Israeli startup Port, which offers a proprietary developer portal competitor to Spotify's open-source Backstage, raised a $100M Series C at an $800M valuation — Spotify may be synonymous with music streaming, but it's also got a wildly popular developer-tool side-hustle called “Backstage.”
Harness, which uses AI to automate code testing, verification, security, and governance, raised a $240M Series E led by Goldman Sachs at a $5.5B valuation — AI DevOps tool Harness, founded in 2017 by serial entrepreneur Jyoti Bansal, is on track to exceed $250 million in annual recurring revenue in 2025, Bansal tells TechCrunch.
An Ai2 research scientist argues that AGI, as commonly conceived, will not emerge because it ignores, among other things, the physical realities of computation — If you are reading this, you probably have strong opinions about AGI, superintelligence, and the future of AI.
The US CBP proposes vetting five years of social media history for travelers from the UK, France, Germany, and more; the current system only requires basic info — Even visitors from countries like Britain and France, whose citizens don't need visas, would have to share five years' worth of social media.
Australia's under-16 social media ban excludes Discord, GitHub, LEGO Play, Roblox, Steam, Google Classroom, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and YouTube Kids — Young teenagers in Australia have been barred from social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok in one of the toughest crackdowns …
Mercedes partners with Chinese software developer Momenta to deploy Level 4 self-driving cars for Lumo Mobility in Abu Dhabi, its first foray into robotaxis — Mercedes-Benz Group AG will partner with Chinese software developer Momenta Global Ltd. to deploy self-driving cars for Lumo Mobility in Abu Dhabi …
Q&A with Square product chief Willem Avé on Block's restructuring in 2024, AI automation, investing in crypto, the Lightning Network, and more — Today, I'm talking with Willem Avé, who's head of product at Square. You know Square — it was started by billionaire Jack Dorsey …
Singapore-based banking and payments startup Airwallex raised $330M at an $8B valuation, after raising $300M at a $6.2B valuation in May, and plans a US HQ — Payments company opens San Francisco base and reduces Tencent's holding in US pivot — A Singapore fintech that was labelled a …
Police in Edmonton, Canada partner with Axon to test body cameras with AI facial recognition, and say the results will be verified by human officers — Police body cameras equipped with artificial intelligence have been trained to detect the faces of about 7,000 people on a “high risk” …
Sources: Ted Sarandos met with President Trump in November, and both agreed WBD should go to the highest bidder; Sarandos argued that Netflix wasn't a monopoly — Netflix Inc. co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos ventured to the White House in mid-November for a meeting with President Donald Trump.
Essential AI, whose CEO co-wrote Google's Attention Is All You Need paper, unveils Rnj-1, an 8B-parameter open model with SWE-bench performance close to GPT-4o — The long-term advancement and equitable diffusion of AI technologies crucially depend on their development in the Open.
Nikita Bier accuses the European Commission of trying to deceptively amplify the reach of its post about the €120M fine on X; X terminates the EC's ad account — Nikita Bier, X's head of product, accused the EU executive of trying to amplify its own social media post about the fine on X by trying …
Lemurian Labs, which aims to develop hardware-agnostic portability software for AI workloads, raised a $28M Series A co-led by Pebblebed Ventures and Hexagon — AI software startup Lemurian Labs has pivoted away from AI hardware, having raised a $28-million series A to build its AI software stack.
A technical deep dive into Amazon's Trainium3 accelerator, including its server SKUs' specifications, silicon design, power budget, and bill of materials — Step-Function Software & System Improvements, “Amazon Basics” GB200 NVL36x2, NL72x2/NL32x2 Scale Up Rack Architecture, Optimized Perf per TCO, Trainium4
Sources: Apple's chip chief Johny Srouji told Tim Cook that he is seriously considering leaving soon; some execs floated elevating him to the CTO role — Apple Inc., long the model of stability in Silicon Valley, is suddenly undergoing its biggest personnel shake-up in decades …
The Information : Sources: after five Thinking Machines staff left, investors are rattled, potentially impacting fundraising; two researc...
