Friday, September 27, 2024

The UK CMA rules that Amazon's $4B Anthropic deal does not qualify for an investigation under merger laws as Anthropic's UK revenue did not meet needed limits (Katharine Gemmell/Bloomberg)

Katharine Gemmell / Bloomberg:
The UK CMA rules that Amazon's $4B Anthropic deal does not qualify for an investigation under merger laws as Anthropic's UK revenue did not meet needed limits  —  The Competition and Markets Authority said Friday that the tie-up did not qualify for an investigation under merger laws.



DefiLlama: Coinbase's L2 Ethereum network Base stands at $2.08B in total value locked, up from $430M at the start of 2024, marking a 370% growth year-to-date (Vishal Chawla/The Block)

Vishal Chawla / The Block:
DefiLlama: Coinbase's L2 Ethereum network Base stands at $2.08B in total value locked, up from $430M at the start of 2024, marking a 370% growth year-to-date  —  - Base has surpassed a total value locked of $2 billion for the first time — a 370% increase year-to-date.



Current and former staff say OpenAI has rushed product announcements and safety testing, lost its lead over rivals, and Altman is detached from the day-to-day (Deepa Seetharaman/Wall Street Journal)

Deepa Seetharaman / Wall Street Journal:
Current and former staff say OpenAI has rushed product announcements and safety testing, lost its lead over rivals, and Altman is detached from the day-to-day  —  Executives and researchers have left this year amid disputes over the company's values and fights among its leaders



Stripe data: AI startups took a median 11 months to hit $1M in annualized revenue after their first sales, vs. 15 months for previous gen of SaaS companies (Madhumita Murgia/Financial Times)

Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times:
Stripe data: AI startups took a median 11 months to hit $1M in annualized revenue after their first sales, vs. 15 months for previous gen of SaaS companies  —  New data from payments group Stripe suggest artificial intelligence groups are making revenues at an unprecedented rate



Sunday, September 22, 2024

A profile of SoftBank's Masayoshi Son, who transformed the Japanese tech conglomerate into a global investment group and is criticized for high-risk investments (Lionel Barber/Financial Times)

Lionel Barber / Financial Times:
A profile of SoftBank's Masayoshi Son, who transformed the Japanese tech conglomerate into a global investment group and is criticized for high-risk investments  —  He has won and lost fortunes with his bets on technology.  So is the investor a visionary — or a gambler who got lucky?



Law enforcement agencies shut down a service offered by iServer, a phishing-as-a-service platform, which was used to unlock 1.2M+ stolen or lost mobile phones (Dan Goodin/Ars Technica)

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Law enforcement agencies shut down a service offered by iServer, a phishing-as-a-service platform, which was used to unlock 1.2M+ stolen or lost mobile phones  —  iServer provided a simple service for phishing credentials to unlock phones.  —  A coalition of law-enforcement agencies …



Thoughts on the iPhone's slowing pace of hardware innovation, first impressions of the iPhone 16 Pro Max, and a closer look at Apple Intelligence roll out plans (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Thoughts on the iPhone's slowing pace of hardware innovation, first impressions of the iPhone 16 Pro Max, and a closer look at Apple Intelligence roll out plans  —  The new iPhone has tantalizing camera improvements, but the device is emblematic of Apple's slower pace of hardware innovation.



With the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, which can easily slot into people's lives, Meta has exceeded expectations in a year when many AI gadgets flopped (Victoria Song/The Verge)

Victoria Song / The Verge:
With the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, which can easily slot into people's lives, Meta has exceeded expectations in a year when many AI gadgets flopped  —  The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses exceeded expectations in a year when AI gadgets flopped.  But can it keep the momentum going?



Saturday, September 21, 2024

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 raise ~$1B with Sam Altman by end of 2024 for an AI device  —  Many people have wondered what Jony Ive has been up to since he left Apple five years ago.Carolyn Fong for The New York Times



A Google threat analyst says the hacker behind the Snowflake breach recently broke into a "handful" of new orgs and is likely a male based in Canada in his 20s (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
A Google threat analyst says the hacker behind the Snowflake breach recently broke into a “handful” of new orgs and is likely a male based in Canada in his 20s  —  Cyber investigators are tracking alleged scammer in connection with a string of compromises



California Gov. Newsom signs Senate Bill 976 to protect minors, banning "addictive feeds", barring social media notifications from 12am to 6am, and more (Taryn Luna/Los Angeles Times)

Taryn Luna / Los Angeles Times:
California Gov. Newsom signs Senate Bill 976 to protect minors, banning “addictive feeds”, barring social media notifications from 12am to 6am, and more  —  California took a major step in its fight to protect children from the ills of social media with Gov. Gavin Newsom's signature …



Arizona's Maricopa County is set to have the second largest concentration of US data centers by 2028, as the state races to increase electricity production (Pranshu Verma/Washington Post)

Pranshu Verma / Washington Post : Arizona's Maricopa County is set to have the second largest concentration of US data centers by 202...