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Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: Mozilla and CheckFirst report: Apple, Google, Meta, and others' efforts are a work in progress at best, months after EU's DSA mandated a searchable ads library  —  Efforts by tech giants to be more transparent about the ads they run are — at very best — still a work in progress …

Times of India: Noida, India-based B2B e-commerce marketplace ProcMart raised a $30M Series B led by Fundamentum and Edelweiss Discovery Fund, after a $10M Series A in 2022  —  Bengaluru: ProcMart, an online B2B marketplace focused on supply chain solutions, has secured $30 million in funding.

Anna Heim / TechCrunch: Berlin-based finmid, which makes embedded fintech solutions for SMBs, raised a €23M Series A at a €100M post money valuation, bringing total raised to €35M  —  Berlin-based finmid — one of the many startups building embedded fintech solutions, in its case targeting marketplaces …

Financial Times: Microsoft invests $1.5B in Abu Dhabi-based AI group G42 for a minority stake, as G42 severed its ties with Chinese suppliers; Brad Smith will sit on G42's board  —  Agreement is latest move by US tech group to extend its reach into fast-growing sector  —  Microsoft has agreed to invest $1.5bn …

Saritha Rai / Bloomberg: Tel Aviv-based Bridgewise, which uses AI to provide investment analysis to brokerages, wealth advisors, and exchanges, raised a $21M Series A led by SIX Group  —  - Bridgewise uses AI to do research of global securities  — Robo-advisor named Bridget provides personalized analysis

Josh Ye / Reuters: Baidu says that eight months after launch, its AI chatbot Ernie Bot now has 200M+ users and 85K enterprise clients, after reaching 100M+ users in December  —  China's Baidu (9888.HK) said on Tuesday its artificial intelligence chatbot “Ernie Bot” has garnered more than 200 million users …

Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg: South Korea-based AI startup Upstage raised a $72M Series B from investors including SK Networks and SBVA, formerly known as SoftBank Ventures Asia  —  Artificial intelligence startup Upstage secured 100 billion won ($72 million) from investors including SK Networks Co. and KT Corp. to bankroll …

Tim De Chant / TechCrunch: Kode Labs, which develops tools that integrate data from building management systems and IoT devices, raised a $30M Series B led by Maverix Private Equity  —  Like many immigrants, the New York City skyline was one of the first sights young brothers Edi and Etrit Demaj took in when they arrived in the U.S. more than 20 years ago.

Ellen Milligan / Bloomberg: Sources: the UK plans talks this month with Apple, Meta, and others to push a voluntary charter granting parents more control of social media use by young teens  —  - Ministers want Meta, Google to agree to more parental controls  — Government to launch social media consultation this month

Rachel Graf / Bloomberg: Mark Zuckerberg wins his bid to avoid personal liability in about two dozen lawsuits accusing Meta and other companies of addicting children to their products  —  US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is overseeing the cases, sided with the Meta chief executive officer in a ruling issued Monday.

Billy Perrigo / TIME: Google's Jigsaw expands Perspective API, a set of ML tools that help moderators and researchers identify toxicity, with seven attributes, including nuance  —  In the 1990s and early 2000s, technologists made the world a grand promise: new communications technologies would strengthen democracy …

Foo Yun Chee / Reuters: EU antitrust regulators are questioning Broadcom about changes to VMware's licensing conditions, following complaints from EU business users and a trade group  —  U.S. chipmaker Broadcom (AVGO.O) is being asked by EU antitrust regulators about changes to newly acquired cloud computing company …

David Pierce / The Verge: Limitless launches the $99 Limitless Pendant, a wearable AI gadget that transcribes meetings and provides real-time notes and summaries, shipping in August  —  The Limitless Pendant doesn't exactly scream “AI.”  As Dan Siroker, the CEO of the company behind the new device …

Ricardo Brito / Reuters: Letter: X's lawyers tell Brazil's Supreme Court that the social media platform will comply with every ruling issued by the court or Brazil's top electoral court  —  Lawyers representing Elon Musk's X told Brazil's Supreme Court that the social media platform will comply with every ruling issued …

Olivia Carville / Bloomberg: How scammers, often from Nigeria, are using sextortion to target teenage boys on social media in the US, leading to at least 20 suicides over an 18-month period  —  One word from a stranger on social media was all it took.  “Hey,” she said.  —  Jordan DeMay read the Instagram message at 10:19 p.m. on a Thursday night in March...

Hannah Giorgis / The Atlantic: A look at BlackPlanet, a social network for African Americans that went live in 1999, had ~15M users in 2008, and arguably laid the foundation for Black Twitter  —  Revisiting BlackPlanet, and a lost era when social media was still fun  —  A few years ago, Stephanie Williams and her husband fielded …

Joseph Politano / Apricitas Economics: An overview of Bureau of Labor Statistics data, which shows California's percentage of US tech jobs has continued to steadily decline since 2020  —  The Golden State Used to Dominate Tech Employment—But Its Share of Total US Tech Jobs has Now Fallen to the Lowest Level in a Decade  —  Thanks for reading!

IDC: Global smartphone shipments in Q1 2024 grew 7.8% YoY to 289.4M units; iPhone shipments fell 9.6% YoY, more than any other top brand, and Xiaomi grew 33.8% YoY  —  Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker , global smartphone shipments increased 7.8% year over year to 289.4 million units in the first quarter of 2024 (1Q24).

Nicole Sperling / New York Times: As Netflix's new film chief Dan Lin takes charge, the company aims to shift its film strategy to focus on audience appeal and cost efficiency  —  Dan Lin, the streaming service's new film chief, wants to produce a more varied slate of movies to better appeal to the array of interests among subscribers.

Emma Jacobs / Financial Times: LinkedIn: the number of companies with a designated head of AI position or a chief AI officer (CAIO) has almost tripled globally in the past five years  —  As boards grapple with the opportunity and risk of generative artificial intelligence, companies are leaning into a new role: the chief AI officer.

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch: Q&A with Ukraine's Cyberpolice Department chief Yevhenii Panchenko on his role after Russia's invasion, battling pro-Russian hacking groups, and more  —  Ukraine's cyber police talks crypto, ransomware and documenting war crimes after Russia's invasion  —  On February 24, 2022, Russian forces invaded Ukraine.

TechCrunch: Meta says it is testing its Meta AI chatbot with WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger users in India and parts of Africa  —  Meta has confirmed to TechCrunch that it is testing Meta AI, its large language model-powered chatbot, with WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger users in India and parts of Africa.

Anuj Ahooja / augment: An experiment to see how a Threads feed would work on Mastodon, using lists and testing third-party clients, which shows the bright future of the fediverse  —  This is my journey that started as an experiment to see how my Threads feed would look like on Mastodon and ended with me finding experiences …

Wes Davis / The Verge: Bluesky says it is now allowing heads of state to sign up, and adds features including hashtags in profile bios and the ability to long press a link to share  —  Bluesky is apparently ready for a bigger challenge.  It says it's allowing heads of state to sign up now, a little over two months after it opened for...