Elon Musk appears to have won a contest with Indian telecom tycoons Mukesh Ambani and Sunil Bharti Mittal over the awarding of satellite spectrum in India (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
Elon Musk appears to have won a contest with Indian telecom tycoons Mukesh Ambani and Sunil Bharti Mittal over the awarding of satellite spectrum in India  —  Limited time offer  —  Save 40% on Standard Digital  —  $468 $279 for your first year, equivalent to $23.25 per month.  Make up your own mind.

An analysis of WeChat's network protocol MMTLS finds that it is a modified version of TLS 1.3 and WeChat developers' changes to its cryptography add weaknesses (The Citizen Lab)

The Citizen Lab:
An analysis of WeChat's network protocol MMTLS finds that it is a modified version of TLS 1.3 and WeChat developers' changes to its cryptography add weaknesses  —  Key contributions  — We performed the first public analysis of the security and privacy properties of MMTLS …

Q&A with Kevin Rose on Digg, what Reddit got right, the rise of news feeds, Techmeme being the place "to just see globally what's happening in tech", and more (David Pierce/The Verge)

David Pierce / The Verge:
Q&A with Kevin Rose on Digg, what Reddit got right, the rise of news feeds, Techmeme being the place “to just see globally what's happening in tech”, and more  —  a couple of years, there was nothing on the internet so simultaneously thrilling and terrifying as having your website hit the front page of Digg.

ASML's stock falls the most since 1998 after projecting sluggish sales, erasing €50B from its market cap and causing Nvidia and other chip stocks to fall (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
ASML's stock falls the most since 1998 after projecting sluggish sales, erasing €50B from its market cap and causing Nvidia and other chip stocks to fall  —  - Magnitude of ASML's forecast cut was a surprise, Citi says  — Peer Tokyo Electron among worst hit stocks in Asia, down 10%

The NYT sends a cease-and-desist letter to AI startup Perplexity to stop using its content; Perplexity says it is "interested in working with every" publisher (Alexandra Bruell/Wall Street Journal)

Alexandra Bruell / Wall Street Journal:
The NYT sends a cease-and-desist letter to AI startup Perplexity to stop using its content; Perplexity says it is “interested in working with every” publisher  —  Publisher demands that Perplexity stop accessing its content.  Startup isn't interested “in being anyone's antagonist,” CEO says.

UK podcaster Harry Stebbings' 20VC raised a $400M fund for early stage startups, one of Europe's biggest venture funds; the podcast recently hosted Sam Altman (Tim Bradshaw/Financial Times)

Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
UK podcaster Harry Stebbings' 20VC raised a $400M fund for early stage startups, one of Europe's biggest venture funds; the podcast recently hosted Sam Altman  —  British firm 20VC pulls in $400mn to invest in early stage tech start-ups  —  A venture firm founded by 28-year-old British …

A look at the legal dispute between OpenAI and Open AI, run by Guy Ravine, who bought the open.ai domain and filed to trademark "Open AI" in December 2015 (Evan Ratliff/Bloomberg)

Evan Ratliff / Bloomberg:
A look at the legal dispute between OpenAI and Open AI, run by Guy Ravine, who bought the open.ai domain and filed to trademark “Open AI” in December 2015  —  Guy Ravine's Open AI (with a space) owns a trademark and website that OpenAI (no space) wants.

The UK appoints Microsoft UK CEO Clare Barclay to lead its new Industrial Strategy Advisory Council, which will focus on growing eight sectors, including tech (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
The UK appoints Microsoft UK CEO Clare Barclay to lead its new Industrial Strategy Advisory Council, which will focus on growing eight sectors, including tech  —  Clare Barclay will lead new statutory body tasked with helping Britain win investment away from rival nations

Analysis: US regulators have secured $19B+ in eight settlements from crypto firms so far in 2024, including FTX's $12.7B, and ~$32B since January 1, 2019 (Lim Yu Qian/CoinGecko)

Lim Yu Qian / CoinGecko:
Analysis: US regulators have secured $19B+ in eight settlements from crypto firms so far in 2024, including FTX's $12.7B, and ~$32B since January 1, 2019  —  What Are the Top Crypto Enforcement Actions in the US? … FTX and Alameda's lawsuit was led by the Commodity and Futures Trading Commission …

An energy crunch is forcing continued coal burning in a low-income area in North Omaha, Nebraska, as Meta and Google data centers strain regional power supply (Evan Halper/Washington Post)

Evan Halper / Washington Post:
An energy crunch is forcing continued coal burning in a low-income area in North Omaha, Nebraska, as Meta and Google data centers strain regional power supply  —  An energy crunch forces continued coal burning in a low-income area as data centers strain the regional power supply.

A look at Apple's new home strategy and plans to launch a ~$2K headset in 2025, Vision Pro 2 in 2026, and Ray-Ban-like glasses and AirPods with cameras in 2027 (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
A look at Apple's new home strategy and plans to launch a ~$2K headset in 2025, Vision Pro 2 in 2026, and Ray-Ban-like glasses and AirPods with cameras in 2027  —  Apple is finally preparing to compete for the smart home market after falling behind Amazon and Google.

How some architects and designers are creating photorealistic virtual spaces in the metaverse; report: 41% of architectural practices use AI to some degree (Victoria Woodcock/Financial Times)

Victoria Woodcock / Financial Times:
How some architects and designers are creating photorealistic virtual spaces in the metaverse; report: 41% of architectural practices use AI to some degree  —  The metaverse is changing the face of contemporary design  —  In 2020, artist and designer Charlotte Taylor and architect Riccardo Fornoni unveiled Villa Saraceni.

Threads users criticize Meta after the company posted AI-generated images of the Aurora Borealis on its Threads account (Wes Davis/The Verge)

Wes Davis / The Verge:
Threads users criticize Meta after the company posted AI-generated images of the Aurora Borealis on its Threads account  —  Meta has a suggestion for folks like me who forgot to go outside and look at the Northern Lights on Thursday night: just use AI to fake it!

A profile of, and interview with, Meta's Yann LeCun, who says today's AI models aren't intelligent and warnings about AI's existential peril are "complete B.S." (Christopher Mims/Wall Street Journal)

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
A profile of, and interview with, Meta's Yann LeCun, who says today's AI models aren't intelligent and warnings about AI's existential peril are “complete B.S.”  —  Yann LeCun, an NYU professor and senior researcher at Meta Platforms, says warnings about the technology's existential peril are ‘complete B.S.’

Apple AI researchers say they found no evidence of formal reasoning in language models and their behavior is better explained by sophisticated pattern matching (Gary Marcus/Marcus on AI)

Gary Marcus / Marcus on AI:
Apple AI researchers say they found no evidence of formal reasoning in language models and their behavior is better explained by sophisticated pattern matching  —  Important new study from Apple  —  A superb new article on LLMs from six AI researchers at Apple who were brave enough …