Techmeme: Sources: in 2023, Abu Dhabi's G42 and the US Commerce Department held talks that led to G42 agreeing to pare back its China presence to avoid punitive measures (Bloomberg)

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April 16, 2024, 1:55 PM

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Financial Times:

Microsoft invests $1.5B in Abu Dhabi-based AI startup 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:

Sources: in 2023, Abu Dhabi's G42 and the US Commerce Department held talks that led to G42 agreeing to pare back its China presence to avoid punitive measures — Tech Daily … Quicktake

More: Crunchbase News, Forbes, TechCrunch, The Verge, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CCN.com, and GeekWire

X: @dinabass, @stuartlwallace, and @mackhawk

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 …

More: Open Source Security …, The Register, Cybersecurity Dive, Fortune, ZDNet, SC Media, The Record, Nextgov/FCW, Metacurity, The Hacker News, Infosecurity, Security Affairs, and ComputerWeekly.com

Mastodon: @danimo@chaos.social, @thegibson@hackers.town, and @rechelon@mastodon.social

X: @feross and @_msw_

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 …

More: Marques Brownlee on YouTube, Platformer, iPhone in Canada Blog, Business Insider, BBC, TechSpot, Cryptopolitan, and PetaPixel

Mastodon: @jasonpettus@mastodon.cloud, @akosma@mastodon.online, and @sandofsky@mastodon.social

X: @samsheffer, @carnage4life, @gergelyorosz, @wesamo__, and @mkbhd. Forums: r/videos

Abner Li / 9to5Google:

YouTube strengthens its “enforcement on third-party apps” violating its ToS, “specifically ad-blocking apps”, leading to error messages and “buffering issues” — Following the ad blocker crackdown, YouTube is explicitly going after third-party …

Connor Jones / The Register:

UnitedHealth says the February ransomware attack on Change Healthcare cost the company $872M in Q1; another ransomware group appears to be extorting the company — First glimpse at attack financials reveals huge pain — UnitedHealth, parent company of ransomware-besieged Change Healthcare …

More: The Record, Constellation Research, BleepingComputer, TechCrunch, PCMag, BleepingComputer, CRN, Cybernews.com, Proactive, CNBC, Forbes, SecurityWeek, Fierce Healthcare …, and PYMNTS.com

Mastodon: @zackwhittaker@mastodon.social, @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social, and @danhon@dan.mastohon.com

Vittoria Elliott / Wired:

Meta's Oversight Board plans to investigate two deepfake porn cases involving unnamed US 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 …

Matthew Connatser / The Register:

Intel's Gaudi 3 white paper details the made-for-China processors HL-328 and HL-388, likely designed to comply with US export controls by reducing performance — Intel is set to launch two China-exclusive models of its Gaudi 3 AI accelerator, and they'll be substantially crippled to fit in with US sanctions.

More: Intel, Reuters, Benzinga, Pandaily, TechNode, and TrendForce Insights

The Guardian:

The UK announces legislation to outlaw creating sexually explicit deepfake photos without consent, regardless of whether creators intended to share the images — Offenders could face jail if image is widely shared under proposed amendment to criminal justice bill

More: Ars Technica, GOV.UK, TIME, PCMag, CityAM, and inews.co.uk

Mastodon: @campuscodi@mastodon.social. X: @mojgovuk, @dc_lawrence, @tonydowson5, and @mojgovuk

Forums: Hacker News, r/aiwars, r/ukpolitics, r/technology, and r/technews

Pierluigi Paganini / Security Affairs:

Resecurity: malicious cyber activities targeting the Philippines, like cyberattacks and misinformation campaigns, grew 300%+ YoY in Q1, as China tensions rise — Amidst rising tensions with China in the SCS, Resecurity observed a spike in malicious cyber activity targeting the Philippines in Q1 2024.

More: Resecurity

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 …

More: AppleInsider, Mozilla Foundation, The Daily Dot, 9to5Mac, Mashable, Euractiv, Cybernews.com, Mozilla Foundation, CNBC, CheckFirst, and Adweek

X: @ecranmobilefr and @checkfirsthq

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

More: The Record, Reuters, Tech Xplore, and Daring Fireball

Julie Creswell / New York Times:

Ghost kitchens and virtual restaurant brands, which boomed during the pandemic after raising billions, are disappearing due to overtaxed kitchens and complaints — Ghost kitchens and virtual brands became a way for idle restaurant kitchens to generate revenue.

Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to. X: @rakeshlobster

Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg:

Andreessen Horowitz raised $7.2B, including $600M for American Dynamism, $3.75B for late-stage startups, and $600M for gaming, exceeding its target by ~4% — Andreessen Horowitz, one of Silicon Valley's biggest venture capital firms, has raised $7.2 billion in new funding — a sizable haul after a rocky period for the startup world.

More: Financial Times, CNBC, Andreessen Horowitz, The Information, and Axios

X: @bhorowitz, @thogge, and @davidu

Paul Alcorn / Tom's Hardware:

AMD unveils the Ryzen Pro 8040 series for business laptops and mobile workstations and the Ryzen Pro 8000 series for desktops, adding an NPU for AI processing — AMD is the first with a Pro desktop PC chip with an NPU for AI workloads. — AMD announced its Ryzen Pro portfolio today …

Dell Cameron / Wired:

The Senate is set to vote on RISAA, which reauthorizes FISA's Section 702 and could force new types of businesses to eavesdrop on Americans without a warrant — A controversial bill reauthorizing the Section 702 spy program may force whole new categories of businesses to eavesdrop …

More: New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Fortune

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: DatacenterDynamics, FinSMEs, Reuters, CCN.com, Tech Startups, and Verdict

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

Apple debuts web distribution of iOS apps to EU users, allowing qualifying devs who opt in to its Core Technology Fee to offer direct downloads from their sites — Apple is opening up web distribution for iOS apps targeting users in the European Union from today.

More: MacRumors, 9to5Mac, ZDNet, nextpit, and TweakTown. X: @chancehmiller

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:

Spotify says 25% of paid users in the US, UK, and Australia have started an audiobook as part of their subscriptions; 57% are between 18 and 34 years old — - Spotify listeners skew younger, with 57% age 18 to 34 — Certain subscribers receive 15 hours of listening per month

More: CNET

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 …

More: CRN, Broadcom Inc., Forbes, Nikkei Asia, WinBuzzer, The Register, Tech Monitor, TechRadar, Constellation Research, and Benzinga

Bluesky: @marypcbuk.bsky.social. X: @codykirkpatrick, @broadcom, and @dcasota. Forums: r/vmware

Kari Paul / The Guardian:

A look at Neopets, which launched in 1999 to let users care for virtual pets, including surviving multiple acquisitions and browsers phasing out Flash in 2017 — An icon of millennials' childhoods languished for nearly two decades. Now it's attempting a comeback - banking on the fact that it hasn't changed at all

X: @blakersdozen

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+.

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From Mediagazer

Scott Nover / Washington Post:

Sources: the DOD barred press photographers from briefings on the Iran conflict after they published photos of Pete Hegseth that his staff deemed “unflattering”

Alexandra S. Levine / Bloomberg:

Google's AI Futures Fund invests $1M into Animaj, an AI animation studio focused on making high-quality videos for children on YouTube

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A look at Newpress, a production company and community platform for “creator journalists”, which helps them build shows on platforms including YouTube

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Todd Spangler / Variety:

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Earlier Picks

Ellen Milligan / Bloomberg:

Sources: the UK plans talks this month with Apple, Meta, and others to push a voluntary charter granting parents more control of social media use by young teens

X: @arollingsloane, @jamesrbuk, @alecmuffett, and @webdevlaw

Rachel Graf / Bloomberg:

Mark Zuckerberg wins his bid to avoid personal liability in about two dozen lawsuits accusing Meta and other companies of addicting children to their products

More: The Hill, Silicon Valley Business …, Verdict, 9to5Mac, TechSpot, Reuters, Benzinga, International Business Times, and NewsBytes

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

More: ZDNet and Jigsaw

X: @mer__edith, @prestonjbyrne, @billyperrigo, @jigsaw, @jigsaw, and @jigsaw. LinkedIn: Reza Ghazinouri