Techmeme
August 2, 2023, 4:40 PM

Top News

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
Sources: US DOJ officials are weighing fraud charges against Binance but worry that an indictment could cause a run on the exchange like the one that befell FTX  —  U.S. Department of Justice officials are considering fraud charges against crypto exchange Binance, but are concerned about the cost …
Wall Street Journal:
Internal Binance data and current and former employees say Chinese users traded ~$90B in crypto assets on the exchange in May 2023, despite China's crypto ban  —  Retaining its Chinese footprint will be crucial for Binance as it faces a global regulatory crackdown
Rest of World:
Interviews with people at Worldcoin sign-up booths in Nairobi, Bengaluru, and Hong Kong find many scanned their irises to receive the WLD bonuses, an “easy $50”  —  In Nairobi, Bengaluru, and Hong Kong, our reporters found lots of people were eager to take the deal.
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Amazon plans to roll out its biggest grocery business overhaul since acquiring Whole Foods, in the coming weeks, including merging its various supermarket carts  —  It's revamping stores, unifying online shopping carts and offering fresh-food delivery to customers who aren't Prime subscribers.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple says Apple Card's high-yield savings account offered by Goldman Sachs has topped over $10B in deposits since launching in April  —  Apple today announced that its high-interest savings account for Apple Card has topped over $10 billion in deposits.  Early indicators suggested …
David Pierce / The Verge:
Google updates its generative AI-powered Search experience with supplementary multimedia, faster responses, and more context for links in its summary box  —  Google's AI-powered Search Generative Experience is getting a big new feature: images and video.  If you've enabled the AI-based SGE feature …
Emilia David / The Verge:
Meta releases AudioCraft, an open-source AI tool that lets users create music and sounds via text prompts, consisting of MusicGen, AudioGen, and EnCodec models  —  It consists of three AI models, all tackling different areas of sound generation.  MusicGen takes text inputs to generate music.
Jen Christensen / CNN:
An early-stage study of 80K+ women in Sweden who underwent a mammogram between April 2021 and July 2022 finds AI-supported screening detected 20% more cancers  —  Artificial intelligence found more breast cancers than doctors with years of training and experience and cut doctors' mammogram …
Amy Lewin / Sifted:
Hopin, the struggling virtual events startup valued at $7.75B in August 2021, sells its Events and Session units to RingCentral; CEO Johnny Boufarhat steps down  —  UPDATED: The startup, which was once the fastest-growing in Europe, has also sold its flagship product
Bloomberg:
Sources: SoftBank's Arm is targeting an IPO at a valuation of between $60B and $70B as soon as September 2023, looking to raise as much as $10B in its debut  —  - Chip design firm may raise as much as $10 billion in debut  — Nvidia, Intel are in discussions to be anchor investors
Charlotte Hughes-Morgan / Bloomberg:
Uber paid £386M, or $490M, to UK tax authorities as part of a dispute over how its ride hailing app applies VAT to UK trips, but plans to appeal the decision  —  - HMRC is challenging Uber's use of Tour Operators Margin Scheme  — Uber said it will appeal the VAT assessment in UK Court
Reuters:
Shopify reports Q2 revenue up 31% YoY to $1.7B, vs. $1.62B est., and GMV up 17% YoY to $55B, vs. $53.34B est.  —  Canada's Shopify (SHOP.TO), beat Wall Street estimates for revenue in the second quarter on Wednesday, as more merchants used its online tools and targeting services to attract customers.
More: Shopify
Charlie Fink / Forbes:
Inworld, which uses AI to help developers create game characters, raised $30M led by Lightspeed at a $500M+ valuation, following a $50M Series A in August 2022  —  Inworld, which makes AI-driven non-player characters (NPCs) for games and other applications has raised approximately $30 in new funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners.

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More News

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Earlier Picks

Clive Cookson / Financial Times:
Aidan Ryan / The Information:
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
Chavi Mehta / Reuters:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: