Thursday, November 28, 2024

Cloud backup startup Eon raised $70M led by BOND at a $1.4B valuation, taking its total funding to $200M since its January 2024 founding by AWS alumni (Paayal Zaveri/Bloomberg)

Paayal Zaveri / Bloomberg:
Cloud backup startup Eon raised $70M led by BOND at a $1.4B valuation, taking its total funding to $200M since its January 2024 founding by AWS alumni  —  - BOND led a $70 million funding round, Eon's third this year  — Cloud backup startup was founded by Amazon Web Services alumni



Reddit COO Jen Wong says ~50% of current users are located outside the US, and the company is developing new search tools to simplify navigation on Reddit (Arjun Kharpal/CNBC)

Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:
Reddit COO Jen Wong says ~50% of current users are located outside the US, and the company is developing new search tools to simplify navigation on Reddit  —  Reddit is ramping up efforts to attract more users outside of the U.S., putting countries like India and Brazil in focus as it looks …



Alibaba releases QwQ-32B-Preview under an Apache 2.0 license and claims the "reasoning" AI model beats OpenAI's o1 models on the AIME and MATH tests (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Alibaba releases QwQ-32B-Preview under an Apache 2.0 license and claims the “reasoning” AI model beats OpenAI's o1 models on the AIME and MATH tests  —  A new so-called “reasoning” AI model, QwQ-32B-Preview, has arrived on the scene.  It's one of the few to rival OpenAI's o1 …



Wednesday, November 27, 2024

Anthropic updates Claude to add custom writing styles tailored to users, aiming to personalize its replies, following similar ChatGPT and Gemini features (Jess Weatherbed/The Verge)

Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Anthropic updates Claude to add custom writing styles tailored to users, aiming to personalize its replies, following similar ChatGPT and Gemini features  —  Anthropic is adding a new feature to its Claude AI assistant that will give users more control over how the chatbot responds to different writing tasks.



IDC expects global smartphone shipments to rise 6.2% YoY to 1.24B units in 2024, with Android shipments growing 7.6% YoY and iPhone shipments growing 0.4% YoY (IDC)

IDC:
IDC expects global smartphone shipments to rise 6.2% YoY to 1.24B units in 2024, with Android shipments growing 7.6% YoY and iPhone shipments growing 0.4% YoY  —  Worldwide smartphone shipments are forecast to grow 6.2% year-over-year in 2024 to 1.24 billion units, according …



Singapore, which has clear AV guidelines, is deploying self-driving buses and more as a way to overcome labor shortages and use its scarce land more efficiently (Sandy Ong/Rest of World)

Sandy Ong / Rest of World:
Singapore, which has clear AV guidelines, is deploying self-driving buses and more as a way to overcome labor shortages and use its scarce land more efficiently  —  The tiny country has embraced autonomous vehicles as a way to overcome labor shortages and use its scarce land more efficiently.



Game console makers rethink selling more powerful machines, as performance improvements become less dramatic and consumers can't tell between 4K and 8K graphics (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Game console makers rethink selling more powerful machines, as performance improvements become less dramatic and consumers can't tell between 4K and 8K graphics  —  The human eye can't really tell the difference between 4K and 8K resolution.  —  Video game console manufacturers …



Sunday, November 24, 2024

Sources: Cantor Fitzgerald agreed to invest as much as $600M in Tether for about a 5% stake in the past year; Cantor holds most of Tether's $134B in assets (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Cantor Fitzgerald agreed to invest as much as $600M in Tether for about a 5% stake in the past year; Cantor holds most of Tether's $134B in assets  —  Before becoming Trump's commerce secretary pick, Lutnick deepened Cantor's ties with a stablecoin firm under investigation



Thoughts on Apple TV's history and future; sources: a larger-than-usual number of features scheduled for iOS 19 have been postponed to iOS 19.4 in spring 2026 (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Thoughts on Apple TV's history and future; sources: a larger-than-usual number of features scheduled for iOS 19 have been postponed to iOS 19.4 in spring 2026  —  Apple doesn't need its own TV set.  But it should make a low-cost TV streaming stick to bring its content, apps and smart home features to more households.



Profiles of Teresa Ribera, Henna Virkkunen, and Ekaterina Zaharieva, the three incoming EU commissioners in charge of key tech policy areas into 2029 (Natasha Lomas/TechCrunch)

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Profiles of Teresa Ribera, Henna Virkkunen, and Ekaterina Zaharieva, the three incoming EU commissioners in charge of key tech policy areas into 2029  —  The European Union looks to have clinched political agreement on the team of 26 commissioners who will be implementing President Ursula …



How researchers used AI in tandem with drones to find 303 previously uncharted Nazca Lines in Peru, almost doubling the number that had been mapped as of 2020 (Franz Lidz/New York Times)

Franz Lidz / New York Times:
How researchers used AI in tandem with drones to find 303 previously uncharted Nazca Lines in Peru, almost doubling the number that had been mapped as of 2020  —  With drones and A.I., researchers managed to double the number of mysterious geoglyphs in a matter of months.



Sources: amid the Iran war, Asian bankers say rising power prices and energy security are becoming a bigger consideration in data center financing decisions (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg : Sources: amid the Iran war, Asian bankers say rising power prices and energy security are becoming a bigger consideration in ...