~techmeme | Bookmarks (1014)

Daniel Carvalho / Bloomberg: A Brazilian Supreme Court justice blocks Starlink bank accounts in Brazil in a bid to force Elon Musk to pay X's fines; the court has also threatened to block X  —  - Starlink bank accounts blocked to pay for fines on X  — Court threatens to block X for lack of Brazil representative

Kif Leswing / CNBC: Dell Q2: revenue up 9% YoY to $25.06B, vs. $24.53B est., servers and networking revenue up 80% to $7.76B, net income up 85% to $841M; DELL rose 3%+ after hours  —  Dell reported quarterly results on Thursday that beat Wall Street expectations, powered by an 80% increase in server sales.

MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC: Affirm closed up ~32% on Thursday, its best day in almost three years and its third-biggest rally since Affirm's January 2021 IPO, after beating estimates in Q4  —  Affirm shares soared nearly 32% on Thursday, notching their best day in almost three years, after the provider of buy now …

Bloomberg: Sources: Nvidia, Apple, and Microsoft, the three most valuable tech companies, are in talks to join the funding round that would value OpenAI at over $100B  —  - Apple, Microsoft also have been in talks about participating  — Financing would value OpenAI at more than $100 billion

New York Times: Michael Lacey, co-founder of the classified ad site Backpage, gets five years in prison and a $3M fine for money laundering; two other executives get 10 years  —  Michael Lacey, 76, co-founded the website that became known for its ads for prostitution.  He was convicted on a money laundering charge …

Bloomberg: Russians, from Kremlin officials to Putin's harshest critics, see Telegram as a source of both uncensored info, including on Ukraine, and problematic content  —  - Many Russians view Telegram as source of uncensored content  — Opposition, government united in outrage over Durov's arrest

Eric Slivka / MacRumors: Kuo: in the 2025 iPhone lineup, only iPhone 17 Pro Max will feature 12GB DRAM and an upgraded cooling system combining vapor chamber tech and graphite sheets  —  Just a day after a noted leaker on Chinese microblogging site Weibo suggested the iPhone 17 lineup in 2025 could see an upgrade …

Ben Weiss / The Verge: Documents and sources detail OpenSea's chaotic work environment, ever-shifting priorities, and regulatory issues, as the SEC and FTC make inquiries  —  The rise and fall of NFTs made and unmade OpenSea — the largest marketplace for the crypto asset.  But insider accounts of the company reveal …

Jason Schreier / Bloomberg: Sources: Chris Barrett, a former top executive at Bungie, was fired in March 2024 after being accused by several female employees of inappropriate behavior  —  Veteran developer who worked on hit video game franchises Halo and Destiny was directing the next major title, Marathon.

Bloomberg: Jensen Huang says Nvidia's new Blackwell chips will have “lots and lots of supply”, and the company expects billions of dollars in revenue from the chips in Q4  —  - Company earlier reported snags in production of Blackwell line  — Huang expects a ‘great next year’ after new chip arrives

Financial Times: Nvidia shares fall ~7% after hours, after the company failed to top the highest expectations and reported gross margin of 75.1%, vs. 75.5% est.  —  Solid growth due to AI chip demand fails to meet Wall Street's highest hopes  —  Nvidia's revenue more than doubled in the past quarter …

Anna Tong / Reuters: California's State Assembly passes the AI safety bill SB 1047, which now goes back to the Senate for a process vote before requiring Governor Newsom's signature  —  California lawmakers passed a hotly contested artificial-intelligence safety bill on Wednesday, after which it will need …

Nico Grant / New York Times: Yelp sues Google, alleging Google used its dominance in general search to gain an unfair advantage in local search services and local search advertising markets  —  Yelp complained for more than a decade that Google tilted the search market in its favor.  After its rival's landmark legal loss, it finally decided to sue.

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Threads now lets users see and like fediverse replies on other posts besides their own, and posts submitted via Threads API will be syndicated to the fediverse  —  Threads is deepening its ties to the fediverse, also known as the open social web, which powers services like X alternative Mastodon …

Ciara Linnane / MarketWatch: Affirm reports Q4 revenue up 48% YoY to $659.2M, vs. $604M est., and says it expects to generate an operating profit by Q4 2025; AFRM jumps 14%+ after hours  —  Affirm Holdings Inc.'s stock soared more than 15% in after-hours trading Wednesday, after the buy-now-pay-later company blew past estimates …

Jaspreet Singh / Reuters: CrowdStrike reports Q2 revenue up 32% YoY to $963.9M, vs. $958.6M est., and cuts its FY 2025 revenue and profit forecasts, after last month's Windows outage  —  CrowdStrike (CRWD.O) cut its annual revenue forecast on Wednesday, in a sign that demand for its cybersecurity products could have taken …

Brody Ford / Bloomberg: HP reports Q3 revenue up 2.4% YoY to $13.5B, vs. $13.4B est., Printing revenue down 3% to $4.14B, and increases its share repurchase authorization to $10B  —  - Printer declines expected through end of year, CEO says  — Company reports that business PC sales gained momentum

Kif Leswing / CNBC: Nvidia reports Q2 revenue up 122% YoY to $30B, vs. $28.7B est., forecasts Q3 revenue above est., and says it approved an additional $50B in share buybacks  —  Nvidia reported earnings after the bell that beat Wall Street expectations for earnings and guidance, and provided stronger-than-expected guidance for the current quarter.

Larry Dignan / Constellation Research: Salesforce reports Q2 revenue up 8% YoY to $9.33B, vs. $9.23B est., net income of $1.43B, compared to $1.27B a year ago, and says CFO Amy Weaver will step down  —  Salesforce reported better than-expected second-quarter results but revenue growth was up 8%.  CFO Amy Weaver will also step down.

Gaspard Sebag / Bloomberg: Pavel Durov is charged in France for complicity in the spread of CSAM and other crimes on Telegram; prosecutors set a €5M bail and ban him from leaving France  —  - Prosecutors set €5 million bail, ban Durov from leaving France  — Telegram says CEO has ‘nothing to hide’ and seeks resolution

The Guardian: Venezuelan journalists are using AI avatars to host daily newscasts without putting themselves at risk, amid President Nicolás Maduro's media crackdown  —  Journalists are using artificial intelligence avatars to combat Maduro's media crackdown since disputed election

Wall Street Journal: Sources: Emmanuel Macron invited Pavel Durov to move Telegram to Paris in 2018; in 2017, a joint operation between French and UAE spies hacked Durov's iPhone  —  Pavel Durov had lunch with the French president six years ago.  His phone was hacked the previous year by French and U.A.E. spies.

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple is laying off ~100 people in its services group in a rare move, impacting Apple Books, News, and other teams, as part of a shift in priorities  —  Apple Inc. took the rare step of cutting about 100 jobs in its services group, part of a shift in priorities for the critical division …

Kevin Collier / NBC News: Three child safety advocacy groups from the US, UK, and Canada say their outreach to Telegram to flag CSAM on the platform has largely been ignored  —  Telegram's CEO was arrested in relation to an investigation into an unnamed person involving claims of “complicity” in distributing child sexual abuse material.