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Iain Martin / Forbes: A look at Whisper CEO Michael Heyward's Medialab, which acquired Imgur and Genius and was sued by their founders and others for allegedly failing to honor deals  —  Whisper cofounder and CEO Michael Heyward's second company made a $1.1 billion business out of acquiring floundering startups like Imgur, Genius and Kik.

Washington Post: The Google monopoly ruling dealt a blow to one of Big Tech's arguments against regulation: that 19th-century antitrust laws can't address modern tech innovation  —  The first big tech-sector anti-monopoly ruling in a generation challenges the idea that the internet era has outgrown U.S. antitrust law.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: CloudPay, which offers cloud-based payroll and payments services to businesses, raised $120M led by Blue Owl Capital, taking its total funding to $228M  —  In 1996, two companies, Patersons HR and Payroll Solutions, formed a venture called CloudPay to provide payroll and payments services to enterprise clients.

Theo Wayt / The Information: TikTok and Pinterest partner with Amazon to let users buy items from Amazon ads without leaving the social media apps  —  Amazon's e-commerce business is huge but slow-growing, while shopping on social media has been taking off.  That's prompted Amazon to look for ways to team up with popular social media apps.

AlleyWatch: NYC-based Cents, which provides business management and payments services for the laundry industry, raised a $40M Series B, taking its total funding to $77M+  —  The garment care market is substantial, with an annual value of approximately $60B.  Despite this large addressable market …

Emily Bary / MarketWatch: Unity reports Q2 revenue down 16% YoY to $449M, vs. $438M est., a net loss of $125.6M, vs. $192.2M in Q2 2023, and trims its FY 2024 forecast  —  App-monetization company trims its full-year forecast, with new CEO saying 'investments in fundamental product enhancements will take some time to manifest …

Wall Street Journal: Sources: enterprise AI company Glean is in advanced talks to raise $250M led by DST Global at a $4.5B valuation, about double its valuation from February 2024  —  The $250 million investment would double the company's valuation from six months ago, a sign of continued enthusiasm for generative AI

Jay Peters / The Verge: OpenAI rolls out the ability for ChatGPT free users to create up to two images per day with DALL-E 3, after launching DALL-E 3 to Plus subscribers in October  —  OpenAI is going to let users of ChatGPT's free tier make up to two images per day with its DALL-E 3 model, the company announced on Thursday.

Bloomberg: Sources: the UK is considering revisiting parts of the Online Safety Act to give authorities more power to force social media companies to curb harmful content  —  - Starmer has few existing levers to curb incendiary content  — Officials consider revisiting key parts of Online Safety Act

Zaheer Kachwala / Reuters: Take-Two reports Q1 net bookings up 1% YoY to $1.22B, vs. $1.25B est., net revenue up 4%, and expects sequential growth in net bookings in FY 2026 and FY 2027  —  Take-Two Interactive Software (TTWO.O) said on Thursday it expects to see sequential growth in its net bookings in fiscals 2026 and 2027 …

Nilay Patel / The Verge: Q&A with DOJ antitrust boss Jonathan Kanter on the US' Google win, the Apple deal, competition, being “overjoyed”, Google's appeal, market definitions, and more  —  AAG Jonathan Kanter says the Google monopoly verdict belongs on the ‘Mount Rushmore of antitrust.’

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Spotify says Apple's new “unacceptable” plan “disregards the fundamental requirements” of EU's DMA; Tim Sweeney calls it “malicious compliance” with “junk fees”  —  Count Spotify and Epic Games among the Apple critics who are not happy …

Milana Vinn / Reuters: Sources: Japanese cybersecurity company Trend Micro, which has a market value of about $6.5B, is exploring a sale after attracting buyout interest  —  Trend Micro (4704.T), a Japanese cybersecurity firm with a market value of about 950 billion yen ($6.5 billion), is exploring a sale …

TASS: Putin signs a law legalizing cryptocurrency mining in Russia; only Russian legal entities and individuals included in a register will have the right to mine  —  Only Russian legal entities and individual entrepreneurs included in a register will have the right to mine

Wired: OpenAI reveals details of GPT-4o's safety testing, including concerns that its anthropomorphic voice may make some users emotionally attached to their chatbot  —  The company has revealed details of AI model safety testing—including concerns about its new anthropomorphic interface.

Ryan Browne / CNBC: Sony reports Q1 revenue up 2% YoY to ~20.5B, above ~$19.31B est., and operating profit up 10% YoY to ~$1.92B, above $1.89B est.  —  Sony reported a 10% jump in operating profit in the fiscal first quarter, beating analyst expectations.  —  Here's how Sony did in the June quarter versus LSEG consensus estimates:

Bloomberg: Global crypto hubs like Hong Kong and Dubai face a challenging outlook, as the brightening US political backdrop for crypto attracts companies and investors  —  - US political backdrop is becoming more favorable for crypto  — Some in the industry expect capital and staff to move there

Financial Times: A profile of Kakao founder Kim Beom-su, who was arrested in July on stock manipulation charges relating to Kakao's takeover of K-pop agency SM Entertainment  —  Case of Kakao founder Kim Beom-su shines light on dysfunctional relationship between business, politics and law enforcement

Winston Cho / The Hollywood Reporter: Division in Hollywood's approach to AI is growing, as some studios want to use AI tools more often in production, while unions aim to establish guardrails  —  While unions aim to establish guardrails and artists are going to court, studios are looking to use AI tools more often in production.

Forbes: How Les Wexner, Victoria's Secret billionaire owner, made early investments in Atlantic Crypto, which then turned into CoreWeave, netting him a $720M stake  —  A lawsuit reveals that an early bet on the company that would later become $19 billion startup Coreweave has made Les Wexner …

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: KNIME, an open-source data science and AI platform used by AMD, Audi, and ~400 other customers, raised $30M from Invus, taking its total funding to $50M  —  It's not easy for organizations to become data-driven, despite the aspirations many have to get there.

Annie Palmer / CNBC: Supermicro shares drop 13% after hours after the company reported Q4 earnings missing analyst expectations, and announces a 10-for-1 stock split  —  Shares of server company Super Micro Computer plunged 13% on Tuesday after the company announced fiscal fourth-quarter earnings that missed analyst expectations.

Jessica Lyons / The Register: CrowdStrike shares a root cause analysis of the July 19 outage, and says it's working with two third-party software security vendors to conduct further review  —  And reveals the small mistake that bricked 8.5M Windows boxes  —  CrowdStrike has hired two outside security firms to review …

Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg: Coupang reports Q2 revenue up 25% YoY to $7.3B and a net loss of $77M, its first loss since 2022, due to its Farfetch deal and a South Korean regulatory fine  —  - The Farfetch deal and a government fine weighed on results  — The company is investing in safeguarding its delivery network