Techmeme: Quora's Poe launches Previews, letting users create web apps like data visualizations and games using more than one LLM, like GPT-4o and Gemini 1.5 Pro (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

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July 9, 2024, 12:10 PM

Top News

TIME:

Sam Altman and Arianna Huffington announce Thrive AI Health, a new startup backed by OpenAI and Thrive Global to build a “hyper-personalized AI health coach” — A staggering 129 million Americans have at least one major chronic disease—and 90% of our $4.1 trillion …

More: Thrive Global, The Verge, Silicon Republic, POCIT, Cautious Optimism, Maginative, Inc.com, Ben's Bites, WinBuzzer, The Rundown AI, Analytics India Magazine, Music Ally, TechCrunch, Decrypt, San Francisco Business Times, Fortune, MobiHealthNews, and The Hill

X: @ariannahuff, @dlovempls, and @benioff. Forums: r/singularity

Annie Palmer / CNBC:

Etsy CEO Josh Silverman says Etsy is positioning itself “to answer the call for original goods and real people” by overhauling its policies and adding labels — When Etsy launched almost two decades ago, the site attracted artisans and craft makers, who finally had a place online …

More: The Verge, The Information, TechCrunch, Etsy News, Fast Company, and Modern Retail

X: @quinnypig. Forums: Hacker News and r/wallstreetbets

Jay Peters / The Verge:

Spotify adds the ability for users to leave comments on podcasts, expanding on polls and Q&As; comments will be private by default, and creators can opt out — The company already lets Spotify podcasters offer polls and Q&As, so this new feature could give creators new ways to interact with their audiences.

More: Spotify, Engadget, Thurrott, 9to5Mac, TechCrunch, and WinBuzzer

See also Mediagazer

Financial Times:

Australia, backed by the US, the UK, Japan, and other allies, accuses a Chinese state-backed hacking group of targeting government and private sector networks — US, UK, Germany and Japan back report alleging APT40 conducted ‘malicious’ cyber espionage activities

The Information:

Despite OpenAI's move to shut out Chinese developers from its tech, OpenAI's models are still available in China via Microsoft's Azure China — OpenAI last month announced plans to crack down on China-based artificial intelligence developers covertly accessing the startup's technology, which it doesn't offer in China.

More: Tom's Hardware, The Guardian, Interesting Engineering, PYMNTS.com, and Wccftech

Annie Palmer / CNBC:

Amazon announces an updated $79 Echo Spot alarm clock, with a revamped design and improved audio quality, the first update to the device since its 2017 launch — Amazon on Monday announced a new $79 Echo Spot alarm clock with a revamped design and improved audio quality.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

Quora's Poe launches Previews, letting users create web apps like data visualizations and games using more than one LLM, like GPT-4o and Gemini 1.5 Pro — Poe, Quora's subscription-based, cross-platform aggregator for AI-powered chatbots like Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's GPT-4o …

More: WinBuzzer and Tom's Guide

X: @poe_platform and @nickadobos

Chris Morris / Fortune:

Illinois enacted new provisions in its Child Labor Law on July 1 to mandate influencer parents pay their children for appearing in their social media content — Many influencer parents like to incorporate their family into their TikToks, YouTube videos and other types of short-form content.

More: Mashable and NewsBytes

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

NFT and metaverse content creation company Infinite Reality raised $350M at a $5.1B valuation and acquires Roblox game developer Landvault for $450M in stock — Infinite Reality, the company working on metaverse-like technologies, has raised $350 million and acquired Roblox game developer Landvault for $450 million.

