~techmeme | Bookmarks (1014)

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: The nonprofit Cosmos Institute launches to cultivate AI technologists “equipped with deep philosophical thinking”, with plans for an AI lab, a VC arm, and more  —  The Cosmos Institute, a nonprofit whose founding fellows include Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark …

The Economic Times: Indian bike taxi startup Rapido raised $200M at a $1.1B valuation led by WestBridge and plans to expand its newly launched cab-hailing service  —  Aravind Sanka, the company's CEO, told ET that the funds will be used to expand Rapido's newly launched four-wheeler taxi service, which competes with Ola and Uber.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Seattle-based Revefi, which seeks to automatically detect and troubleshoot companies' data-related issues, raised a $20M Series A led by Icon Ventures  —  Sanjay Agrawal and Shashank Gupta, who helped co-found the business intelligence company ThoughtSpot, say that several years ago …

Mark Sweney / The Guardian: Kantar: 26% of marketers plan to cut back ad spending on X in 2025 and 14% say they will pull budgets this year, due to concerns about content on the platform  —  Annual survey highlights growing concern about platform content and trust in information disseminated

CNN: The US DOJ seizes 32 internet domains used in Russian influence campaigns, as part of efforts to tackle Russian interference in the 2024 US elections  —  The Biden administration announced a sweeping set of actions to tackle a major Russian government-backed effort to influence …

Juby Babu / Reuters: C3.ai reports Q1 revenue up 21% YoY to $87.2M, vs. $86.9M est., and subscription revenue up 20% YoY to $73.5M, vs. $79.1M est.; its stock falls 16%+ after hours  —  C3.ai (AI.N) missed quarterly subscription revenue estimates on Wednesday, as enterprises tightened spending amid economic uncertainties …

Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch: Paylocity, which provides HR and payroll software, agrees to acquire corporate spending software company Airbase for $325M; Airbase was valued at $600M in 2021  —  HR and payroll software company Paylocity has agreed to acquire corporate spend startup Airbase for $325 million, the companies announced Wednesday.

Brody Ford / Bloomberg: HPE reports Q3 revenue up 10% YoY to $7.71B, vs. $7.66B est., Server revenue up 35% YoY to $4.3B, and adjusted gross margins of 31.8%, vs. 33.4% est.  —  Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. reported weaker-than-expected profitability, suggesting lower margins than anticipated in its closely watched business …

Andrew Deck / Nieman Lab: Seven leading SEO experts and publisher audience strategists on changing their approach due to Google Search AI Overviews, how it may alter traffic, and more  —  Google's generative AI search feature is here to stay, but will it actually impact how digital outlets do business?

Financial Times: Sources: Huawei's Ascend chips still lag far behind Nvidia's for model training and have stability issues, slower inter-chip connectivity, and inferior software  —  Tech group's Ascend artificial intelligence chips are being widely adopted but Chinese companies complain of performance problems

Anna Heim / TechCrunch: Doccla, whose “virtual bed” tech helps doctors monitor patients remotely, raised a $46M Series B led by Lakestar after raising a $17M Series A in September 2022  —  Hospitals around the world regularly face bed shortages — an issue that can get exacerbated to breaking point …

Jonathan Browning / Bloomberg: HP says it intends to pursue its $4B damages claim in London against the estate of the recently deceased Mike Lynch; HP won the false accounting case in 2022  —  - HPE to continue to seek $4 billion damages after Lynch's death  — Mike Lynch and daughter died in yacht tragedy off Sicily coast

Nicholas G. Miller / Wall Street Journal: A look at the growing use of tablets in US prisons, letting inmates make calls, send messages, and more, as the FCC imposes price caps on voice and video calls  —  Private companies dole out tablets to inmates as FCC imposes limits on how much they can charge for phone calls

Ellsworth Toohey / Boing Boing: Elon Musk boosts a 4chan post that disparages the abilities of “women and low T men”, advocates a “Republic of high status males”, and mentions a “Reich effect”  —  On Sunday, Elon Musk recently reposted a 4chan argument claiming that only “high T alpha males” …

Adi Robertson / The Verge: A US judge issued a last-minute partial block on Texas law HB 18, that would require some large web services to identify minors and filter what they see online  —  A federal judge issued a last-minute partial block on a Texas law that would require some large web services to identify minors and filter what they see online.

Jack Nicas / New York Times: Starlink, which has 250K customers in Brazil, told Brazil's telecom agency that it would not comply with orders to block X until its frozen assets were released  —  The satellite internet service controlled by Elon Musk is refusing to comply with a court order to block his social network, X, regulators said.

Daniel Carvalho / Bloomberg: A majority of Brazilian judges on a Supreme Court panel vote to confirm an order to ban X in Brazil and fine those who don't comply with it by using a VPN  —  - Top court panel backs order by Moraes against social network  — Justices also uphold fine for those who use VPN for access

Wall Street Journal: Netflix is trying to improve dubbing and translations of non-English content, particularly South Korean reality TV shows, to drive international viewership  —  Using South Korea as a testing ground, the streaming giant offers culture classes to voice actors to nail the nuances of translation

Daniel Lippman / Politico: Sources: LobbyMatic, which offers AI tools for lobbying, is covertly run by far-right conspiracy theorists and convicted felons, Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman  —  Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman are operating under the pseudonyms Jay Klein and Bill Sanders.  —  A Washington startup pitched …

Chien Mi Wong / Bloomberg: Sources: ByteDance is tapping Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan for a $9.5B loan, the biggest dollar-denominated corporate loan in Asia, excluding Japan  —  - Loan carries greenshoe option that allows size to increase  — Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan are the loan coordinators

Bloomberg: OKX says the Monetary Authority of Singapore granted OKX SG a Major Payment Institution license, and appoints former Grab executive Gracie Lin as OKX SG's CEO  —  - CEO Lin to focus on products, seeks MAS nod for adding tokens  —  Crypto exchange OKX named former regulator Gracie Lin as CEO …

Wall Street Journal: Apple and Meta both lobby to avoid responsibility for verifying users' ages in teen social media bills; Apple lobbied Louisiana to kill a device-level rule  —  Earlier this year, freshman Louisiana legislator Kim Carver got a close look at Apple's AAPL -0.34%decrease; red down pointing triangle formidable lobbying machine.

Amitoj Singh / CoinDesk: Filing: the US SEC seeks changes in FTX's bankruptcy plan and says it “reserves its rights to challenge distribution transactions involving crypto assets”  —  The SEC said that it may challenge any transactions of distributions involving crypto assets to creditors.

Gabriel Stargardter / Reuters: A look at France's J3 cybercrime unit behind Sky ECC and Encrochat prosecutions, which now leads the case against Telegram's Pavel Durov  —  The investigation into Telegram boss Pavel Durov that has fired a warning shot to global tech titans was started by a small cybercrime unit within …