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Julie Bort / TechCrunch: Deckmatch research of ~5,000 YC-backed startups finds YC commonly accepts startups that are building similar or nearly identical products to previous YC grads  —  The Silicon Valley dream is to build a tech startup that is such a unique idea it alters the commercial universe and turns its founders into billionaires.

Reuters: Huawei is targeting 100,000 applications for HarmonyOS over the next 6-12 months and currently has over 15,000 applications that can meet consumers' basic needs  —  China's Huawei, blacklisted by the U.S., said on Saturday it is targeting 100,000 applications for its Harmony operating system …

James Allen / Financial Times: How AI is reshaping the data-intensive field of Grand Prix racing, including helping design cars, setting F1's technical regulations, and shaping race strategy  —  The world's most technically advanced sport is so data-intensive that humans can no longer manage alone

Hugh Son / CNBC: Customers of banking startups like Yotta describe losing savings ranging from $7,000 to $200,000+ due to Synapse's collapse, after US regulators refused to help  —  For 15 years, former Texas schoolteacher Kayla Morris put every dollar she could save into a home for her growing family.

Sam McKeith / Reuters: Australia drops plans to fine internet platforms up to 5% of their global revenue for failing to prevent the spread of misinformation online  —  Australia's government said on Sunday it had dropped plans to fine internet platforms up to 5% of their global revenue for failing to prevent the spread of misinformation online.

Isabelle Bousquette / Wall Street Journal: Six months into a deal with OpenAI, Spanish bank BBVA says staff created 2,900+ GPTs and reported productivity gains, but questions ChatGPT's scalability  —  The bank is evaluating its next steps after seeing early productivity gains from OpenAI's enterprise tool

Shawn Musgrave / The Intercept: A federal court allows a claim by The Intercept that DMCA prevents OpenAI from stripping a story's title or byline but throws out its claims against Microsoft  —  The Intercept's lawsuit argues that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act prevents OpenAI from stripping a story's title or byline.

Financial Times: Similarweb: Bluesky app usage in the US and UK grew ~300% to 3.5M DAUs after Nov. 5; Threads now has 1.5x Bluesky's DAUs in the US, down from 5x before Nov. 5  —  Social media giant's Threads app makes changes as smaller competitor to X surges  —  Meta's Threads is losing ground …

Christine Lemmer-Webber / Dustycloud Brainstorms: ActivityPub co-author on Bluesky and ATProto being neither decentralized nor federated, and how Bluesky is building a good X replacement with a “credible exit”  —  Recently due to various events (namely a lot of people getting off of X-Twitter), Bluesky has become a lot more popular …

New York Times: Sources: the US government launched an investigation into the Salt Typhoon hack after Microsoft alerted it and telecom companies about anomalies  —  Leaders of the big telecommunications companies were summoned to the White House to discuss strategies for overhauling the security …

Nicola M. White / Bloomberg: Around 56% of the $8.2B in financial remedies that the US SEC obtained in FY 2024 is attributable to a monetary judgment against Terraform Labs and Do Kwon  —  The agency's enforcement actions led to $8.2 billion in penalties and reimbursement to investors, though the number …

Wall Street Journal: Sources: TikTok CEO Shou Chew, who has known Elon Musk for several years, has sought Musk's counsel in recent weeks on the incoming Trump administration  —  Popular video app and Chinese parent ByteDance view rival social-media owner as conduit to the president-elect

Victoria Song / The Verge: Strava's new API rules for third parties will make it harder for users across dozens of fitness apps and wearables to integrate their fitness data in one place  —  It might seem odd for one app's users to fume over an API, but at the heart of the matter is the inherent messiness of fitness data.

Financial Times: A look at challenges facing Samsung Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong, including the company falling behind in the AI chip race and discontent from employees  —  Chip woes and labour unrest test the mettle of third-generation leader of South Korea's most valuable company

Reuters: An investigation finds several women across the US were deceived, drugged, terrorized, and sexually enslaved by sex traffickers to make money from OnlyFans  —  OnlyFans gives women the chance to earn money by making porn.  Sex traffickers also use the platform to abuse and exploit them, say police and prosecutors.

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: Texas AG opens a probe into the World Federation of Advertisers to determine if it conspired to boycott “certain social media platforms”; X sued WFA in August  —  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Thursday he is opening an investigation into the World Federation of Advertisers …

Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg: The UK plans to draft a regulatory framework to oversee stablecoins and staking services as part of a single overarching regime for cryptoassets in early 2025  —  - Planned legislation pushed back due to change of government  — New administration to publish single overarching crypto regime

Bloomberg: Klarna's planned US IPO in H1 2025 could presage an uptick in IPOs by fintechs like Trustly, Chime, Zilch, Plaid, and Revolut after a relatively slow period  —  - Trustly, Chime, Zilch among candidates for a stock listing  — Sector stocks have bounced back after painful IPO losses

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch: Brave Search introduces AI chat to let users ask follow-up questions to initial queries, bringing together capabilities of chat-first and search-first tools  —  Brave announced on Thursday that it's introducing an AI chat mode for follow-up questions based on initial queries on Brave Search.

Lauren Feiner / The Verge: Snap files to dismiss New Mexico's lawsuit over Snap's alleged child safety issues with predators, saying the complaint misrepresents the state's investigation  —  Snap says the basis of a scathing lawsuit suggesting it systematically recommends teens' accounts to child predators is backwards …

Emma Roth / The Verge: SafeRent, an AI screening tool used by landlords, agrees to pay ~$2.3M to settle a discrimination lawsuit and will no longer display certain tenant scores  —  SafeRent, an AI screening tool used by landlords, will no longer use AI-powered “scores” to evaluate whether someone using housing vouchers would make a good tenant.

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority: Source: Google has canceled the development of a second-generation Pixel Tablet, planned for release in 2025, due to concerns that it wouldn't sell very well  —  Google is pulling the plug on its next Pixel Tablet, citing fears the product wouldn't sell very well.  —  •  —  TL;DR

The Information: Sources: OpenAI considered making a browser, discussed deals to power AI features on Samsung devices and search on sites and apps from Condé Nast and others  —  OpenAI is preparing to launch a frontal assault on Google.  —  The ChatGPT owner recently considered developing a web browser …

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple is testing a more conversational version of Siri, dubbed “LLM Siri”, with plans to release it in spring 2026 as part of iOS 19 and macOS 16  —  - Company is working on overhaul that employees call ‘LLM Siri’  — Unveiling planned for next year, with rollout coming in 2026