Luma Partners: in Q3, M&A volume in ad tech rose 118% YoY and 26% QoQ and has continued to heat up in Q4 with Samba TV-Semasio, Zeta-LiveIntent, and other deals (Axios)

Study: about 85% of US unicorn startups that have gone public were unprofitable in 2023, despite most having been founded more than fifteen years earlier (Jeffrey Funk/American Affairs Journal)

Jeffrey Funk / American Affairs Journal: Study: about 85% of US unicorn startups that have gone public were unprofitable in 2023, despite most having been founded more than fifteen years earlier  —  Financial losses for today's start-ups are much more common than they were decades ago, and the losses are much bigger.

Published: 2024-11-27 09:00:51

A look at the evolution of China's semiconductor industry and Huawei under US export controls, as GPUs become the new focal point of US-China tech competition (Paul Triolo/American Affairs Journal)

Paul Triolo / American Affairs Journal: A look at the evolution of China's semiconductor industry and Huawei under US export controls, as GPUs become the new focal point of US-China tech competition  —  Since I last wrote about China's responses to U.S. export controls in these pages, in February 2024, much has changed …

Published: 2024-11-27 07:45:00

Roblox is offering 25% more Robux for users buying on the web and via gift cards than those making an IAP via Apple's App Store or Google's Play Store (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: Roblox is offering 25% more Robux for users buying on the web and via gift cards than those making an IAP via Apple's App Store or Google's Play Store  —  As scrutiny around Apple and Google's app store fees ramps up around the world, Roblox is now offering users who buy its game currency …

Published: 2024-11-27 07:35:01

Huawei's HarmonyOS NEXT in the Mate 70, 70 Pro, 70 Pro+, and X6 is its first fully self-developed OS that reportedly no longer uses open-source Android code (Arjun Kharpal/CNBC)

Arjun Kharpal / CNBC: Huawei's HarmonyOS NEXT in the Mate 70, 70 Pro, 70 Pro+, and X6 is its first fully self-developed OS that reportedly no longer uses open-source Android code  —  Huawei on Tuesday launched the Mate 70 series of smartphones that can run on the company's latest self-developed operating system …

Published: 2024-11-27 07:00:38

Sources: Elon Musk has given investors, who backed his $44B Twitter acquisition, 25% of the shares in xAI, which is set to close a $5B round at a $50B valuation (Financial Times)

Financial Times: Sources: Elon Musk has given investors, who backed his $44B Twitter acquisition, 25% of the shares in xAI, which is set to close a $5B round at a $50B valuation  —  Investors hit by losses following billionaire's takeover of social media platform reap rewards from shares in his AI start-up

Published: 2024-11-27 06:45:00

Sources: OpenAI is letting current and former staff sell ~$1.5B worth of restricted stock in a new tender offer to SoftBank, in a deal spurred by Masayoshi Son (CNBC)

CNBC: Sources: OpenAI is letting current and former staff sell ~$1.5B worth of restricted stock in a new tender offer to SoftBank, in a deal spurred by Masayoshi Son  —  OpenAI is allowing employees to sell roughly $1.5 billion worth of shares in a new tender offer to SoftBank, CNBC has learned.

Published: 2024-11-27 05:30:02

Bluesky says it is up to outside organizations to respect user consent, after a Hugging Face employee posted a dataset of 1M posts from its API for ML research (Samantha Cole/404 Media)

Samantha Cole / 404 Media: Bluesky says it is up to outside organizations to respect user consent, after a Hugging Face employee posted a dataset of 1M posts from its API for ML research  —  A machine learning librarian at Hugging Face just released a dataset composed of one million Bluesky posts …

Published: 2024-11-27 05:10:00

An investigation suggests the third suspect behind the hacks of Snowflake clients may be a US Army soldier who is or was recently stationed in South Korea (Brian Krebs/Krebs on Security)

Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security: An investigation suggests the third suspect behind the hacks of Snowflake clients may be a US Army soldier who is or was recently stationed in South Korea  —  Two men have been arrested for allegedly stealing data from and extorting dozens of companies that used the cloud data storage company Snowflake …

Published: 2024-11-27 04:25:01

Wherobots, which offers a cloud-based platform to process and analyze geospatial data from satellites and other sources, raised a $21.5M Series A led by Felicis (Allie Garfinkle/Fortune)

Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: Wherobots, which offers a cloud-based platform to process and analyze geospatial data from satellites and other sources, raised a $21.5M Series A led by Felicis  —  Mo Sarwat, cofounder and CEO of Wherobots.  —  WHEROBOTS  —  As a kid in Cairo, Mo Sarwat first grasped the dangers of not understanding the natural world.

Published: 2024-11-27 04:20:06

TikTok plans to block under-18 users from using beauty filters, and says it is tightening its systems to block under-13 users from the platform (Robert Booth/The Guardian)

Robert Booth / The Guardian: TikTok plans to block under-18 users from using beauty filters, and says it is tightening its systems to block under-13 users from the platform  —  Social media platform under pressure to improve security as it announces plans to block under-13s from signing up

Published: 2024-11-27 04:01:13

OpenAI suspends access to Sora in response to a group of artists leaking access to the tool in protest of the company's treatment of creative professionals (Nitasha Tiku/Washington Post)

Nitasha Tiku / Washington Post: OpenAI suspends access to Sora in response to a group of artists leaking access to the tool in protest of the company's treatment of creative professionals  —  A group of artists created a webpage allowing anyone to make AI videos using Sora.  They argue the maker of ChatGPT used artists as “PR puppets” without pay.

Published: 2024-11-27 03:10:01

Samsung names Young Hyun Jun as its co-CEO as well as head of its memory chip business and appoints Jinman Han as the company president and foundry unit head (Reuters)

Reuters: Samsung names Young Hyun Jun as its co-CEO as well as head of its memory chip business and appoints Jinman Han as the company president and foundry unit head  —  Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) on Wednesday announced new heads of its memory and foundry chip units, as it scrambles to catch up with SK Hynix …

Published: 2024-11-27 03:01:07

Evolv reaches an agreement to resolve an FTC inquiry alleging the company made false claims about its AI-powered security system's ability to screen for weapons (Stephen Nakrosis/Wall Street Journal)

Stephen Nakrosis / Wall Street Journal: Evolv reaches an agreement to resolve an FTC inquiry alleging the company made false claims about its AI-powered security system's ability to screen for weapons  —  The proposed settlement order would ban Evolv from making unsupported claims about its products, and require the security technology company …

Published: 2024-11-27 01:55:00

US appeals court finds the OFAC exceeded its authority in sanctioning Tornado Cash's immutable smart contracts, as they can't be owned and so are not "property" (Felix Ng/Cointelegraph)

Felix Ng / Cointelegraph: US appeals court finds the OFAC exceeded its authority in sanctioning Tornado Cash's immutable smart contracts, as they can't be owned and so are not “property”  —  A US appeals court ruled the Treasury's OFAC “overstepped” when it sanctioned crypto mixer Tornado Cash's smart contracts.

Published: 2024-11-27 00:50:01