Techmeme
March 27, 2024, 4:20 PM

Top News

CNBC:
Amazon plans to invest $2.75B in Anthropic, the second tranche of Amazon's planned $4B investment in the AI startup, after a $1.25B tranche in September 2023  —  Amazon is making its largest outside investment in its three-decade history as it looks to gain an edge in the artificial intelligence race.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Will Knight / Wired:
A look at Databricks' new open-source model DBRX, an LLM that cost ~$10M to train over several months and, Databricks says, outshines Llama 2, Mixtral, and Grok  —  Startup Databricks just released DBRX, the most powerful open source large language model yet—eclipsing Meta's Llama 2.
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Disney adds Hulu to Disney+, after beta testing the integration since December 2023; Disney+ subscribers who don't pay for Hulu can still search for Hulu shows  —  “Content recommendations are going to be more relevant based on your usage,” says Joe Earley, president of direct-to-consumer for Disney Entertainment.
Reuters:
A US judge rules that the SEC's lawsuit against Coinbase can proceed, but dismisses one claim that Coinbase acted as an unregistered broker via Coinbase Wallet  —  A federal judge in Manhattan on Wednesday said the U.S. securities regulator's lawsuit against Coinbase (COIN.O) can move forward …
Jonathan Greig / The Record:
Google researchers observed 97 zero-day exploits in the wild in 2023, up 50% from 62 in 2022; 48 were used by espionage actors and 10 were financially-motivated  —  Cybersecurity experts are warning that zero-day exploits, which can be used to compromise devices before anyone is aware they're vulnerable …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Elon Musk says X plans to make xAI's Grok available to all Premium subscribers “later this week”, expanding on Premium+ support; X Premium costs $8 per month  —  Following Elon Musk's xAI's move to open source its Grok large language model earlier in March, the X owner on Tuesday …
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Google adds AI-generated trip itineraries to Search, translation to Circle to Search, and curated recommendations in Maps in 40+ cities across the US and Canada  —  Google is introducing a handful of updates that aim to take some of the stress out of planning trips and outings …
Michelle F Davis / Bloomberg:
Sources: blockchain AI companies SingularityNET, Fetch.ai, and Ocean Protocol are discussing merging their tokens into ASI, with a ~$7.5B fully diluted value  —  Three artificial intelligence companies that operate on blockchain are in talks to merge their crypto tokens, a move aimed at helping them develop a decentralized AI platform.
Marcia Sekhose / 91mobiles:
Source: the Google Pixel 9 will have three sizes, the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, and Pixel 9 Pro XL; alleged Pixel 9 renders show two rear cameras and a compact body  —  - New 5K renders give us a close look at the vanilla Google Pixel 9.  — In addition to Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro, Google will also launch Pixel 9 Pro XL.
Paul Alcorn / Tom's Hardware:
At Intel's AI Summit in Taipei, executives say Copilot will soon run locally on PCs and that there will be a 40 TOPS requirement for NPUs on next-gen AI PCs  —  Let the TOPS wars begin.  —  We've previously reported on industry rumors that Microsoft's Copilot AI service will soon run locally …
Paul Alcorn / Tom's Hardware:
Ryan Weeks / Bloomberg:
Blockchain game Munchables, which offers rewards for looking after digital creatures, loses ~$63M in ETH in a hack; the hacker seems to have returned the funds  —  - Blockchain-based Munchables game confirmed a security incident  — Munchables declared all user funds safe later the same day
Nicola Agius / Search Engine Land:
Google says it blocked or removed 5.5B ads and 12.7M advertiser accounts for violating its policies in 2023, up from 5.2B and 6.7M respectively in 2022  —  The number of advertisers who were blocked or removed due to policy violations nearly doubled compared to the previous year.  —  Chat with SearchBot
Sheera Frenkel / New York Times:
Israeli officials detail an expansive and experimental facial recognition program in Gaza to catalog Palestinians without their knowledge, starting in late 2023  —  The experimental effort, which has not been disclosed, is being used to conduct mass surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza, according to military officials and others.
Rashi Shrivastava / Forbes:
NY-based Hume, which is building a conversational AI that it claims can interpret emotions based on people's voices, raised a $50M Series B at a $219M valuation  —  Hume has raised $50 million in funding at a $219 million valuation to build “empathic” conversational AI.  —  Alan Cowen feigns a dejected expression.
Katherine Bindley / Wall Street Journal:
How tech companies' search for AI experts, amid a shortage of candidates, led to million-dollar-a-year compensation packages, poaching entire teams, and more  —  The artificial-intelligence boom is sending Silicon Valley's talent wars to new extremes.  Tech companies are serving up million-dollar …

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
The central nervous system of your business  —  Used by 80% of Fortune 100 companies, Airtable combines AI with the scale of an infinitely flexible, no-code system.  With all your data in one place, it's like mission control for your company.
Intel:
5G's most deployed platform  —  Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN.  That's the power of Intel Inside®
Zoho:
AI that actually helps: Practical intelligence in Zoho Workplace  —  Lately, most AI assistants feel like that one over-eager intern who interrupts every five minutes with a suggestion you didn't ask for.At Zoho …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Channels with Peter Kafka:
The World's Cup Is Coming to Trump's America, with Roger Bennett
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Invest Like the Best:
John Arnold - China, Energy Markets and Fixing America's Systems
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
The Social Radars:
Peter Reinhardt, CEO & co-founder, Charm Industrial; CEO & co-founder, Segment
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
Subscribe to The Social Radars.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Garry Tan, Harj Taggar, and Jared Friedman from YC
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Acquired:
Formula 1
Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.
Subscribe to Acquired.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
His Excellency Khaldoon Al Mubarak: Investing in an AI-Driven World
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:20 PM ET, March 27, 2024.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

Politico:
Zoe Denenberg / Wall Street Journal:
Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Elizabeth Howcroft / Reuters:
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch: