Techmeme
July 24, 2024, 8:30 AM

Top News

Alphabet:
Alphabet reports Q2 revenue up 14% YoY to $84.7B, net income up 29% YoY to $23.6B, Search revenue of $48.5B, up from $42.6B YoY, headcount down 1% to 179,582  —  MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - July 23, 2024 - Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG, GOOGL) today announced financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2024.
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
Google Cloud Q2 revenue grew 29% YoY to $10.35B, vs. $10.2B est.; Cloud exceeded $10B in quarterly revenues and $1B in operating profit for the first time  —  Google parent company Alphabet reported earnings after the bell Tuesday.  —  Here's how the company did, compared with estimates from analysts polled by LSEG:
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
Mark Zuckerberg / Meta:
Mark Zuckerberg argues that “open source AI” is the path forward, closed models are vulnerable to vendor lock-in and state-backed espionage, and more  —  In the early days of high-performance computing, the major tech companies of the day each invested heavily in developing their own closed source versions of Unix.
Bloomberg:
Meta debuts Llama 3.1 405B, the “first frontier-level open source AI model”, as well as new Llama 3.1 70B and 8B models, and says it's working on Llama 4  —  The Meta CEO defends both his open source strategy and a massive investment in artificial intelligence.
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Politico:
Some in Silicon Valley hope Kamala Harris could provide a chance for a reset, after years of bipartisan criticism in Washington DC toward Big Tech companies  —  Would she bring continuity with Joe Biden's policies?  A more centrist vibe?  A sharper progressive bite?
Eva Roytburg / Fortune:
Elon Musk says “I am not donating $45M a month to Trump”, and that he created America PAC to support Trump, without revealing precisely how much he is donating  —  Elon Musk is not spending $45 million a month to elect former President Donald Trump, though he has created …
Simon Sharwood / The Register:
Giulio Piovaccari / Reuters:
Ferrari plans to accept crypto payments for its cars at European dealers from the start of August, and internationally by the end of 2024, expanding on the US  —  Ferrari (RACE.MI) said on Wednesday it would extend its scheme to accept payments in cryptocurrency for its luxury sports cars …
Bloomberg:
Sources: the Google-Wiz deal failed, in part, due to antitrust fears and CrowdStrike's outage, which increased the potential value of cloud security companies  —  - $23 billion offer for Wiz collapsed weeks after HubSpot deal  — Regulatory concerns have cratered high-profile tech purchases
The Information:
Sources: Apple is working on a foldable, clamshell-design iPhone that could debut as soon as 2026, and reached out to Asian component suppliers in recent months  —  Apple is working on a foldable iPhone that could be released as early as 2026 and in recent months reached out to suppliers …
Bloomberg:
US spot ether ETFs hit $1B+ in trading volume across nine funds, a strong debut but far from the $4.6B traded during the spot bitcoin ETFs debut in January 2024  —  - Trading volume still trailed amount posted by Bitcoin ETFs  — Debuts for two of the funds rank among some of the best ever
Benjamin S. Weiss / Courthouse News Service:
US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says the Senate will take up the Kids Online Safety Act this week, signaling there's enough support among his colleagues  —  The Kids Online Safety Act would force tech companies to enable the highest possible privacy settings for minor users …
Keith Broni / Emojipedia:
X reverts its water pistol emoji back to a firearm on the web, after Twitter originally switched the pistol emoji from a realistic-looking handgun in 2018  —  X (fka Twitter) has quietly redesigned its 🔫 Water Pistol emoji to display as a firearm.  This diverges from the cross-platform conversion …
Jillian Ambrose / The Guardian:
Irish government data: data centers in Ireland used 21% of its electricity in 2023, up 20% YoY, more than the 18% of electricity used by all urban homes  —  Statistics raise concerns that rise in demand for data processing driven by AI could derail climate targets
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
LA-based Pearl, an FDA-approved startup that uses AI to assist dentists to make diagnoses, raised a $58M Series B led by Left Lane Capital at a $400M valuation  —  - Los Angeles-based startup backed by Craft Ventures, Left Lane  — Pearl is valued at $400 million in fresh financing deal
More: TechCrunch
Eva Dou / Washington Post:
Elon Musk says Starlink service is now active in a hospital in Gaza, reflecting Israel's reluctance for Gaza residents to have internet access more broadly  —  The satellite-enabled service is active in a Gaza hospital, Musk posted on X, following months of negotiation over humanitarian internet access.

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