~techmeme | Bookmarks (1030)

Mary Jo Foley / Directions on Microsoft: Microsoft must take security seriously again by being transparent about breaches and no longer charging its subscribers extra for must-have security features  —  Microsoft charges extra for many core security and compliance features.  What can customers do to try to minimize risk and save money?

Paul Sawers / TechCrunch: Paris-based FlexAI, which is developing an on-demand cloud service for AI training, emerges from stealth with a $30M in seed funding  —  Nvidia, Apple, Tesla and Intel are on CEO Brijesh Tripathi's resume  —  A French startup has raised a hefty seed investment to “rearchitect compute infrastructure” …

Filipe Pacheco / Bloomberg: Mobvoi, a Google-backed Chinese smartwatch and AI company, fell as much as 22% in the first day of trading, after raising $41M in its Hong Kong IPO  —  - Mobvoi drops as much as 22% in first day of trading after IPO  — It's the city's third stock this week to drop in opening day

Edward Zitron / Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At: Emails released as part of US v. Google show how Google's finance and ad teams led by Prabhakar Raghavan made Search worse to make the company more money  —  This is the story of how Google Search died, and the people responsible for killing it.  —  The story begins on February 5th 2019 …

Bloomberg: China approves US listing of self-driving startup Pony.ai, which plans to sell up to 98M shares and list on Nasdaq or NYSE, signaling an ease on the crackdown  —  - Pony.ai plans to sell some 98 million shares on Nasdaq or NYSE  — Chinese tech IPOs in the US dwindled after crackdown in 2021

Reuters: Huawei unveils Qiankun, a new business unit focused on providing self-driving systems, marking the company's latest push to become a major EV industry player  —  Chinese tech company Huawei (HWT.UL) unveiled on Wednesday a new software brand for intelligent driving, marking its latest push …

Bloomberg: SenseTime's stock rises 30%+ after the company unveiled the latest version of its SenseNova AI model; SenseTime's stock is down 80%+ since its 2021 HK IPO  —  - US-blacklisted firm unveils fifth version of its AI platform  — The company is one of many racing to develop generative AI

Nami Matsuura / Nikkei Asia: Samsung starts mass production of its 9th-generation 286-layer 3D NAND memory chips, which increases data I/O speeds by 33% compared to 8th-gen 236-layer chips  —  286-layer product boosts data storage capacity by 50%, aiding AI  —  SEOUL — Samsung Electronics said Tuesday …

Tom Matsuda / Sifted: Paris-based Payflows, whose automated financial management SaaS could be deployed on top of existing ERP systems, raised a €25M Series A led by Balderton  —  The funding round is the latest sign that fintech investors are continuing to focus on the B2B segment

Marina Temkin / TechCrunch: NY-based Campus, which is building an online alternative to traditional community colleges, raised a $23M Series A extension following a $29M Series A in 2023  —  Although many students in the United States enter community colleges intending to transfer to four-year universities …

Casey Newton / Platformer: Legal scholars discuss how the TikTok divestment bill could survive a First Amendment challenge and why the US will likely rely on a national security argument  —  The First Amendment is a major obstacle, scholars say — but it isn't insurmountable  —  On Tuesday, the Senate voted overwhelmingly …

Lauren Feiner / The Verge: The US Senate passes the TikTok divestment bill by a margin of 79-18; the legislation now heads to President Biden, who has committed to sign it into law  —  A bill that would force China-based company Bytedance to sell TikTok — or else face a US ban of the platform …

Sarah McBride / Bloomberg: Xaira Therapeutics, which aims to use AI models to find new drugs to treat diseases, emerged from stealth with $1B in commitments from Sequoia and others  —  - Marc Tessier-Lavigne resigned from Stanford after controversy  — New startup has backing from high-wattage tech investors

Katie Deighton / Wall Street Journal: As software gets better at labeling photos, CAPTCHA designers are adopting more difficult logic-based prompts to thwart nefarious bots  —  Captchas that aim to distinguish humans from nefarious bots are demanding more brain power; ‘things are going to get even stranger’

MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC: Block says it has finished the development of its own 3nm bitcoin mining chip and is working through the design with a “leading global semiconductor foundry”  —  Jack Dorsey says that his payments company, Block (formerly Square), is expanding its bitcoin mining ambitions …

Financial Times: Q&A with BCG CEO Christoph Schweizer, who says the consulting firm expects 20% of its 2024 and 40% of its 2026 revenue will come from helping firms integrate AI  —  CEO projects share of sales will double as companies integrate technology into operations

Akila Quinio / Financial Times: Revolut plans ad sales push, expects to derive a “proper chunk” of its revenue from targeted ads, and hires a former TikTok executive to lead its media strategy  —  The London-based fintech has hired a TikTok executive to lead a ‘media strategy’ as it seeks to diversify revenues

Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg: Nominal, which offers tools for data analysis, testing, and more to startups building advanced hardware like drones, emerges from stealth with $27.5M in funding  —  - Lux Capital, General Catalyst, Founders Fund among investors  — Software platform aims to assist new manufacturing companies

TechCrunch: TabaPay, which offers instant payment services, agrees to acquire assets of banking-as-a-service startup Synapse, after Synapse filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy  —  After a tumultuous year, banking-as-a-service (BaaS) startup Synapse has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and its assets …

Annie Palmer / CNBC: Amazon ends drone deliveries in Lockeford, California, which began in 2022, and plans to expand them to Tolleson, Arizona, in 2024 and other US regions in 2025  —  An Amazon delivery drone is on display at Amazon's BOS27 Robotics Innovation Hub in Westborough, Massachusetts, on Nov. 10, 2022.

Connie Loizos / TechCrunch: HR software company Rippling announces a $200M Series F led by Coatue at a $13.5B valuation, up from $11.25B in March 2023, and a separate $590M tender offer  —  Last week, TechCrunch broke the news that the workforce management software outfit Rippling was on the cusp of closing a new …

Nilay Patel / The Verge: Newsletter service Ghost says it plans to add ActivityPub support in 2024; rival service Buttondown also plans ActivityPub support  —  Interoperable social media is having a real moment  —  Open platforms keep gaining support out there — newsletter platform Ghost just published what amounts …

James Rundle / Wall Street Journal: Source: UnitedHealth's Change Healthcare was compromised on February 12, nine days before the ransomware attack; the company paid a ransom to the hackers  —  UnitedHealth Group paid ransom to hackers, person familiar with the cyber investigation said  —  's Change Healthcare unit …

Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch: Pomelo, a “send now, pay later” startup that lets users in the US send money in the form of credit to people in the Philippines, raised a $35M Series A  —  Pomelo, a startup that combines international money transfer with credit, has raised $35 million in a Series A round led …