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Gaby Del Valle / The Verge: Inside the MAGA-fueled 2024 Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, as attendees were divided on Trump's keynote speech, some let down, others calling it historic  —  Inside the MAGA-fueled fever dream of the 2024 Bitcoin Conference. … There were rumors that Elon Musk would introduce former …

Wall Street Journal: A profile of Huawei, which has expanded into new businesses, built out its supply chain, and boosted profit, thanks to billions of dollars in Beijing support  —  The Chinese telecom giant struggled at first under U.S. sanctions—then Beijing stepped in

Michael McWhertor / Polygon: ROMHacking.net, a community of people sharing hacks and fixes for old games, winds down, closes all ROM hack submissions, and moves its data to Internet Archive  —  ROMhacking.net's data is moving over to the Internet Archive  —  ROMhacking.net, a longtime resource for video game fan translations …

Andy Greenberg / Wired: A look at RayV Lite, an open-source laser hacking tool built by two hackers for less than $500 that can reverse engineer chips and exploit their vulnerabilities  —  The RayV Lite will make it hundreds of times cheaper for anyone to carry out physics-bending feats of hardware hacking.

The Information: Sources: Nvidia told Microsoft, and another large cloud provider, that its new Blackwell AI chips will be delayed by three months or more due to design flaws  —  Nvidia's upcoming artificial intelligence chips will be delayed by three months or more due to design flaws …

Lily Hay Newman / Wired: A security researcher says 4.6M Illinois voter and election records, including Social Security Numbers, were exposed by a contractor's unsecured databases  —  Social Security numbers, death certificates, voter applications, and other personal information was accessible on the open internet …

Patpicha Tanakasempipat / Bloomberg: Apple apologizes and pulls an ad set in Thailand after backlash from Thai lawmakers and influencers who deemed its portrayal of the country offensive  —  - Short film taints image of Thai tourism industry, critics say  — Apple apologizes for not fully capturing contemporary vibrancy

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch: Data breach notifications show US pharmaceutical giant Cencora has notified at least 1.43M individuals that their data was compromised in a February data breach  —  Cencora has so far notified over a million people around the U.S. that their personal and protected health information …

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg: Sources: Meta is offering Hollywood celebrities like Judi Dench millions of dollars for the right to use their voices for AI projects; SAG-AFTRA agreed to terms  —  - Judi Dench, Awkwafina are among the celebrities holding talks  — Some terms sought by Meta trigger actors' fears of AI

CNBC: Intel shares fall 26% to close at $21.48 in their biggest drop since 1974, after the company reported a big earnings miss; Intel's market cap is now below $100B  —  Intel shares plunged the most in 50 years on Friday, reaching a price not seen since 2013, after the chipmaker reported …

Gaby Del Valle / The Verge: Trump says Zuckerberg called him after the assassination attempt and told Trump he wouldn't endorse a Democrat because he “respected” Trump's reaction that day  —  Former President Donald Trump has expressed a newfound fondness for Mark Zuckerberg after years of railing against him.

Olga Kharif / Bloomberg: Crypto lender Genesis and related companies complete their bankruptcy restructuring and begin distributing ~$4B in digital assets and cash to creditors  —  - Bitcoin creditors will receive 51% recovery on in-kind basis  — Genesis distributions come soon after Mt Gox repaid billions

Akila Quinio / Financial Times: Sources: Revolut has told staff it is launching a sale of up to $500M worth of existing shares at a $45B valuation; former employees are ineligible  —  Revolut has told staff it is launching a sale of up to $500mn worth of existing shares at a $45bn valuation, in a move that would cement …

The Information: Character.AI told staff that investors will be bought out at a valuation of ~2.5x its $1B 2023 valuation, and it plans to adopt open-source models for products  —  Google has agreed to pay a licensing fee to chatbot maker Character.AI for its models and will hire its cofounders and many of its researchers, the companies said.

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: Character.AI co-founders Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, and some employees, are joining Google; Google has signed a non-exclusive agreement to use its tech  —  In a big move, Character.AI co-founder and CEO CEO Noam Shazeer is returning to Google after leaving the company in October 2021 to found the a16z-backed startup.

New York Times: The US DOJ sues TikTok, saying it collected children's data without parents' permission, knowingly let users under the age of 13 create accounts, and more  —  The Justice Department said that TikTok illegally collected children's data and knowingly allowed users under the age of 13 to create accounts.

Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg: In a memo to staff, Samsung's chip business head Jun Young-hyun warns Samsung risks getting into a “vicious cycle” if it doesn't revamp its workplace culture  —  - Jun Young-hyun replaced his predecessor just a few months ago  — It's trying to catch SK Hynix in the hot AI memory chip market

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: OpenSecrets: the number of groups lobbying the US government on AI grew from 459 in 2023 to 556 in H1 2024; OpenAI spent $800K in H1 2024, vs. $260K in 2023  —  AI lobbying at the U.S. federal level is intensifying in the midst of a continued generative AI boom and an election year that could influence future AI regulation.

Bloomberg: While owning less than 1% of TSMC, the number of retail shareholders hit a new high in 2024, as locals believe TSMC's success helps Taiwan fend off China  —  - Chipmaker is dubbed ‘holy mountain that safeguards the nation’  — Number of retail shareholders has reached a record this year

Reuters: Document: FirstCry, India's leading e-commerce platform for baby products, is seeking to raise up to $501M in an IPO, valuing the company as much as $2.9B  —  Indian retailer FirstCry is seeking to raise up to $501 million in an initial public offering (IPO), valuing the company as much as $2.9 billion …

Michael Hennessey / Bloomberg: Delivery Hero plans to merge two of its European businesses, Foodora and Yemeksepeti, with its Asian business, Foodpanda, and cut fewer than 200 employees  —  - Fewer than 200 employees will be affected by the merger  — A previous deal to sell some of the Asian business fell apart

Tom Warren / The Verge: Discord on Xbox adds the ability to watch friends' Discord streams whether they're sharing from a PC, mobile phone, or Xbox, rolling out over the coming weeks  —  Microsoft and Discord are greatly improving the integration of the communication platform into Xbox consoles.

Mackenzie Hawkins / Bloomberg: Sources: Commerce Department officials inform Applied Materials that the company's planned $4B Silicon Valley R&D facility doesn't qualify for CHIPS Act grants  —  - Company had hoped to use the money for research center  — US officials have disagreed over how to approach chip R&D

Alex Heath / The Verge: On Meta's earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg said Llama 4 will likely need ~10x more compute than Llama 3.1 to train, Quest 3 sales exceeded expectations, and more  —  Meta's second quarter earnings continue the same story from the previous quarter: generative AI may be here, but it's going to take a long time to make money.