Techmeme
April 16, 2024, 8:25 AM

Top News

Financial Times:
Microsoft invests $1.5B in Abu Dhabi-based AI group G42 for a minority stake, after G42 severed ties with Chinese suppliers; Brad Smith will join G42's board  —  Agreement is latest move by US tech group to extend its reach into fast-growing sector  —  Microsoft has agreed to invest $1.5bn …
Bloomberg:
Raphael Satter / Reuters:
The Open Source Security Foundation and the OpenJS Foundation say the attempt to insert a secret backdoor into XZ Utils “may not be an isolated incident”  —  The recent attempt by an unknown actor to sabotage a widely used software program may have been one of several attempts …
Benjamin Sandofsky / Sandofsky:
A look at the failure of Humane's Ai Pin, which took six years to ship after raising $230M, including building the device “the Apple way” and raising too much  —  Why You Can't Build Apple with Venture Capital  —  An ex-Apple designer who went on to startup success once told me …
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
EU antitrust regulators are questioning Broadcom about changes to VMware's licensing conditions, following complaints from EU business users and a trade group  —  U.S. chipmaker Broadcom (AVGO.O) is being asked by EU antitrust regulators about changes to newly acquired cloud computing company …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
YouTube begins “strengthening our enforcement on third-party apps that violate” its ToS and “specifically ad-blocking apps”, leading to app error messages  —  Following the ad blocker crackdown, YouTube is explicitly going after third-party — often mobile — apps that let viewers skip advertising.
Vittoria Elliott / Wired:
Meta's Oversight Board plans to investigate two deepfake porn cases, both involving unnamed celebrities who had their images altered to create explicit content  —  Social platforms have struggled to quickly remove deepfake porn depicting celebrities.  —  As AI tools become increasingly sophisticated …
Jennifer A. Kingson / Axios:
Meta plans to launch a new education product for Quest that will let teachers access education apps for students ages 13+ and manage multiple headsets at once  —  - In time for the fall semester, it'll make available a suite of visually engrossing education apps that teachers can use with students ages 13+.
David Pierce / The Verge:
Limitless launches the $99 Limitless Pendant, a wearable AI gadget that transcribes meetings and provides real-time notes and summaries, shipping in August 2024  —  The Limitless Pendant doesn't exactly scream “AI.”  As Dan Siroker, the CEO of the company behind the new device …
Artificial Intelligence Index:
Stanford's AI Index report: training top AI models is way more expensive, AI still trails humans on complex tasks, people are more nervous about AI, and more  —  Welcome to the seventh edition of the AI Index report.  The 2024 Index is our most comprehensive to date and arrives …
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Mozilla and CheckFirst: Apple, Google, Meta, and others' ad transparency efforts are a work in progress, months after the EU's DSA mandated a searchable library  —  Efforts by tech giants to be more transparent about the ads they run are — at very best — still a work in progress …
Sabrina Willmer / Bloomberg:
Filing: MGM sues the FTC to stop an investigation into a 2023 cyberattack and asks for Chair Lina Khan's recusal; Khan stayed at the MGM Grand in September 2023  —  - Agency chair Lina Khan was visiting resort during cyber attack  — Lawsuit alleges FTC asked company for ‘100 categories’ of data
Bloomberg:
Bain Capital agrees to sell UK payroll software company Zellis, acquired in 2017, to Apax Partners; sources say the deal values Zellis at ~£1.25B  —  - Apax said to fund deal with £450 million private credit loan  — Zellis counts Harrods and carmaker Jaguar among its customers
More: PYMNTS.com
Jane Lanhee Lee / Bloomberg:
AI chip developer Rivos, which recently settled with Apple over trade secret theft, raised $250M+ led by Matrix to compete with Nvidia using its RISC-V chips  —  - US upstart targets data analytics and generative AI markets  — Matrix Capital leads round, with Intel, MediaTek participating
More: TechCrunch
Peter Kafka / Business Insider:
Impressions of Waymo's robotaxis after several rides: amazing tech that quickly feels “normal”, but the car failed to understand a traffic cop's hand signals  —  An curved arrow pointing right.  — Unlike other hyped-up tech, self-driving taxis look like they could be the real thing.
Billy Perrigo / TIME:
Google's Jigsaw expands Perspective API, a set of ML tools that help moderators and researchers identify toxicity, with seven attributes, including nuance  —  In the 1990s and early 2000s, technologists made the world a grand promise: new communications technologies would strengthen democracy …

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Earlier Picks

Vittoria Elliott / Wired:
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
New York Times:
Alexandra Sternlicht / Fortune:
Stephen Nellis / Reuters: