Techmeme
September 12, 2024, 10:15 AM

Top News

Wesley Yin-Poole / IGN:
Memo: Microsoft lays off 650 staff from its gaming business, bringing the cuts in its gaming business to 2,550 jobs since acquiring Activision Blizzard in 2023  —  No games canceled or studios closed this time.  —  Microsoft is laying off a further 650 staff from its gaming business …
Bloomberg:
Sources: OpenAI is in talks to raise $6.5B in equity financing at a $150B valuation, plus, a source says, $5B in debt from banks as a revolving credit facility  —  - Company set to raise $6.5 billion in equity financing  — Banks also in talks to issue startup $5 billion in debt
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Shaurya Malwa / CoinDesk:
Coinbase launches its wrapped bitcoin, cbBTC, on the Ethereum and Base networks, supported by various DeFi services for trading, lending, and as collateral  —  The token will initially be offered on Ethereum and Coinbase's Base networks, with plans to expand to more blockchains in the coming months.
Sarah Emerson / Forbes:
Sources: Adam Neumann's Flowcarbon, which raised $70M in 2022 from a16z and others, is refunding investors after failing to launch its Goddess Nature Token  —  Flowcarbon secured millions of dollars in funding from investors like Andreessen Horowitz to merge carbon credits with the blockchain …
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
The UK gives data centers Critical National Infrastructure designation, enabling the government to coordinate better against hackers and unexpected cyber events  —  LONDON — The U.K. on Thursday said it now classes data centers as critical infrastructure, in a move that is expected …
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Ireland's DPC opens an investigation into Google's GDPR compliance over using the personal information of EU and EEA users for training foundation AI models  —  Google's lead privacy regulator in the European Union has opened an investigation into whether or not it has complied …
Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
A look at Apple's Private Cloud Compute for Apple Intelligence that Craig Federighi says allows user data to be “hermetically sealed inside of a privacy bubble”  —  Private Cloud Compute is an entirely new kind of infrastructure that, Apple's Craig Federighi tells WIRED …
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Google adds Audio Overview to NotebookLM, letting users turn documents into audio discussions with two AI hosts that summarize and explain the source material  —  Google announced on Wednesday that its AI note-taking and research app, NotebookLM, is adding a new “audio conversations” feature.
Debby Wu / Bloomberg:
Infineon says it has developed 300mm gallium nitride wafers, which can produce 2.3x more chips than 200mm wafers and speed their adoption for AI applications  —  - Chipmaker announces breakthrough in gallium nitride production  — Compound semiconductors can be more efficient than silicon
Todd Feathers / Gizmodo:
Nevada is working with Google to launch a generative AI tool that will issue recommendations to human referees on whether unemployed workers should get benefits  —  The state is working with Google on a first-of-its-kind generative AI system that will analyze transcripts from appeals hearings …

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More News

Gian Volpicelli / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Kevin Breuninger / CNBC:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: