Techmeme: How Humane's attempt to build its Ai Pin “The Apple Way” led to disastrous results, after taking six years to build it and raising $230M (Benjamin Sandofsky/Sandofsky)

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April 16, 2024, 4:35 PM

Top News

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: TechCrunch, Wired, The Record, Constellation Research, PYMNTS.com, Cybersecurity Dive, BleepingComputer, UnitedHealth Group, PCMag, BleepingComputer, Cybernews.com, Proactive, CNBC, Forbes, SecurityWeek, and Fierce Healthcare …

Mastodon: @zackwhittaker@mastodon.social, @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social, and @danhon@dan.mastohon.com. LinkedIn: Gregg Davis. Forums: Slashdot

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

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

X: @dinabass, @stuartlwallace, and @mackhawk

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 …

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:

How Humane's attempt to build its Ai Pin “The Apple Way” led to disastrous results, after taking six years to build it and raising $230M — 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, The Verge, Business Insider, TechSpot, Cryptopolitan, BBC, and iPhone in Canada Blog

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

X: @samsheffer, @carnage4life, @gergelyorosz, @wesamo__, and @mkbhd

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, BGR, iPhone in Canada Blog, Trusted Reviews, nextpit, and TweakTown

X: @chancehmiller. Forums: r/apple and Slashdot

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, Andreessen Horowitz, Bitcoin Insider, CoinGape, and CNBC

X: @davidu, @bhorowitz, and @thogge

LinkedIn: Katherine Boyle, David George, Marc Andrusko, Michele Griffin, and Jordan Mazer

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, and Benzinga

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 and Rolling Stone. Mastodon: @dell@journa.host

Teo Armus / Washington Post:

Amazon confirms that HQ2 in Arlington lost 200 jobs in 2023, missing Amazon's goal of adding 2,500 jobs; HQ2 has ~8,000 employees and plans to reach ~25,000 — The tech giant's deal with Virginia had it adding more than 2,500 new employees at its new Arlington headquarters in 2023.

More: The Verge. LinkedIn: Dean Barber. Forums: Hacker News

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

PA Media:

The UK proposes 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: GOV.UK, Gizmodo, Ars Technica, TIME, BBC, PCMag, CityAM, and inews.co.uk

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

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

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 …

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: Reuters, The Record, 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

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

X: @ecranmobilefr and @checkfirsthq

Ron Miller / TechCrunch:

Loft Labs, which helps businesses spin up virtual Kubernetes clusters, raised a $24M Series A and says its open source project vCluster has had 40M downloads — It may seem like a paradox to have virtualized Kubernetes clusters. They are, after all, an abstraction in themselves …

More: FinSMEs and SiliconANGLE

LinkedIn: Diaa Khalil and Dan Miller

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 …

More: The Register, Benzinga, Phoronix, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., CNBC, Laptop Mag, Windows Experience Blog, PCMag, Thurrott, HotHardware, Quartz, ExtremeTech, Wccftech, Windows Central, XDA Developers, Computerworld, TechRepublic, PCWorld, Game Rant, Liliputing, Maginative, StorageReview.com, and MSPoweruser

LinkedIn: Ryan Sagare. Forums: Hacker News

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

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: Silicon Valley Business …, VC News Daily, DatacenterDynamics, FinSMEs, CCN.com, Reuters, Tech Startups, Verdict, and Pulse 2.0

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

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From Mediagazer

David Ellison / @ellisonskydance:

David Ellison announces that the combined Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery will be called Skydance “to preserve what has made each of these studios iconic”

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Disney licenses a large group of titles to Netflix, including all five Ice Age movies, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Felicity, Elio, and more

Scott Nover / Washington Post:

State Dept. inspector general: the Trump administration has been paying about $1.6M a week to keep 420 VOA employees on administrative leave, based on July data

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More News

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

More: PYMNTS.com

Times of India:

India-based B2B e-commerce marketplace ProcMart raised a $30M Series B led by Fundamentum and Edelweiss Discovery Fund, following a $10M Series A in 2022

More: Entrackr, The Economic Times, Livemint, The Hindu BusinessLine, Moneycontrol, and VCCircle. LinkedIn: ProcMart

Anna Heim / TechCrunch:

Berlin-based finmid, which makes embedded fintech tools for SMBs, raised a €23M Series A at a €100M post-money valuation, bringing its total raised to €35M

More: FinTech Global, Silicon Canals, Crowdfund Insider, Tech Funding News, FinSMEs, Tech.eu, finmid, and EU-Startups. LinkedIn: finmid

Saritha Rai / Bloomberg:

Tel Aviv-based Bridgewise, which uses AI to provide investment analysis to brokerages, wealth advisors, and exchanges, raised a $21M Series A led by SIX Group

More: Tech Funding News, FinSMEs, Tech.eu, CTech, Asia Blockchain Review, and Bridgewise

Josh Ye / Reuters:

Baidu says that eight months after launch its AI chatbot Ernie Bot now has 200M+ users and 85K enterprise clients, after reaching 100M+ users in December 2023

More: ZDNet, The Decoder, CNBC, South China Morning Post, WinBuzzer, Wall Street Journal, Benzinga, Business Standard, and Pandaily

Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg:

South Korea-based AI startup Upstage raised a $72M Series B from SK Networks, SBVA, formerly known as SoftBank Ventures Asia, and other investors

More: SiliconANGLE, VC News Daily, FinSMEs, Upstage, Pulse 2.0, KED Global, Tech in Asia, and The Investor

Tim De Chant / TechCrunch:

Kode Labs, which develops tools that integrate data from building management systems and IoT devices, raised a $30M Series B led by Maverix Private Equity

More: Pulse 2.0, PR Newswire, and FinSMEs

X: @tdechant and @kodelabs

LinkedIn: Etrit Demaj and Nick Viscuso

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, @alecmuffett, @jamesrbuk, and @webdevlaw

Earlier Picks

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

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, Lifewire, and Jigsaw

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