~techmeme | Bookmarks (1014)

Kai Nicol-Schwarz / Sifted: Caresyntax, which is building AI-powered surgical data analysis tools, raised a $180M Series C extension consisting of $80M in equity and $100M in debt  —  More than a dozen investors were involved in the equity and debt round for Berlin-based Caresyntax  —  Berlin-based Caresyntax …

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: The European Commission asks Meta for more information about its Content Library tool and API under the DSA, following Meta's decision to deprecate CrowdTangle  —  The Commission is seeking more information from Meta following its decision to deprecate its CrowdTangle transparency tool.

Jay Peters / The Verge: Epic brings its games to AltStore for iOS in the EU and plans to bring them to Aptoide's iOS store in the EU, ONE Store on Android, and “other stores” globally  —  Fortnite is finally back on iOS, just over four years after Apple booted it from the iOS App Store — but it's only available in the EU.

Taylor Lyles / IGN: Epic confirms that the Epic Games Store is available to download on Android devices worldwide, in addition to iOS users based in the EU  —  Worldwide launch on Android, while only EU iPhone users can access it.  —  We already knew Epic Games plans to release its digital storefront …

Suvashree Ghosh / Bloomberg: Chainalysis: the value of crypto hacks increased by ~84% to $1.58B in the first seven months of 2024, likely due in large part to the rise in crypto prices  —  - Number of heists rose slightly, centralized exchanges targeted  — Bitcoin made up 40% of the proceeds of this year's heists

Financial Times: Danish officials say Margrethe Vestager, known for hitting Big Tech with multibillion-euro fines, is not being considered as EU antitrust chief for a third term  —  Danish commissioner renowned for being tough on Big Tech will not be reappointed for a third term

Bloomberg: Japan will apply foreign trade regulations to chipmaking equipment, which will require foreign investors to give prior notice when conducting direct investment  —  Japan has decided to apply foreign trade regulations to chipmaking equipment as part of its efforts to secure stable supply chains, the Ministry of Finance said Friday.

Jody Godoy / Reuters: Court filing: TikTok says DOJ misstated its ties to China, made factual errors in the case, and the divestment law would strip TikTok of its free speech rights  —  TikTok told a federal appeals court on Thursday that the U.S. Department of Justice has misstated the social media app's ties to China …

Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica: Primate Labs releases Geekbench AI 1.0, formerly Geekbench ML, to test CPU, GPU, and NPU performance, available on Android, iOS, and desktop  —  Performance test comes out of beta as NPUs become standard equipment in PCs.  —  Neural processing units (NPUs) are becoming commonplace in chips …

Jamie Crawley / CoinDesk: Binance resumes services in India, after completing registration with India's Financial Intelligence Unit, which imposed a ~$2.2M fine on Binance in June 2024  —  The registration was provisionally approved in May, subject to the crypto exchange paying a fine of about $2.2 million.

Hannah Lang / Reuters: At a Crypto4Harris online event, Mark Cuban, Anthony Scaramucci, and other crypto advocates supporting Kamala Harris urged a reset in Democratic crypto policy  —  Billionaire Mark Cuban, Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci and congressman Adam Schiff were among a group of cryptocurrency advocates …

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: California lawmakers weaken the AI safety bill with amendments proposed by Anthropic and other opponents, including giving the AG less power to sue AI companies  —  California's bill to prevent AI disasters, SB 1047, has faced significant opposition from many parties in Silicon Valley.

Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat: Google makes Imagen 3 available to all US users via ImageFX, after unveiling the text-to-image AI model in May; some users criticize its strict content filters  —  Google has quietly made its latest text-to-image AI model, Imagen 3, available to all U.S. users through its ImageFX platform …

Andrew Liszewski / The Verge: Meta releases an app for the Quest 3, 2, and Pro to let the headsets display video from devices with an HDMI or DisplayPort output; a capture card is required  —  Meta has released a new app for the Quest 3, 2, and Pro, letting you use the headsets as a screen for consoles, laptops, or any device with...

Heather Knight / New York Times: The San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu files a lawsuit that seeks to shut down 16 popular websites used to create nonconsensual deepfake pornography  —  City Attorney David Chiu has filed a lawsuit seeking to permanently shutter 16 popular websites that turn images of real girls and women into pornography.

Shawna Chen / Axios: California announces support for adding driver's licenses or state IDs to Apple Wallet and Google Wallet, rolling out “in the coming weeks”  —  - They will be authorized for use in TSA screenings, select apps and select businesses, such as Circle K. Participating airports in the state include SFO, SJC and LAX.

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: Threads announces new features, like the ability to store multiple drafts and an analytics page, rolling out on the web, and plans to test a scheduling feature  —  Meta's X rival Threads announced a number of new features today, including the ability to store multiple drafts …

Ryan Browne / CNBC: Klarna debuts a checking account-like service and a cashback offering in its app in 12 markets, including the US and across Europe, as it prepares for a US IPO  —  Financial technology firm Klarna is pushing deeper into banking with its own checking account-like product and a cashback offering …

Bloomberg: Some publishers say they can't block the Googlebot crawler that covers AI Overviews without hampering their discoverability, as the crawler also covers Search  —  Publishers say blocking the company's AI bot could also prevent their sites from showing up in search

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: xAI launches Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini in beta with improved reasoning capabilities, available to X Premium and Premium+ users; the API will debut later in August  —  Elon Musk-owned launched Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini in beta today with improved reasoning.  The new Grok AI model can now generate images …

Pranav Dixit / Engadget: Google says Gemini will replace Google Assistant as the default on the Google Pixel 9 lineup, but “users can go back to the classic Google Assistant”  —  This is the new Google Assistant now, a senior executive told Engadget.  —  Google's new Pixel 9 lineup of phones will be different …

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: A look at challenges Google faces ahead of Pixel 9 launch in India; IDC: Google's smartphone shipments in India grew over 1,300% in 2023 to a 0.5% market share  —  On Tuesday at its Made by Google event, Google announced that the new Pixel 9 line is coming to India.

Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE: Guidewheel, which offers plug-and-play sensors to make factory machines smarter, raised a $31M Series B led by BlackRock and Temasek's Decarbonization Partners  —  Factory software startup Guidewheel said today it's looking to usher in a new era of artificial intelligence-powered automation …

Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch: Chinese self-driving startup WeRide gets permission to test its robotaxis with passengers in California after testing without passengers in San Jose since 2021  —  Chinese autonomous vehicle company WeRide has received the green light to test its driverless vehicles with passengers in California.