~techmeme | Bookmarks (1051)

Financial Times: Alibaba leverages computing resources to become a leading AI investor in China; sources: cloud credits made up ~50% of Alibaba's $800M investment in Moonshot AI  —  Ecommerce giant offers computing resources to fast-growing start-ups in exchange for equity  —  Alibaba has been leveraging …

Ju-min Park / Reuters: South Korea's Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok says the government is preparing a $7.3B+ support package for chip investments to win the “war” in the chip sector  —  South Korea is readying plans for a support package for chip investments and research worth more than 10 trillion won …

Josh Eidelson / Bloomberg: Maryland Apple Store union workers vote to authorize strike over Apple's alleged refusal to fairly bargain; Short Hills NJ store workers vote against unionizing  —  - Union blames Apple tactics for defeat at Short Hills NJ store  — Maryland Apple Store union members vote to authorize strike

Julie Weed / New York Times: How United, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, and others use AI to reduce costs and streamline operations, including holding flights for delayed passengers  —  Airlines are using artificial intelligence to save fuel, keep customers informed and hold connecting flights for delayed passengers.

Financial Times: Meituan, Alibaba, Tencent, and other Chinese tech companies are working to expand in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, where they would face less political scrutiny  —  Companies would face less political scrutiny in a region where ties are mainly centred around economic interests

Bloomberg: Southeast Asia is drawing more investment from Big Tech than ever, as the CEOs of Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia commit billions of dollars in the region  —  - Long-ignored region is attracting data center, AI investments  — Amazon, Microsoft among firms pledging billions of dollars

Daysia Tolentino / NBC News: At the Bloomberg Technology Summit, Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd said the future of dating could have digital, AI-powered personas setting each other up  —  Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and executive chair of Bumble, said that the dating app wants to use AI to “create more healthy and equitable relationships.”

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Appfigures: Anthropic's Claude now ranks #51 in the top free iPhone Productivity apps in the US, down from rank #5 in this category, which it achieved on May 4  —  Consumer demand for mobile AI chatbot apps outside of ChatGPT may be waning.  Earlier this month, Anthropic launched …

Abubakar Idris / The Information: Waymo says its Waymo One robotaxis now complete over 50K paid trips every week across San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, up from 10K rides in May 2023  —  Waymo, Google's autonomous car unit, said it now completes more than 50,000 driverless rides per week in three cities, up from 10,000 in May last year.

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times: Email: criminals target WPP CEO Mark Read in a deepfake scam by using a voice clone and public YouTube footage to set up a video meeting with his executives  —  Mark Read says criminals set up Microsoft Teams call with senior executives in unsuccessful attack

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: About 48 government websites associated with different Indian states have allowed scammers to plant ads that can redirect visitors to online betting websites  —  Some Indian government websites have allowed scammers to plant advertisements capable of redirecting visitors to online betting platforms.

Zachary Small / New York Times: Christie's experienced a “technology security issue” that took its website down and affected some systems, ahead of auctions that are expected to generate $840M  —  The auctioneer's website was taken offline on Thursday evening and remained down on Friday, days before its spring auctions were set to begin.

Gregory Zuckerman / Wall Street Journal: Jim Simons, a mathematician and founder of hedge fund firm Renaissance Technologies who pioneered computer-based approaches to quantitative trading, dies at 86  —  A mathematician, he helped usher in a revolution in trading, embracing a computer-oriented, quantitative style in the 1980s

Bloomberg: Sources: Apple is finalizing a deal with OpenAI to use ChatGPT features in iOS 18; talks with Google to license Gemini are still ongoing  —  - Move is part of push to add AI features to Apple devices  — Company also held talks with Google about using Gemini

Bloomberg: Epic v. Apple: Apple says it received just 38 applications to use its outside payments option for the App Store, out of ~65K app devs that offer in-app payments  —  - Judge rips company for ‘lots of decisions’ made ‘without data’  — iPhone maker says it provided antitrust remedy ordered in 2021

Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch: Filings and sources: autonomous vehicle company Motional cut ~550 employees in a restructuring that included delaying a robotaxi service from 2024 to 2026  —  Around 550 employees across autonomous vehicle company Motional have been laid off, according to information taken from WARN notice filings and sources at the company.

Christopher Yasiejko / Bloomberg Law: A US jury says Microsoft must pay IPA Technologies $242M after finding that Cortana infringed a patent that expired in Jan. 2019; Microsoft plans to appeal  —  Microsoft Corp. must pay IPA Technologies Inc. $242 million after a federal jury in Delaware found its Cortana digital assistant infringed a patent that expired in January 2019.

Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information: Sources: OpenAI is preparing to demonstrate an AI voice assistant that recognizes objects and images and has better logical reasoning than its current products  —  In the race to develop artificial intelligence that communicates the way humans do, OpenAI is preparing to demonstrate technology …

Nicholas Yong / Rest of World: Some Singaporean writers are resisting their government's request to use their works to train a multilingual LLM, citing little clarity on compensation and more  —  Singapore's literary community is pushing back against an official effort to train LLMs using their published works, part of a growing global resistance.

Shahram Mokhtari / iFixit News: Huawei Pura 70 Pro teardown: the 7nm Kirin 9010 is only marginally better than Kirin 9000S, and the majority of the chips are designed and manufactured in China  —  Huawei released the Pura 70 line of smartphones in April 2024 and it's already made a bit of a stir.

Ash Parrish / The Verge: Town hall: Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty discussed wanting small and prestigious games, after closing the studio behind a small, prestigious hit Hi-Fi Rush  —  Today, one day after Microsoft announced that it would shut down four of its games studios, Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios …

Nikkei Asia: SIA and BCG: by 2032, the US will have the capacity to manufacture 28% of chips below 10nm, while China is expected to make only 2% of the most advanced chips  —  U.S. set to triple its semiconductor manufacturing capacity due to CHIPS Act  —  LOS ANGELES — The U.S. is set to more than triple …

James Thomason / VentureBeat: RunPod, which offers a globally distributed GPU cloud platform for developing and deploying AI, raised a $20M seed co-led by Intel Capital and Dell Technologies  —  RunPod's platform attracts over 100,000 developers with focus on iteration speed and ease of use

Jaspreet Singh / Reuters: Bumble reports Q1 revenue up 10.2% YoY to $267.8M, vs. $265.5M est., total paying users of ~4M, up from 3.5M a year ago, and expects Q2 revenue below estimates  —  Bumble (BMBL.O) beat Wall Street estimates for first-quarter revenue on Wednesday helped by growth in its paying users …