Techmeme
October 2, 2024, 5:30 PM

Top News

Ina Fried / Axios:
Financial Times:
Sources: OpenAI has asked investors to avoid backing rival startups such as Anthropic and xAI, an exclusive funding arrangement to keep its generative AI lead  —  Sam Altman-led group wants exclusive arrangement as it secures $6.6bn funding round  —  OpenAI has asked investors …
Cade Metz / New York Times:
Source: Thrive invested ~$1.3B in OpenAI's $6.6B round, with an exclusive option to invest up to $1B more at the same $157B valuation through 2025  —  The A.I. start-up's valuation has risen by more than $70 billion in nine months.  —  OpenAI said on Wednesday that it had completed …
Bloomberg:
Poolside, which is building AI-assisted software development tools, raised a $500M Series B led by Bain Capital Ventures, reportedly at a $3B valuation  —  - Company hasn't released its product or given a launch timeline  — Investment shows continued investor appetite for AI startups
Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
Amazon plans to increase the number of ads on Prime Video in 2025 after not seeing a sharp drop in subscribers since adding advertisements in January 2024  —  Ecommerce group attempting to win over more brands as it steps up push into ad-funded streaming services in 2025
Erin Griffith / New York Times:
VC firm CRV plans to return $275M from its $500M Select fund, citing worsening market conditions and high startup valuations relative to their potential payoff  —  CRV, based in Silicon Valley, plans to return to investors $275 million because the market for mature start-ups has soured.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google updates Gmail for Android and iOS with new summary cards that are more glanceable and actionable and a new “Happening soon” section above the inbox  —  Gmail for Android and iOS are getting new summary cards that are more glanceable and actionable, with Google also directly surfacing them in your inbox.
Ryan McNeal / Android Authority:
Amazon announces a new lineup of Fire HD 8 tablets, with 50% more RAM than the previous models, and three new generative AI features for compatible Fire tablets  —  Amazon launches new Fire HD 8 tablets, rolls out three new AI features.  —  •  —  TL;DR  — Amazon is launching a new lineup of Fire HD 8 tablets.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft releases a $150 standalone version of Office 2024 for consumers and SMBs, with core app updates and UI changes; the last standalone was Office 2021  —  Microsoft is releasing a new version of Office this week, designed for people that don't want to subscribe to Microsoft 365.
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Automattic demanded an 8% cut of WP Engine's monthly revenue to use the WordPress trademark in a seven-year deal proposed on September 20; WP Engine declined  —  Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com, asked rival hosting service WP Engine to hand over 8 percent of its revenue each month …
Akila Quinio / Financial Times:
The UK FCA fines Starling Bank £29M over its “shockingly lax” controls against financial crime, like potential money laundering and sanctions breaches  —  FCA said lender's efforts to identify potential money laundering ‘did not keep pace’ with its growth
Akila Quinio / Financial Times:
Meta rolls out Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange to let UK banks share transaction intel to help catch scammers, after a pilot with NatWest and Metro Bank  —  Tech group to roll out channel for sharing of transaction intelligence  —  Facebook owner Meta is launching a data-sharing partnership …
Sebastiaan de With / Lux:
iPhone 16 Pro camera review: overall image and quality of life improvements, and Camera Control, Zero Shutter Lag, and its advanced Photographic Styles impress  —  For the first “Desert Titanium” iPhone, we took over 1000 photos and videos in the desert.  Take a deep dive into what's new — and why it's close to the last of its kind.
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Some iOS developers worry that an iOS 18 change letting users choose contacts an app can access may make growing social apps hard; Apple says it boosts privacy  —  This year, when Apple announced iOS 18, the latest version of its mobile operating system, most of the attention went to its slate of new artificial intelligence features.
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Developer Christian Selig says Apple removed his YouTube app Juno for the Vision Pro from the App Store, after YouTube said it violated its ToS in April 2024  —  Juno, the third-party YouTube app created for the Apple Vision Pro, has been removed from the App Store.
Dylan Martin / CRN:
Accenture says it will train 30,000 employees on Nvidia technology and start a new Nvidia Business Group focused on driving enterprise adoption of AI agents  —  The global services powerhouse says its newly formed Nvidia Business Group will focus on driving enterprise adoption …
Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
Livestream marketplace Whatnot says its GMV passed $2B+ in 2024 and its top 500 sellers each sold $1M+ on the platform; 66% of its sellers earn $10K+ per month  —  Whatnot, the livestream marketplace platform for trading card collectors and sneakerheads alike, is offering a bit of positive news …
More: Whatnot

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
Zoho Sign is a “high growth performer” in the Frost & Sullivan's Frost Radar™ for electronic signature software, 2024  —  We are happy to announce that Zoho Sign has clinched a position as a high growth performer …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 11/08 - Share To TikTok
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:30 PM ET, October 2, 2024.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Geraldine Brooks / Washington Post:

Earlier Picks

Krystal Hu / Reuters:
Danial Azhar / Reuters:
Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:
Kyle Orland / Ars Technica:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: