Techmeme: Canva acquires AI image generation service Leonardo.ai for an undisclosed amount; Leonardo.ai launched in December 2022 and has 19M+ registered users (Capital Brief)

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July 30, 2024, 11:40 AM

Top News

Reuters:

Meta agrees to pay $1.4B to settle Texas' lawsuit accusing Meta of using facial recognition tech to collect biometric data of millions of Texans without consent — Meta Platforms (META.O) has agreed to pay $1.4 billion to Texas to resolve the state's lawsuit accusing the Facebook parent …

More: Texas Attorney General, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg Law, Keller Postman LLC, and McKool Smith

X: @kenpaxtontx and @txag

Kylie Robison / The Verge:

Perplexity is launching a program to share ad revenue with partners such as Time, Der Spiegel, Fortune, and WordPress.com, after weeks of plagiarism accusations — Perplexity is launching a program to share ad revenue with publishing partners following weeks of plagiarism accusations.

Capital Brief:

Canva acquires AI image generation service Leonardo.ai for an undisclosed amount; Leonardo.ai launched in December 2022 and has 19M+ registered users — Founded in December 2022, Leonardo.Ai has over 19 million users and its very own foundation AI model. — Canva, Australia's largest …

More: TechCrunch, The Verge, Canva, Tech Monitor, Tech.co, Maginative, iClarified, PhoneArena, PetaPixel, WinBuzzer, TechRadar, SmartCompany, AIM, Bloomberg, Neowin, Leonardo.AI, and The Information

X: @leonardoai_, @hc_dsn, @angrypenguinpng, and @canva

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:

Qualcomm debuts the 4nm Snapdragon 4s Gen 2, a feature-limited version of the Snapdragon 4 Gen 2, to make 5G accessible to smartphones in the sub-$100 category — Qualcomm Tuesday announced the Snapdragon 4s Gen 2. The entry-level chip aims to make 5G accessible to 2.8 billion smartphone users …

Hadley Beeman / W3C:

After Google said it wouldn't deprecate third-party cookies, the W3C says they should be removed as “hidden personal data collection hurts everyone's privacy” — Author(s) and publish date — After reading Google's announcement that they no longer plan to deprecate third-party cookies …

More: The Register, W3C, Pixel Envy, Pixel Envy, and WebProNews

Mastodon: @mconley@mozilla.social and @wilander@mastodon.social

X: @hadleybeeman, @lukolejnik, and @anderagakura

Forums: Hacker News, r/firefox, and Lobsters

Tekendra Parmar / Bloomberg:

Scammers are using Meta's copyright protection tools to target Middle East influencers; creators see their Instagram content removed if they don't pay ransoms — Victims see their content removed from Instagram unless they pay steep ransoms. — In May 2023, Esaa Ahmed-Adnan …

More: WinBuzzer. Mastodon: @fuomag9@lime.fuo.fi

Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:

Meta releases Segment Anything Model 2 with support for object segmentation in videos and images; the code and weights are available under an Apache 2.0 license — Meta had a palpable hit last year with Segment Anything, a machine learning model that could quickly and reliably identify and outline just about anything in an image.

More: Meta, GitHub, Meta, Gizmodo, Business Insider, NVIDIA, Meta, Business Insider, Meta, Dataconomy, CNET on YouTube, Investing.com, MarketWatch, Neowin, The Decoder, WinBuzzer, SiliconANGLE, Maginative, and Simon Willison's Weblog

Threads: @karissabe and @chriscox. Instagram: Mark Zuckerberg

X: @benjamindekr, @benjamindekr, @benjamindekr, @iscienceluvr, @willdepue, @luke_metro, @fintechexplor, @swyx, @benjamindekr, @minimaxir, @josephofiowa, and @mouthofmorrison

Forums: Hacker News and r/singularity

Manya Saini / Reuters:

PayPal reports Q2 revenue up 8% YoY to $7.89B, total payment volume up 11% to $416.81B, transaction margin dollars up 8%, and raises its FY 2024 profit forecast — PayPal (PYPL.O) on Tuesday raised its forecast for full-year adjusted profit for the second time, betting on resilient consumer spending …

More: Benzinga, Bloomberg, Barron's Online, Cautious Optimism, MarketWatch, and PayPal

Karissa Bell / Engadget:

Meta rolls out AI Studio in the US, letting users create and share AI chatbots, and Instagram creators set up chatbots to answer DM questions and story replies — Meta is rolling out its AI Studio tools for custom chatbots. — The next time you DM a creator on Instagram, you might get a reply from their AI.

More: Meta, The Verge, Reuters, ZDNET, Financial Express, TechCrunch, Cybernews.com, 9to5Mac, Lifewire, Music Ally, Maginative, Silicon Republic, Dexerto, TechRadar, iPhone in Canada Blog, Nairametrics, TechIssuesToday.com, Android Headlines, WinBuzzer, Wired, UKTN, NewsBytes, Social Media Today, TIME, and The Hollywood Reporter

Threads: @kanekallaway, @chriscox, and @timothybucksf

X: @minimaxir and @sadlyitsbradley. LinkedIn: Celestino Güemes Seoane

Jeff Stone / Bloomberg:

Microsoft calls on the US Congress to pass a comprehensive law to crack down on AI deepfakes that aim to interfere in elections or maliciously target people — - Law enforcement needs a clear legal framework, Brad Smith says — Elon Musk recently shared manipulated clip of Kamala Harris

More: The Verge, Microsoft On the Issues, Washington Post, Android Headlines, and Reclaim The Net

X: @msftissues and @bradsmi. Forums: r/technology

William J. Broad / New York Times:

Experts say AI forecasting models are predicting weather patterns with new speed and precision and are likely to complement supercomputer forecasting models — The brainy machines are predicting global weather patterns with new speed and precision, doing in minutes and seconds what once took hours.

More: The Information

Rafe Uddin / Financial Times:

The UK ICO says the country's election authority failed to take “basic steps” to protect the personal data of 40M people before a 2021 China-backed cyberattack — ‘Basic steps’ including updating passwords were missed before 2021 hack, finds Information Commissioner

More: BBC, Politico, BleepingComputer, The Guardian, Information Commissioner's …, and Information Commissioner's …

X: @joetidy, @bcspressoffice, @1br0wn, @zsk, and @iconews

Katharine Gemmell / Bloomberg:

The UK CMA is gathering information from market players to determine whether Google's partnership with Anthropic qualifies as a merger and harms competition — - CMA will review whether investment causes competition issues — Google committed to investing $2 billion into the AI startup

More: PYMNTS.com, Silicon Republic, Associated Press, GOV.UK, TechCrunch, Reuters, ComputerWeekly.com, Quartz, Yahoo Finance, CNBC, Channel NewsAsia, Anadolu Ajansı …, and BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

The US NTIA issues a report in support of “open-weight” generative AI models like Meta's Llama 3.1, but recommends the government to monitor for potential risks — The U.S. Commerce Department on Monday issued a report in support of “open-weight” generative AI models like Meta's Llama 3.1 …

More: The Decoder, National Telecommunications …, CCN.com, Light Reading, National Telecommunications …, FedScoop, and Associated Press. Forums: r/artificial

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From Mediagazer

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:

Inside the Podcast Business Summit and interviews with Kara Swisher, Adam Friedland, and others about how video podcasts won over audio, paywalls, ads, and more

New York Times:

An interview with Rick Ardon and Susannah Carr, who have helmed 7News Perth's nightly TV news for 40+ years and are the world's longest-serving news anchor team

Nieman Lab:

Q&A with Houston Chronicle executives and local creator Shawn Singh on partnering with creators, who the outlet sees as “freelancers for the digital age”

More News

Bloomberg:

Sources including frontline health care workers say their testing of Google's AI-powered nurse handoff tool has left questions about its consistency and quality

Wall Street Journal:

Amazon is expanding its one- to two-day delivery to rural areas in the US, using hyper-efficient warehouses, contracted drivers, and mom-and-pop shops

More: Reuters and Attrisys

Brady Dale / Axios:

SEC drops claims about 10 tokens it had argued were securities in its Binance suit; the case against other Binance programs, like staking, looks set to proceed

More: DL News, CoinDesk, Cointelegraph, Decrypt, Coinpedia Fintech News, Crypto Briefing, Coinspeaker, CoinGape, The Block, Watcher Guru, crypto.news, Milk Road, Bitcoin Insider, Cryptopolitan, CryptoSlate, and Cryptonews

Stephanie Stacey / Financial Times:

London-based fertility app Flo Health raised a $200M+ Series C from General Atlantic at a $1B+ valuation and expects subscription revenue of over $200M in 2024

More: TechCrunch, Tech.eu, Sifted, EU-Startups, Silicon Canals, Business Insider, The Times, and Flo.health. X: @generalatlantic

Mike Butcher / TechCrunch:

Faye, which offers travel insurance and fintech services via a single smartphone app, raised a $31M Series B led by Portage; Faye raised a $10M Series A in 2023

More: FinTech Global, FinSMEs, RESOURCES …, and Travel Technology …

LinkedIn: Moran Treiser, Alex Dikman, and Faye

Disha Mishra / Reuters:

The NHTSA says Tesla released an OTA update for 1.8M cars, including 2021-2024 Model 3, Model S, and Model X, to fix a software failure to detect unlatched hood

More: Mashable, Ars Technica, PCMag, Reuters, Engadget, The Independent, Electrek, NBC News, Quartz, Bloomberg, Benzinga, Fast Company, Proactive, and Carscoops

The Economic Times:

Flipkart consolidates its various fintech offerings, including UPI and BNPL, under Flipkart Pay; the move follows recent expansions and a spinoff of PhonePe

Cissy Zhou / Nikkei Asia:

Chinese e-commerce firms prioritize sustainable growth over ultra-low prices amid slow GMV growth and anti-unfair competition rules taking effect on September 1

More: South China Morning Post and KrASIA

Earlier Picks

Nicolas Parasie / Bloomberg:

Riyadh- and London-based AI startup Intelmatix raised a $20M Series A led by Shorooq Partners, the largest Series A investment for an AI firm in the MENA region

More: TechCrunch and Tech Funding News. LinkedIn: Bilal Baloch

Financial Times:

Temu faces backlash from its Chinese suppliers over its aggressive effort to recruit Amazon merchants who hold goods in warehouses in the US and the EU

More: KrASIA, Proactive, Bloomberg, and South China Morning Post

Bloomberg:

Sources: Samsung is narrowing the gap with rival SK Hynix in high-bandwidth memory chips and anticipates Nvidia's approval for its HBM3E chips by November 2024

More: TweakTown, KED Global, SamMobile, and Benzinga

Alexandra Alper / Reuters:

A US congressional spokesperson says UAE scuttled meetings this month between congressional staff and G42 after the US raised concerns about Microsoft-G42 deal

More: The Information and Benzinga

Jay Peters / The Verge:

Twitch rolls out a revamped iOS and Android app, which now shows a TikTok-like feed of recommended content when it's opened, instead of a “Following” list

More: Twitch, PhoneArena, and Gizchina.com

X: @jearldster3, @zackreese, @raidermomcat, @twitchsupport, @keyzmi, @fxynate, and @twitch. Forums: r/Twitch