Techmeme
July 24, 2024, 6:05 AM

Top News

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:
Meta says it will allow developers to use the outputs from Llama models, including Llama 3.1 405B, to improve other models for the first time  —  “Open source AI is the path forward,” says Mark Zuckerberg, misusing the term.  —  In the AI world, there's a buzz in the air …
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:
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:
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
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 …
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 …
Suzanne Smalley / The Record:
The US FTC seeks info from Mastercard, Accenture, and six other companies related to their “surveillance pricing products” that use personal data, AI, and more  —  The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced Tuesday that it has launched an inquiry into how companies surveil consumers …
New York Times:
A profile of Blake Benthall, arrested in 2014 for running Silk Road 2.0, which had 1.7M users and $8M/month sales, as he promotes his crypto startup Fathom(x)  —  Today, Blake Benthall runs a start-up that aims to help track digital currency transactions.Gili Benita for The New York Times
Danny Nelson / CoinDesk:
dYdX says v3, an older version of its DeFi crypto exchange that is reportedly for sale and averages ~$1.5B/week in derivatives trading, “has been compromised”  —  News of the problem emerged just as Bloomberg reported dYdX v3 is for sale.  —  Decentralized crypto-exchange giant dYdX …
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

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More News

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Ian King / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Chris Welch / The Verge:
Mariella Moon / Engadget: