Techmeme: Brad Smith says Microsoft plans to invest €4B in France, mostly focused on the AI sector, and the company would set up a data center in the city of Mulhouse (Sudip Kar-Gupta/Reuters)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

May 13, 2024, 11:55 AM

Top News

Jason Koebler / 404 Media:

Many US farmers had to halt their planting operations after a solar storm broke critical GPS and precision farming functionality in tractors and other equipment — The solar storm that brought the aurora borealis to large parts of the United States this weekend also broke critical GPS …

More: The Register, The Verge, Engadget, New York Times, The Overspill, Silicon Republic, and John Deere

X: @josephfcox, @dbeyer123, @robotbeat, @jason_koebler, @jason_koebler, @weldpond, @jason_koebler, @dancow, @ericgeller, @agarri_fr, and @tolstoybb

Forums: Hacker News, r/interstellar, r/PrepperIntel, and r/technology

Javier Espinoza / Financial Times:

Sources: the EU is set to issue new antitrust charges against Microsoft over concerns of undermining Teams competitors, despite the company offering concessions — Tech group's effort to avoid action by unbundling videoconferencing app from its other software appears to have failed

More: Fortune, Ars Technica, Thurrott, BetaNews, TechRadar, Benzinga, 9to5Mac, Computerworld, and MSPoweruser

Mastodon: @1br0wn@eupolicy.social. X: @florian4gamers. Forums: Slashdot

Akash Sriram / Reuters:

Squarespace says private equity firm Permira plans to take the company private in a ~$6.9B all-cash deal, or $44 per share, a 15.2% premium on Friday's close — Private equity firm Permira will take Squarespace (SQSP.N) private in an all-cash deal valued at about $6.9 billion …

More: Squarespace, PYMNTS.com, Financial Times, CNBC, Bloomberg, Proactive, Tech Startups, The Verge, Quartz, Benzinga, TechCrunch, and DealStreetAsia

Paul Alcorn / Tom's Hardware:

Top500: the Intel-powered Aurora supercomputer, not yet fully operational, came second behind the AMD-powered Frontier, but did take first in an AI benchmark — Aurora faces stability issues from hardware failures, cooling malfunctions, and operational errors.

More: TOP500, TechSpot, DatacenterDynamics, WinBuzzer, Network World, HPCwire, LUMI, Wccftech, The Register, TechPowerUp, insideHPC, Phoronix, and OC3D

X: @glennklockwood, @mobile_dom, @cscfi, @glennklockwood, @hpc_guru, @glennklockwood, @bmabey, @hpc_guru, @hpc_guru, and @simonmcs. Forums: r/hardware

Charlotte Trueman / DatacenterDynamics:

Isambard-AI, the UK's fastest supercomputer that cost £225M and ranks 128th on the Top500 list, comes online; the system will contain 5,448 Nvidia GH200 chips

More: Tom's Hardware, ExtremeTech, ComputerWeekly.com, University of Bristol, and The Stack. X: @bristoluni

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

Google says Project Starline, its 3D video conferencing platform first unveiled at 2021's Google I/O, will ship in 2025 with HP as a launch partner — In 2021, Google kicked off work on Project Starline, a corporate-focused teleconferencing platform that uses 3D imaging …

More: The Keyword, The Verge, 9to5Google, and Neowin. Bluesky: @coachfinstock.bsky.social

Sudip Kar-Gupta / Reuters:

Brad Smith says Microsoft plans to invest €4B in France, mostly focused on the AI sector, and the company would set up a data center in the city of Mulhouse — Technology and software giant Microsoft (MSFT.O) will invest 4 billion euros ($4.3 billion) in France as part …

More: Microsoft, Reuters, Business Today, PYMNTS.com, Unite.AI, DatacenterDynamics, Neowin, TechRadar, Tech Funding News, and Bloomberg. Forums: r/europe

Bloomberg:

The EU designates Booking as a DMA gatekeeper, saying “holidaymakers will start benefiting from more choice and hotels will have more business opportunities” — - Travel site is designated as a ‘gatekeeper’ under EU's DMA — X avoids rules for now as officials open probe into its status

More: TechCrunch, Euractiv, European Commission, Reuters, and Tech Xplore

Bluesky: @hern.bsky.social. X: @kayjebelli, @eu_competition, @eu_commission, @adamkovac, @lewis_crofts, and @mseltzermayr

Nilay Patel / The Verge:

Q&A with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen on running Adobe since 2007, new AI features, AI investments, Firefly, monetizing AI, copyright, AI misuse, PDFs, and more — The tech and the consumers both might not be quite ready yet, but he's betting big on an AI future.

