (John Liu/New York Times)

John Liu / New York Times:
Interviews with 12 TSMC staff detail ongoing culture clashes in Arizona, as well as Japan and Germany; about 50% of the 2,200 Phoenix workers came from Taiwan  —  The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company facility in Phoenix.Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times

South Korean prosecutors charge Kakao founder Brian Kim with stock manipulation during the takeover of SM Entertainment, after Kim was arrested in July 2024 (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
South Korean prosecutors charge Kakao founder Brian Kim with stock manipulation during the takeover of SM Entertainment, after Kim was arrested in July 2024  —  - Prosecutors will lay out charges against Kakao founder Kim  — The case has enthralled Korea's internet and business sectors

UK officials say X has been less responsive to removing disinformation than Meta, Google, and TikTok, as Elon Musk launches a series of jibes at Keir Starmer (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
UK officials say X has been less responsive to removing disinformation than Meta, Google, and TikTok, as Elon Musk launches a series of jibes at Keir Starmer  —  Social media site owner Elon Musk has also been posting jibes at UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer

Q&A with Intel VP Robert Hallock on the upcoming Lunar Lake chips, Intel using TSMC nodes, and how the Arm vs. x86 power debates are based on a false premise (Vaidyanathan Subramaniam/Notebookcheck)

Vaidyanathan Subramaniam / Notebookcheck:
Q&A with Intel VP Robert Hallock on the upcoming Lunar Lake chips, Intel using TSMC nodes, and how the Arm vs. x86 power debates are based on a false premise  —  With Lunar Lake all set to officially launch ahead of IFA 2024 next month, NotebookCheck had an email chat with Intel's Robert Hallock …

Google losing its US antitrust case may have major ripple effects for Apple, Amazon, and Meta, just as Microsoft's loss in 2000 influenced the Google decision (Steve Lohr/New York Times)

Steve Lohr / New York Times:
Google losing its US antitrust case may have major ripple effects for Apple, Amazon, and Meta, just as Microsoft's loss in 2000 influenced the Google decision  —  Nearly a quarter-century after Microsoft lost a similar case, a judge's decision that Google abused a monopoly in internet search is likely to have major ripple effects.

The US awards South Korea's SK Hynix an initial $450M in grants and $500M in loans to build an advanced chip packaging facility in Indiana under the CHIPS Act (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
The US awards South Korea's SK Hynix an initial $450M in grants and $500M in loans to build an advanced chip packaging facility in Indiana under the CHIPS Act  —  - Firm to get $450 million Chips Act grant, $500 million loan  — Indiana facility focused on advanced packaging, research

After failing to win concessions, ~6,500 unionized Samsung Electronics workers in South Korea, who declared an indefinite strike in July, returned to work (Jin Yu Young/New York Times)

Jin Yu Young / New York Times:
After failing to win concessions, ~6,500 unionized Samsung Electronics workers in South Korea, who declared an indefinite strike in July, returned to work  —  The indefinite strike, the first in the electronics company's history, comprised only a sliver of its labor force and lasted less than a month.

Elon Musk says Neuralink has implanted its device in a second trial patient, who had a spinal cord injury, and 400 of the implant's 1,024 electrodes are working (Rachael Levy/Reuters)

Rachael Levy / Reuters:
Elon Musk says Neuralink has implanted its device in a second trial patient, who had a spinal cord injury, and 400 of the implant's 1,024 electrodes are working  —  Neuralink has successfully implanted in a second patient its device designed to give paralyzed patients the ability …

Analysis: the vast majority of damages from July's CrowdStrike global IT outage will go uninsured; CrowdStrike reported nearly 24K enterprise customers in Q1 (Evan Gorelick/Bloomberg)

Evan Gorelick / Bloomberg:
Analysis: the vast majority of damages from July's CrowdStrike global IT outage will go uninsured; CrowdStrike reported nearly 24K enterprise customers in Q1  —  - Insured losses estimated between $300 million and $1.5 billion  — The days-long outage took a $5.4 billion toll on Fortune 500

An investigation finds an active trade in Nvidia chips in China despite US restrictions; some Chinese orgs with state military ties have bought restricted chips (New York Times)

New York Times:
An investigation finds an active trade in Nvidia chips in China despite US restrictions; some Chinese orgs with state military ties have bought restricted chips  —  The U.S. is trying to stop China from getting Nvidia microchips to advance its military.  The private sector is fighting back.

Sources: OpenAI has a watermarking tech to detect text written by ChatGPT with 99.9% reliability, but the project launch has been mired in internal debates (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: OpenAI has a watermarking tech to detect text written by ChatGPT with 99.9% reliability, but the project launch has been mired in internal debates  —  Technology that can detect text written by artificial intelligence with 99.9% certainty has been debated internally for two years

Thoughts on first Apple Intelligence beta, which may arrive after the new iPhones launch, Apple's industrial design team leadership reshuffle, and Q3 earnings (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Thoughts on first Apple Intelligence beta, which may arrive after the new iPhones launch, Apple's industrial design team leadership reshuffle, and Q3 earnings  —  The first preview of Apple Intelligence for developers shows just how far the company has to go to live up to the hype.

Apple Services Q3 revenue topped Mac, iPad, and wearables combined and may soon exceed hardware profits, but its services can't ever have priority over hardware (Jason Snell/Six Colors)

Jason Snell / Six Colors:
Apple Services Q3 revenue topped Mac, iPad, and wearables combined and may soon exceed hardware profits, but its services can't ever have priority over hardware  —  Apple's latest quarterly results were about as boring as you can get while still featuring $21.4 billion in profit and setting an all-time third-quarter record.

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.