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Aisha Counts / Bloomberg: Reddit is winning over advertisers using interest-based targeting via subreddits, instead of personal data; analysis: Reddit's ad revenue may pass $1.1B in 2024  —  Without as much personal information, Reddit lures marketers by touting interests and conversations

Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times: Dealroom: AI coding assistant startups such as Anysphere and Augment have raised $433M so far in 2024 alone, bringing the total since January 2023 to $906M  —  Software engineering attracts investors but making money from generative artificial intelligence still eludes many

Reuters: Docs: state-linked Chinese entities are using cloud services from AWS or its rivals to access advanced US chips and AI models they cannot acquire otherwise  —  State-linked Chinese entities are using cloud services provided by Amazon (AMZN.O) or its rivals to access advanced U.S. chips …

Dallas Innovates: Dallas-based Siepe, which provides data management software and services to the private credit industry, raised a $30M Series B led by WestCap  —  “The new capital will help us continue our momentum in deploying integrated solutions and best-in-class service for fund managers in the private credit …

Josh Eidelson / Bloomberg: The NLRB's general counsel office determines a group of Amazon drivers were employees of Amazon and of the “delivery service partner” company that hired them  —  - Board's prosecutors say that company violated labor law  —  Amazon.com Inc. was legally the boss of a group …

Sarah Jeong / The Verge: The Pixel 9's AI features have made creating realistic and believable fake photos trivial, and Google's safeguards are astonishingly anemic  —  Our basic assumptions about photos capturing reality are about to go up in smoke.  —  Photography by Chris Welch / The Verge; AI-altered images made with Google's Magic Editor.

Bloomberg: Shareholders approve upgrading Alibaba's Hong Kong listing, which expects to attract billions of dollars in Chinese investment, to primary status on August 28  —  - Its shares significantly underperformed Tencent's this year … Shareholders ratified the decision as expected to convert …

Sayan Sen / Neowin: Microsoft confirms the Windows Control Panel, which debuted in 1985 with Windows 1.0, is “in the process of being deprecated in favor of the Settings app”  —  While Microsoft keeps testing and adding new features to Windows, it also keeps shedding stuff the company feels is no longer necessary.

Forbes: Silverbear, an investor named in Bolt's financial docs for a $450M raise, says it was “never in this deal”, as some investors consider legal action against Bolt  —  The former billionaire stunned investors with a plan to raise $450 million for his payments startup at a $14 billion valuation.

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 …