Web browser startup Brave lays off 27 employees, after cutting 9% of its workforce in October 2023; PitchBook estimates that Brave has ~191 employees (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Web browser startup Brave lays off 27 employees, after cutting 9% of its workforce in October 2023; PitchBook estimates that Brave has ~191 employees  —  Web browser and search startup Brave has laid off 27 employees across the different departments, TechCrunch has learned.

X updates Grok to direct users to Vote.gov for election queries, after a letter from five US secretaries of state warned of spreading election misinformation (Christine Fernando/Associated Press)

Christine Fernando / Associated Press:
X updates Grok to direct users to Vote.gov for election queries, after a letter from five US secretaries of state warned of spreading election misinformation  —  The social media platform X has made a change to its AI chatbot after five secretaries of state warned it was spreading election misinformation.

Samsung plans to offer seven years of free Tizen OS updates for its AI-powered TVs, available to TVs from March 2024 and some 2023 models (Kim Eun-jin/Businesskorea)

Kim Eun-jin / Businesskorea:
Samsung plans to offer seven years of free Tizen OS updates for its AI-powered TVs, available to TVs from March 2024 and some 2023 models  —  Samsung Electronics has announced a significant move to solidify its leadership in the AI TV market by offering a seven-year free upgrade for its Tizen operating system (OS) on AI TVs.

China's curbs on shipments of germanium and gallium, which are used to make chips, have led to an almost 2x increase in prices in Europe over the past year (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
China's curbs on shipments of germanium and gallium, which are used to make chips, have led to an almost 2x increase in prices in Europe over the past year  —  Western customers say restrictions on supply could hit production of advanced microprocessors and optical products

Analysis: Elon Musk posted ~13,000 times on X in 2024 to July, or 61 posts per day, almost as much as in all of 2023, as he shifts to posting about politics (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Analysis: Elon Musk posted ~13,000 times on X in 2024 to July, or 61 posts per day, almost as much as in all of 2023, as he shifts to posting about politics  —  The billionaire's posts show his metamorphosis from a businessman who largely avoided politics to a vocal Trump supporter

Sources: IBM shuts its China R&D department, affecting 1,000+ employees, and plans to move some R&D functions overseas, the latest company to retreat from China (Raffaele Huang/Wall Street Journal)

Raffaele Huang / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: IBM shuts its China R&D department, affecting 1,000+ employees, and plans to move some R&D functions overseas, the latest company to retreat from China  —  Jobs to be added in India, employees are told  —  IBM is shutting down its China research and development department …

⚖️ Telegram abides by EU laws, including the Digital Services Act - its moderation is within industry standards and constantly improving. ✈️ Telegram's CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe. 😵‍💫 It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform. 🌐 Almost a billion users globally use Telegram as means of communication and as a source of vital information. 💙 We're awaiting a prompt resolution of this situation. Telegram is with you all. (@telegram)

@telegram:
⚖️ Telegram abides by EU laws, including the Digital Services Act — its moderation is within industry standards and constantly improving.  ✈️ Telegram's CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe.  😵‍&#128171 …

How prominent games accessibility advocate Susan Banks, who worked with studios and raised awareness for accessibility in games, may never have existed at all (Grant Stoner/IGN)

Grant Stoner / IGN:
How prominent games accessibility advocate Susan Banks, who worked with studios and raised awareness for accessibility in games, may never have existed at all  —  In 2019, the games accessibility community mourned the death of Susan Banks.  Now, evidence suggests she may have never existed to begin with.

A look at Apple's robotics efforts; sources: Meta will unveil prototype "Orion" AR glasses, a cheaper Quest, and new AI features for Ray-Ban Meta at Connect (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
A look at Apple's robotics efforts; sources: Meta will unveil prototype “Orion” AR glasses, a cheaper Quest, and new AI features for Ray-Ban Meta at Connect  —  Also: Meta nears the launch of a cheaper Quest; Apple tries a new Vision Pro sales tactic; and the App Store chief is leaving as part of a reorganization.

An excerpt from the book Character Limit details the chaotic revamp of Twitter Blue, including Elon Musk's haphazard planning and Esther Crawford's involvement (New York Times)

New York Times:
An excerpt from the book Character Limit details the chaotic revamp of Twitter Blue, including Elon Musk's haphazard planning and Esther Crawford's involvement  —  By Nov. 9, 2022, anxiety was high among the Twitter employees gathered at the company's San Francisco headquarters.

A look at Germany-based discount retailer Lidl's foray into offering cloud computing services, signing up clients like SAP and making €1.9B in 2023 annual sales (Olaf Storbeck/Financial Times)

Olaf Storbeck / Financial Times:
A look at Germany-based discount retailer Lidl's foray into offering cloud computing services, signing up clients like SAP and making €1.9B in 2023 annual sales  —  A unit of Europe's largest retailer is offering IT services to companies wary of big providers such as Amazon and Google

An interview with Nomad List and Photo AI founder Pieter Levels, aka @levelsio on X, on launching 12 startups in 12 months, the digital nomad life, and more (Lex Fridman)

Lex Fridman:
An interview with Nomad List and Photo AI founder Pieter Levels, aka @levelsio on X, on launching 12 startups in 12 months, the digital nomad life, and more  —  This is a transcript of Lex Fridman Podcast #440 with Pieter Levels.  The timestamps in the transcript are clickable links …

Midjourney CEO David Holz says anyone can now generate AI images on its website; previously, the site was limited to users who generated 10K+ images on Discord (Lance Whitney/ZDNET)

Lance Whitney / ZDNET:
Midjourney CEO David Holz says anyone can now generate AI images on its website; previously, the site was limited to users who generated 10K+ images on Discord  —  Need a good AI image generator?  You can now try Midjourney's dedicated website for free.  On Wednesday, Midjourney CEO David …

A profile of TollBit, which has raised $7M and aims to create a marketplace where AI companies can pay publishers for their content on an ongoing basis (Pranav Dixit/Engadget)

Pranav Dixit / Engadget:
A profile of TollBit, which has raised $7M and aims to create a marketplace where AI companies can pay publishers for their content on an ongoing basis  —  So far though, its business model of becoming a marketplace where AI companies can pay publishers directly for their data is a complete hypothetical

A look at the fading dominance of Apple Podcasts, as a study of 603 weekly podcast consumers finds 31% use YouTube, followed by Spotify at 21%, and Apple at 12% (Ashley Carman/Bloomberg)

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
A look at the fading dominance of Apple Podcasts, as a study of 603 weekly podcast consumers finds 31% use YouTube, followed by Spotify at 21%, and Apple at 12%  —  Hello!  Welcome back to Soundbite.  Today we're looking at the fading dominance of Apple Podcasts.