In a weird X Spaces conversation, Elon Musk and Alice Weidel, the leader of the German far-right party AfD, pushed disinformation about Hitler, migrants, more — God! Martians! A “communist” Hitler! It was heavy on oddness and light on policy as the X owner and the AfD co-leader hit it off.
A look at Meta's convoluted or contradictory guidelines for those working on its user content, allowing derogatory remarks about races, nationalities, and more — Meta is now granting its users new freedom to post a wide array of derogatory remarks about races, nationalities, ethnic groups …
A look at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, RELX's largest division, which accounts for ~35% of RELX's revenue and holds 9B device records and 3B digital identities — Company once known as Reed Elsevier has moved from legal and scientific publishing into AI fraud detection
Taiwan's National Security Bureau says daily average cyberattacks on government departments doubled in 2024 vs. 2023 to 2.4M, mostly from Chinese cyber forces — Cyberattacks on Taiwan government departments doubled in 2024 from the previous year to an average of 2.4 million attacks a day …
Istanbul-based gaming startup Grand Games, maker of Magic Sort and Car Match, raised a $30M Series A led by Balderton, after securing a $3M seed in 2024 — Gaming startups, specifically those building casual mobile games, are very hot in Turkey right now, and today, another one is announcing …
A new English-language Polish film about Vladimir Putin, in which AI is used to superimpose his real face onto an actor, sparks a debate about use of AI — A new English-language Polish film about Vladimir Putin, in which the Russian president is portrayed using AI-powered special effects …
Inside Naver's 1784, a 36-level office tower in Seoul, which has ~4,500 employees working with 120 robots and serves as a testbed for various AI technologies — An office building called 1784 on the outskirts of Seoul offers a glimpse into the robotic future that artificial intelligence developers say is just around the corner.
PitchBook: US startups raised $209B in 2024, up ~33% from 2023; AI startups raised $97B, the largest portion on record; VCs raised $76.1B, the lowest since 2019 — VC investors piled into AI megarounds in the US last year. — Venture capitalists put $97 billion into artificial intelligence startups …
Satya Nadella says Microsoft will invest about $3B to expand its Azure cloud and AI capacity in India and train 10 million people in AI in the country by 2030 — Microsoft (MSFT.O) will invest about $3 billion to expand capacity for artificial intelligence and its Azure cloud-computing services in India …
Avataar debuts Velocity, an AI tool that generates product videos based on a product link, and says HP, Victoria's Secret, Lowe's, and others are using the tool — Generative AI models have reached a baseline capability of producing at least a passable video from a single image or short sentence.
Sam Altman says “we are now confident we know how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood it” and that OpenAI is turning its focus to superintelligence — The second birthday of ChatGPT was only a little over a month ago, and now we have transitioned into the next paradigm of models that can do complex reasoning.
Uber and Lyft are embracing autonomous vehicle operators like Waymo, May Mobility, and others, after abandoning their own self-driving car programs — After ending their own driverless plans, the ride-sharing companies are embracing autonomous-vehicle operators and offering new app features
Sources: India plans $2.7B in fresh subsidies and import tariff cuts to boost local manufacturing, especially of smartphones made by companies like Apple — - Proposed incentives will help smartphone makers like Apple — Final decision to be made by cabinet; details likely in budget
A look at Chinese hackers' attacks on US infrastructure and telecoms; sources: Charter, Consolidated Communications, and Windstream networks were also breached — Massive ‘Typhoon’ cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure and telecoms sought to lay groundwork for potential conflict with Beijing …
Foxconn reports Q4 revenue of ~$64.6B, up 15% YoY and exceeding analyst expectations for a 13% rise, with December 2024 bringing in ~$19.8B, up 42% YoY — - Company sees significant sales growth for the first quarter — December sales NT$655 billion up 42% on strong AI server sales
Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg : Samsung says it sent the first commercial HBM4 shipments to customers, as it seeks to supply Nvidia and compete ...
