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Erin Woo / The Information: Internal memo: Noam Shazeer, the ex-CEO of Character.AI who joined Google this month, will be Gemini co-technical lead and work with Jeff Dean and Oriol Vinyals  —  Noam Shazeer, the former CEO of Character.AI who rejoined Google this month, will be the co-technical lead on Google's Gemini …

Bloomberg: Ex-FTX exec Ryan Salame's romantic partner is charged with campaign finance violations, a day after he said the US reneged on his plea deal by investigating her  —  Google Taps AI to Revamp Costly Health-Care Push Marred by Flops … Hello World

Camilla Hodgson / Financial Times: Uber and Cruise sign a “multiyear strategic partnership” to make Cruise's self-driving vehicles available to riders on Uber from 2025 in an undisclosed city  —  Car company is seeking to bounce back with ride-hailing app tie-up from next year in a yet to be disclosed city

MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC: Donald Trump promotes his family's forthcoming crypto platform, The DeFiant Ones, in a post on Truth Social, mentioning a Telegram channel but few other details  —  Former President Donald Trump on Thursday promoted a soon-to-launch, Trump Organization crypto platform, “The DeFiant Ones” to his 7.5 million followers on Truth Social.

Olga Kharif / Bloomberg: NFT marketplace Magic Eden launches a mobile wallet app and will begin using a token to be issued by a foundation that supports the Magic Eden ecosystem  —  - Platform will now allow token swapping from a mobile app  — App will enable swapping of assets across five blockchains

Cory Weinberg / The Information: Sources: Stripe plans a tender offer to buy back shares held by current employees with its own cash; Stripe is offering $27.51/share, implying a $70B valuation  —  Stripe is planning a new tender offer to buy back shares held by employees, but it will finance this one entirely with its own cash, unlike in previous employee tenders.

Jody Godoy / Reuters: An appeals court revived Washington, DC's antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, saying it plausibly claimed Amazon's pricing policies illegally stifle competition  —  An appeals court in Washington, D.C. revived the district's lawsuit against Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) on Thursday …

Jess Weatherbed / The Verge: A look at interoperability challenges to the adoption of the C2PA's authentication standard, including the lack of support for C2PA metadata in cameras  —  Big tech companies are backing the C2PA's authentication standard, but they're taking too long to put it to use.

Sarah McBride / Bloomberg: Neuralink says surgery for its second human implant “went well” and the patient, who had a spinal cord injury, can design 3D objects and play Counter-Strike 2  —  Neuralink Corp., Elon Musk's brain-computer company, said surgery for its second implant in a human “went well” …

Trisha Thadani / Washington Post: The unsealed list of X Holdings shareholders names nearly 100 entities, including 8VC, Italy-based UnipolSai S.P.A., and a fund linked with Sean “Diddy” Combs  —  A court filing obtained by The Post lists which firms and individuals have a financial stake in the platform.

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: LiteSpeed Cache, the top WordPress site acceleration plugin, had a critical flaw that left sites open to takeover attacks; 2M+ sites are likely still vulnerable  —  A critical vulnerability in the LiteSpeed Cache WordPress plugin can let attackers take over millions of websites after creating rogue admin accounts.

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Zomato acquires Paytm's entertainment ticketing business for $244.1M; the division contributed about 9% to Paytm's overall revenues in Q1 2024  —  Zomato, the Indian food delivery giant, has acquired the entertainment ticketing business of financial services firm Paytm for $244.1 million …

Kali Hays / Fortune: A US district judge rules X Holdings should unseal its corporate disclosure statement by September 4, revealing X and xAI shareholders fully for the first time  —  Who and what exactly is invested in Elon Musk's X Holdings, the entity behind the X platform and X.ai, is about to become a matter of public record.

Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg: In a letter to Sen. Scott Wiener, OpenAI says California's AI safety bill would hurt innovation and that AI safety regulation should come from the federal level  —  The startup wrote a letter to California State Senator Scott Wiener opposing the legislation.

Zaheer Kachwala / Reuters: Snowflake reports Q2 revenue up 29% YoY to $868.8M and raises its FY 2025 product revenue forecast, but not its margin forecast; SNOW drops 7%+ after hours  —  Data cloud analytics firm Snowflake (SNOW.N) on Wednesday raised its forecast for full-year product revenue, as it attracts more clients …

Politico: Google and the state of California strike a deal to jointly contribute $125M+ over five years to support local news; it also includes support for an AI project  —  The agreement includes funding for artificial intelligence, a technology many journalists fear could replace their jobs.

Brody Ford / Bloomberg: Zoom reports Q2 revenue up 2.1% YoY to $1.16B, vs. $1.15B est., enterprise revenue up 3.5% YoY to $682.8M, and a Q3 revenue forecast beating estimates  —  - Software company gains ground with larger enterprise clients  — Consumer unit reported lowest churn rate ever, CEO says

Tom Warren / The Verge: Microsoft says Recall will be available to Windows Insiders in October; it delayed the launch of the AI feature in June after security concerns were raised  —  Microsoft says it's planning to allow Windows testers to try out its controversial Recall AI feature in October.

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple App Store VP Matt Fischer is leaving in October; App Store group will split into two teams, one for its own store, one for alt app distribution  —  - Longtime App Store vice president Fischer to exit in October  — Company makes changes in response to regulatory environment

Meduza: Users in Russia report outages affecting Telegram, WhatsApp, and other services; Roskomnadzor blames a DDoS attack, while activists suspect Kremlin interference  —  Internet users in Russia reported outages affecting a wide range of online services on Wednesday, including Telegram, WhatsApp, and Skype.

Allison Johnson / The Verge: Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL review: great build quality, brighter screens, faster fingerprint sensors, but the AI features are inconsistent and all over the place  —  The AI is inconsistent, but the hardware is oh so good. … Google finally got the hardware right.

Tom Warren / The Verge: Microsoft announces the $30 Xbox Adaptive Joystick, a wired companion to other Xbox controllers, for players with limited mobility, launching in early 2025  —  Microsoft is launching a new $29.99 Xbox Adaptive Joystick early next year that's designed for players with limited mobility.

Newley Purnell / Bloomberg: Business groups including Asia Internet Coalition, which includes Amazon, Google, and Meta, criticize Hong Kong's new cyber rules, calling them “unprecedented”  —  - Business groups call proposal too broad in flurry of letters  — Comes months after city censored politically sensitive videos

Sankalp Phartiyal / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple plans to make the most expensive iPhone models in India for the first time as Foxconn rushes to produce iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max in the country  —  - Plan shows Apple making further progress with India assembly  — Company is shifting output to India to diversify beyond China