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May 21, 2024, 5:45 PM
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Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Microsoft launches Copilot Extension for GitHub, letting developers build third-party skills into Copilot, starting with DataStax, Stripe, MongoDB, and more  —  Build is Microsoft's largest developer conference and of course, it's all about AI this year.  So it's no surprise that GitHub's Copilot …
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Microsoft announces the developer preview of Windows Volumetric Apps, giving access to an API that lets devs put Windows apps in 3D space on Meta Quest headsets  —  You can already beam your flat Windows desktop and its VR games onto your Meta Quest headset — but what if Windows could send HoloLens …
Kevin Okemwa / Windows Central:
Microsoft ships Azure AI Studio in broad availability, adds support for OpenAI's GPT-4o, and announces a new multimodal model in its lightweight Phi-3 family
Ken Yeung / VentureBeat:
Microsoft announces the general availability of its Phi-3 models, including Phi-3-Silica, a 3.3B parameter model that will be embedded on all Copilot+ PCs
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Microsoft unveils a Team Copilot for Microsoft Teams, Loop, and Planner that can help run meetings, manage projects, assign tasks, more, coming later this year
Bloomberg:
Sources: in the event that China invades Taiwan, ASML and TSMC have ways to disable their sophisticated chipmaking machines; ASML reassured Dutch officials  —  - Firms can remotely shut off advanced EUV chip-making machines  — US officials concerned over risk of conflict to chip industry
Kat Tenbarge / NBC News:
Scarlett Johansson says she declined OpenAI's ChatGPT voice offer and was “shocked, angered” that Sam Altman would pursue Sky, a voice “eerily similar” to hers  —  The “Her” actor released a statement following OpenAI pulling its “Sky” voice from ChatGPT, which many people said sounded like her.
More: NPR, Platformer, The Verge, CNN, Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At, GeekWire, Benzinga, PYMNTS.com, Forbes, RTÉ, Business Insider, The Wrap, BGR, Reuters, Washington Post, Wired, CNBC, Digital Music News, Global News, DataBreachToday.com, Tech Startups, iPhone in Canada Blog, Hollywood Life, The Hill, Tech Xplore, Tom's Guide, TechCircle, Vanity Fair, Proactive, PC Gamer, and New York Times
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Bluesky: @mmasnick.bsky.social and @joshuaerlich.bsky.social
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LinkedIn: Mark Humphrey and David Deal
Forums: r/technology, r/interestingasfuck, r/nottheonion, and r/news
See also Mediagazer
Bloomberg:
OpenAI pulls ChatGPT's Sky voice after users compared the sound to Scarlett Johansson, saying Sky is an actress' voice and wasn't chosen to be an “imitation”
Paresh Dave / Wired:
Google plans to test search and shopping ads in its AI Overviews, drawing from advertisers' existing campaigns; AI Overviews rolled out to US users last week  —  Google is set to start mixing ads into its new AI-generated search answers.  It's a test of how the company's biggest revenue stream can adapt to the age of generative AI.
Bradley Keoun / CoinDesk:
Farcaster, a blockchain-based social media project built on Ethereum, raised $150M in a round led by Paradigm and says it has 350K paid sign-ups  —  Dan Romero's Farcaster made waves earlier this year with the introduction of “Frames,” a feature allowing apps to run within posts, so users don't have to click off to another site.
Steven Levy / Wired:
Anthropic researchers detail attempts to peer inside the “black box” of LLMs, learning which combinations of neurons evoke specific concepts  —  What goes on in artificial neural networks work is largely a mystery, even to their creators.  But researchers from Anthropic have caught a glimpse.
Glenn Rifkin / New York Times:
Gordon Bell, who helped design several influential minicomputers at Digital Equipment Corporation, including the 12-bit PDP-8, died on May 17 at age 89  —  It cost $18,000 when it was introduced in 1965, but it bridged the world between room-size mainframes and the modern desktop.
Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:
Generative AI music startup Suno raised $125M from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, Matrix, Founder Collective, and others  —  Suno, a trailblazing music AI startup, announced today that it has raised a staggering $125 million in its latest funding round …
Financial Times:
AI data labeling startup Scale AI raised $1B led by Accel at a ~$14B valuation, up from $7.3B in April 2021; a source says Scale AI had ~$700M in 2023 revenue  —  Alexandr Wang's company brings in $1bn in latest fundraising round as investors bet that data is the new oil
Kris Holt / Engadget:
Microsoft unveils Copilot+ PCs as a new class of AI-capable Windows PCs that have at least 40 TOPs of NPU performance, with several OEMs and chipmakers on board
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Adobe adds generative AI tools to Lightroom, including Firefly-powered Generative Remove to let users “paint” over unwanted objects, available in early access  —  Adobe is adding some new generative AI tools to Lightroom that aim to make the photo editing platform easier to use …
Joyce Lee / Reuters:
Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Amazon, IBM, and 10 other companies commit to safe AI development at the AI Seoul Summit 2024, hosted by South Korea and the UK  —  Sixteen companies involved in AI including Alphabet's Google (GOOGL.O), Meta (META.O), Microsoft (MSFT.O) and OpenAI …
Financial Times:
AWS says it has “fully transitioned” its previous orders for Nvidia's Grace Hopper chips to the successor Grace Blackwell chips, announced in March 2024  —  Delay from the world's biggest cloud computing provider gives investors jitters over potential ‘air pocket’ in demand for AI chips
Jeff John Roberts / Fortune:
Tech Against Scams, a coalition to fight “pig butchering” ploys with better industry coordination, launches with Meta, Coinbase, Match, Kraken, others on board  —  Bad people who prey on those looking for love, or hoping to make a quick buck, have been around since biblical times.

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From Mediagazer

Angela Fu / Poynter:
A look at what a Democratic-controlled Congress could focus on to protect press freedom, including investigating the FCC and reforming transparency laws

Matthew Keys / TheDesk.net:
Newsmax reported Q3 net income of $15.2M and revenue up 52.5% YoY to $69M, including a one-time $14M termination payment for a canceled ad deal; NMAX rose 31.4%

Winston Cho / The Hollywood Reporter:
A group of consumers refiles a lawsuit to unwind Paramount's WBD deal, citing HBO Max and Paramount+ bundling, the ouster of DC Studios heads, and budget cuts

More News

Reuters:
EU countries vote to approve the landmark EU AI Act, agreed in December 2023, to ensure “trust, transparency, and accountability”, taking effect in June 2024
Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple files a lawsuit at the EU's General Court to challenge a March 2024 decision to impose a €1.8B fine for thwarting competition in music streaming

Earlier Picks

Wired:
How Indian politicians are using deepfakes for voter outreach; an estimated 50M+ AI voice calls were made in the two months before the elections in April 2024
Business Insider:
Inside Oracle's Cerner acquisition, including issues with Cerner's EHR system, which Oracle says it wasn't aware of, and its rollout at the US Veterans Affairs
Los Angeles Times:
A look at challenges LA faces as it tries to remain a major tech hub; CB Insights says VC funding of LA-based startups totaled $6.9B in 2023, down 73% from 2021
X: @rverrier, @latimes, and @latimes
LinkedIn: Tony Knopp and Agnes M. Sokol
Forums: r/LosAngeles and r/TechLA
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