~techmeme | Bookmarks (1014)

June Yoon / Financial Times: The ASP of high-end AI chips from Nvidia and others is ~5x more than that of conventional memory chips, resulting in a winner-takes-all trend in the chip sector  —  If you can't beat it, join the US company's supply chain  —  Twenty-five years ago, Intel made history by becoming …

Bloomberg: Sources: Thrive Capital is in talks to invest ~$1B in analytics software maker Databricks at a ~$55B valuation; PitchBook: DataBricks has raised $4B+ so far  —  - Software startup tender offer to value company at $55 billion  — Snowflake competitor has tapped private markets to delay IPO

Nicole Hegarty / ABC: Australia plans to enact laws imposing a “digital duty of care” on big tech, which would make companies liable for citizens' safety online  —  In short:  —  Online platforms would be legally responsible for keeping Australians safe online under new Digital Duty of Care laws.

Abner Li / 9to5Google: Google says real-time protections against scam calls and malicious apps are rolling out on Pixel 6 or newer devices and coming soon to more Android phones  —  After demoing at I/O 2024 in May, Google is rolling out real-time Scam Detection for phone calls on Pixel devices.

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: UK consumer rights group Which? launches a legal claim against Apple, seeking £3B in compensation, alleging that Apple locked ~40M UK users into iCloud services  —  U.K. consumer rights group ‘Which?’ is filing a legal claim against Apple under competition law on behalf of some 40 million users …

Bloomberg: Polymarket says the FBI seized CEO Shayne Coplan's phone and electronics; source: the DOJ is investigating Polymarket for allegedly accepting bets from US users  —  - Polymarket says FBI agents seized CEO's phone, electronics  — Platform has taken recent measures to weed out US traders

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: FBI and CISA: Chinese hackers breached multiple US telecom companies, compromising the “private communications” of US officials and stealing customer call data  —  CISA and the FBI confirmed that Chinese hackers compromised the “private communications” of a “limited number” …

Anne Steele / Wall Street Journal: Spotify plans to pay incentives to video creators who hit certain viewing thresholds and, in January, to let Premium subscribers view podcast videos without ads  —  Audio-streaming giant plans to pay hosts to make podcast videos and allow premium subscribers to watch them without ads

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: DeepL, which was valued at $2B in May 2024, debuts DeepL Voice to give users real-time text translations of others speaking in one of 13 different languages  —  DeepL has made a name for itself with online text translation it claims is more nuanced and precise than services from the likes of Google …

Ian King / Bloomberg: Cisco reports Q1 revenue down 6% YoY to $13.8B, vs. $13.77B estimated, net income down 25% to $2.7B, and forecasts Q2 revenue above estimates  —  - Company has been working to recover from yearlong slump  — Federal government spending is seen as a weak spot for Cisco

Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch: Google announces new features for the Fitbit Ace LTE, its smartwatch for kids, including family group chats, messaging for siblings, and a new mini-game  —  Fitbit's Ace LTE, the smartwatch designed for ages 7+, is introducing new features to help families stay connected and get active together.

Financial Times: Amazon's Annapurna Labs plans to unveil “Trainium 2” AI chips next month, in an effort that can rival Nvidia; Trainium 2 is being tested by Anthropic and others  —  Big Tech group's Annapurna Labs is spending big to build custom chips that lessen its reliance on market leader

Ming-Chi Kuo: Kuo: Apple plans a smart home IP camera and aims for 10M+ annual shipments, with production scheduled for 2026; Goertek will be the exclusive assembly supplier  —  1. Apple is making its first foray into the smart home IP camera market, with mass production scheduled for 2026, targeting annual shipments in the tens of millions.

Pei Li / Bloomberg: Filing: a Chinese court agrees to hear a Fortnite-like case against Apple by Bodyreader, a posture correcting app Apple removed in 2020; Bodyreader seeks ~$420K  —  - Beijing court agreed to hear complaint about Apple's practices  — Apple is coming under pressure in its biggest overseas market

Jay Peters / The Verge: Signal announces a suite of call features, including the ability to share a link to a call, emoji reactions, a “raise hand” button, and a dedicated calls tab  —  Signal is making a bunch of improvements to calls so they are more competitive with Zoom and Google Meet, including the ability to share a link to a call.

Jason Koebler / 404 Media: A look at DeFlock, an open-source project that has crowdsourced the locations of 5,600+ automated license plate reader cameras globally from Flock and others  —  On his drive to move from Washington state to Huntsville, Alabama, Will Freeman began noticing lots of cameras.

Financial Times: Bitcoin passes $89K for the first time, Tesla closes up 8.96%, Coinbase closes up 19.76%, and Robinhood closes up 7.4%, as investors pile into “Trump trades”  —  Markets expect US president-elect to take light-touch approach to regulation  —  Investors betting that Donald Trump's …

Zaheer Kachwala / Reuters: Grab reports Q3 revenue up 17% YoY to $716M, vs $700.8M est., a $15M profit, and raises its forecast for fiscal 2024 revenue; GRAB jumps 10%+ after hours  —  Singapore's Grab Holdings (GRAB.O) raised its forecast for fiscal 2024 revenue on Monday, as it anticipates robust growth in its food delivery and ride-hailing businesses.

Olga Kharif / Bloomberg: Alameda Research co-CEO Sam Trabucco has agreed to hand over a slew of properties, including his yacht, to FTX creditors as part of a November 3 settlement deal  —  - Former Alameda Research co-CEO reached a settlement deal  —  Sam Trabucco, one of Sam Bankman-Fried's inner circle …

Joseph Cox / 404 Media: An indictment against two men suspected of hacking Snowflake clients, including AT&T, says the pair and their co-conspirators extorted at least 36 bitcoins  —  On Sunday the U.S. filed the indictment against Connor Riley Moucka, who allegedly used the monikers Waifu and Judische …

Josh Scott / BetaKit: Canadian digital bank Neo Financial raised a CA$360M Series D from Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke, Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield, and others  —  Calgary and Winnipeg-based challenger bank Neo Financial has secured $362 million CAD in Series D financing as the FinTech scaleup looks …

Reuters: Ilya Sutskever says “we're back in the age of wonder and discovery” as AI companies focus on pre-training, inference improvements, and finding the “next thing”  —  Artificial intelligence companies like OpenAI are seeking to overcome unexpected delays and challenges …

Lucia Moses / Business Insider: The NYT says the Tech Guild is ending its strike after a weeklong stoppage; during the strike, dozens of tech workers crossed the picket line  —  New York Times tech workers are ending their strike after a weeklong stoppage, Business Insider first reported.

The Information: Sources: more than a year before the election, TikTok execs revamped moderation rules and trust and safety staff to make TikTok more appealing to Trump fans  —  More than a year before Donald Trump's landslide victory in last week's presidential election, TikTok's top leaders insisted …