More: SiliconANGLE and The Infinite Reality

Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:

Meta plans to remove more Facebook and Instagram posts that attack “Zionism” or threaten “Zionists” when the term is used to represent Jewish people or Israelis — Company will pull down ‘Zionism’ posts when used generally to threaten Jewish people

More: Reuters, Meta, New York Sun, Jerusalem Post, and World Jewish Congress

X: @ajcglobal, @stopantisemites, @worldjewishcong, @shaig, @dannymmorris, @mrconfino, @cijainfo, @gil_hoffman, @henmazzig, and @avivaklompas

Ionut Arghire / SecurityWeek:

Austin-based Command Zero, which uses automation and LLMs to help with cybersecurity investigations, emerges from stealth with $21M in seed funding led by a16z — Command Zero has emerged from stealth mode with $21 million in a seed funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz.

More: Forbes and FinSMEs

Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information:

Volley, which makes AI-based games played via voice commands on Amazon Alexa, Fire TV, and Roku TV, raised a $55M Series C, bringing its total funding to $75M+ — If you've ever wanted to play “Jeopardy” with Scarlett Johansson, you might soon get your chance.

X: @turnernovak

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From Mediagazer

Erik Hayden / The Hollywood Reporter:

Vox Media sells The Verge, SB Nation, Thrillist, The Dodo, and more to Penske; Vox's Ryan Pauley will join Penske as president of PMX, the new media brands unit

Elsa Keslassy / Variety:

Netflix subscribers in France can now access TF1 broadcasts and TF1+ on-demand content within Netflix at no extra cost; TF1 handles ad sales and programming

Brandy Zadrozny / MS NOW:

The Onion plans to relaunch Infowars on July 2 and will route more than $100,000 to Sandy Hook families, as legal fights over the website continue

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More News

Cristiano Lima-Strong / Washington Post:

The FTC bans teen messaging app NGL from serving users under 18, a first; NGL agreed to pay $5M and stop marketing to kids and teens to settle the FTC's lawsuit

More: TechCrunch and Federal Trade Commission

X: @zephyrteachout, @usrepkcastor, @saalevine, @ftc, and @ftc

Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:

Captions, which uses AI to let people create and edit videos, raised $60M led by Index Ventures at a $500M valuation, taking its total funding to $100M

More: FinSMEs, Index Ventures, and Maginative

New York Times:

How the US is trying to transform the world's chip supply chain, including getting more countries to set up factories to do final chip assembly and packaging

More: TechSpot. X: @ali_wyne and @ewong. Forums: r/politics

South China Morning Post:

Hong Kong proposes stiffer penalties for illegal ride-hailing services and use of licensing to regulate platforms such as Uber, potentially limiting their scope

More: Benzinga, morning-times.com, Seeking Alpha, and Bloomberg

Earlier Picks

Financial Times:

Sources: HongShan, formerly Sequoia China, raised a ~$2.5B fund in Chinese yuan, which can more easily invest in sensitive tech than its $9B USD fund from 2022

More: The Information. X: @chinabeigebook and @refsrc

Bloomberg:

IDC: ~3% of PCs shipped in 2024 will meet Microsoft's AI PCs processing power threshold; a source says some big app makers rebuffed a push for on-device AI

More: Tom's Hardware, Thurrott, and WinBuzzer

Cory Weinberg / The Information:

How Scale AI's $13.8B valuation from May 2024's $1B funding round is almost certainly too high, given below-average margins, a reliance on few clients, and more

Threads: @paul_rietschka. X: @coryweinberg and @coryweinberg

Rachyl Jones / Fortune:

Chinese self-driving cars from WeRide, Apollo, AutoX, Pony.ai, and DiDi have driven 1.8M miles in California since 2017, collecting data with little scrutiny

X: @lexnfx, @lexnfx, @lexnfx, @rachyljones, @rachyljones, @rachyljones, @rachyljones, @rachyljones, and @rachyljones

Forums: r/technology, r/Conservative, and Slashdot

Julian Chokkattu / Wired:

Nothing unveils the $199 CMF Phone 1, with swappable parts, a 6.67" AMOLED, a MediaTek SoC, and Nothing OS, plus the $69 CMF Watch Pro 2 and $59 CMF Buds Pro 2