More: MakeUseOf

Keith Laing / Bloomberg:

The US NHTSA opens an investigation into Amazon's Zoox after two of its automated Toyota SUVs braked unexpectedly, resulting in motorcyclists rear-ending them — - Bikers rear-ended Zoox SUVs that suddenly, unexpectedly braked — US agency estimates 500 vehicles are subject to investigation

More: The Information, The Verge, PCMag, CNBC, Associated Press, Quartz, Reuters, and Self Drive News

Sam Rutherford / Engadget:

Google Pixel 8a review: a 120Hz OLED display, strong battery life, excellent cameras, and great value at $499+, but slow wireless charging and thick bezels — The company didn't mess with its winning formula for the A-series, delivering another great handset for $499. — Senior Writer, Reviews

More: Ars Technica, The Verge, PCMag, ZDNet, Droid Life, Pocket-lint, and Digital Trends

New York Times:

How Elon Musk uses X to back right-wing world leaders like Argentina's Javier Milei and India's Narendra Modi, who can help secure advantages for his businesses — Minutes after it became clear that Javier Milei had been elected president of South America's second-largest nation in November …

Threads: @karaswisher, @motorcityadam, @karaswisher, @yonetteajoseph, @markjacobnews, and @lorakolodny

Bluesky: @rmac.bsky.social, @delexical.bsky.social, and @kateconger.bsky.social

X: @ryp__, @flitteronfraud, @rmac18, @rmac18, @ericgeller, @kateconger, and @markjacob16

Forums: Hacker News, r/RealTesla, r/Fuckthealtright, r/musked, and r/inthenews

Financial Times:

How GPS warfare is affecting civilian populations; an analysis finds ~40M people lived in areas with unreliable GPS for at least half of the past six months — Military activity blamed for surge in jamming and spoofing incidents affecting smartphones, planes and ships

More: TNW and The Quantum Insider

X: @_nickrogers_ and @snellarthur. LinkedIn: Katherine Dunn

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:

Sources: Apple has met with Hollywood talent representatives to propose a new performance-based compensation regime, as Amazon and Netflix work on similar plans — Apple builds a bonus system around sign-ups, viewer loyalty and production costs. — Good afternoon from 30,000 feet.

More: 9to5Mac, PhoneArena, The Information, and Associated Press

Threads: @carnage4life, @carnage4life, and @lucas_shaw. Forums: r/television

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:

SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work — Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.

Zoho:

How EWS deprecation affects Zoho Calendar Interoperability — Understanding the impactMicrosoft began blocking Exchange Web Services (EWS) requests in Exchange Online (Microsoft 365) as of October 1, 2026.

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.

WebBrain:

WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser — Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox. Use local models or your preferred AI provider. Get started free.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:

AI Stockpocalypse, Anthropic Nears RSI?, Prediction Markets vs. Pollsters

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.

Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.

Machine Gods:

The Purple Tsunami Against Data Centers

The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.

Subscribe to Machine Gods.

Invest Like the Best:

Ramtin Naimi - The State of Venture

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 Upstarts Podcast:

How Ramp Built A $60B AI Product Factory Off A Corporate Card | Co-CEO Eric Glyman

Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.

Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.

Great Chat:

Would you let a robot do it?

A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.

Subscribe to Great Chat.

Training Data:

A Model For Everyone: How Ronak From Trajectory Is Building Products For Continual Learning

Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.

Subscribe to Training Data.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:55 AM ET, May 13, 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.

From Mediagazer

Ethan Gach / Kotaku:

Valnet agrees to a $2M settlement to end a 2023 suit accusing it of misclassifying some workers as contractors rather than full-time employees to deny them pay

Denise Petski / Deadline:

Amazon Prime Video sets November 20 for the premiere of “Melania, The Series”, the two-episode follow-up to Brett Ratner's “Melania” documentary

Payton Turkeltaub / Variety:

Trump has offered UFC CEO Dana White the press secretary job and asked him to bring six UFC figures as assistants “even though some are not from our Country”

More News

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: after shelling out billions to acquire US users, Temu is now focusing more on acquiring users in Europe and elsewhere, following TikTok's US issues

More: PYMNTS.com

Mark Bergen / Bloomberg:

Abu Dhabi's Technology Innovation Institute releases Falcon 2 11B, an open-source LLM to compete with Llama and Gemini that supports five European languages

More: tii.ae and Reuters

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: Intel is in advanced, exclusive talks for a deal in which Apollo Global Management would supply $11B+ to help the chip giant build a plant in Ireland

More: Silicon Republic, Reuters, Bloomberg, Barron's Online, Yahoo Finance, Benzinga, Amwal Al Ghad, New Electronics, Irish Examiner, The Irish Times, Investing.com, and Channel NewsAsia

The Sunday Times:

Sources: Cambridge-based Raspberry Pi is finalizing plans to float on the London Stock Exchange this month in a deal that could value the startup at up to £500M

More: The Register, Tom's Hardware, and City A.M.

Eva Dou / Washington Post:

The US and China are set to hold their first high-level AI talks on May 14 in Geneva, as the governments seek to prevent disastrous accidents and unintended war

More: Reuters, Blockworks, CoinGape, Benzinga, Nextgov/FCW, Axios, Financial Times, Nikkei Asia, Tech Xplore, and The Decoder

Zachary Small / New York Times:

Christie's confirms eight auctions will proceed this week after a “technology security issue” on May 9 knocked its website offline, the second breach in a year

More: Cybernews.com, UPI, The Guardian, New York Times, and Bloomberg

Stuart Condie / Wall Street Journal:

An Australian judge refuses the eSafety commissioner's request to extend an order for X to hide a video of a religious leader's stabbing, without giving reasons

More: Associated Press, The Guardian, Forbes, Reuters, Financial Times, Benzinga, and The Verge

Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:

SoftBank reports a $4.6B gain on its Vision Fund in the fiscal year to March 2024, the first gain since 2021, after ByteDance and DoorDash rose in value

More: Associated Press, Financial Times, Reuters, Proactive, Benzinga, Bloomberg, Tech in Asia, and RTÉ

Earlier Picks

Bloomberg:

The US, the EU, and other superpowers have funneled nearly $81B towards supporting chip companies, the first wave of ~$380B earmarked by global governments

More: MIT Technology Review and International Business Times

X: @mackhawk and @scottlincicome

Washington Post:

A look at the growing number of startups offering AI deepfake detection services, with some claiming startling levels of accuracy despite untested capabilities

Heather Somerville / Wall Street Journal:

As VC firms pivot to investing in startups developing defense tech for the US and its allies, some of their business ties with China still linger

More: EU-Startups. X: @tomaxwell and @jchengwsj

Reuters:

Sources: Shein steps up preparations for a London listing amid regulatory hurdles for a New York IPO; a source says Shein plans to file in London as soon as May

More: The Sunday Times, City A.M., Watcher Guru, TechNode, The Guardian, and Proactive

Saritha Rai / Bloomberg:

A look at 01.AI, which is launching Wanzhi, a free generative AI assistant focused on the Chinese market; CEO Kai-Fu Lee says 01.AI is nearing profitability

More: Cryptopolitan and Benzinga

X: @sbeastwindy, @marikakatanuma, @01ai_yi, @saritharai, @_philschmid, and @dorialexander

Forums: Hacker News and r/LocalLLaMA

Melissa Korn / Wall Street Journal:

A look at the rise and fall of 2U, which provides online degree programs for top US universities and is currently valued at ~$30M, down from $5B+ in 2018

More: Livemint. X: @melissakorn and @jillbarshay

Henry Mance / Financial Times:

Researcher Sonia Livingstone says constraining tech companies and empowering young people and parents are better alternatives to banning kids from social media

X: @soph_butch, @henrymance, @mollyroseorg, @henrymance, @cooksimon, @katebevan, @henrymance, @alecmuffett, @ciesiolkiewicz, @henrymance, and @livingstone_s. LinkedIn: Sonia Livingstone

Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green:

Following attempts to malign Signal as insecure by Telegram's CEO and Elon Musk, a look at why Signal is widely regarded by experts as more secure than Telegram

More: Business Insider, Financial Express, and Benzinga

Threads: @renee.diresta, @renee.diresta, @renee.diresta, and @renee.diresta

X: @elonmusk, @nicoleperlroth, @huntclancy, @aukehoekstra, @jamesstout, @jack, @zarawesome, @vitalikbuterin, @deftechpat, @matthew_d_green, @erratarob, @matthew_d_green, @nkulw, @matthew_d_green, @samadlerbell, @matthew_d_green, @thebluematt, and @mer__edith. Forums: Hacker News