~techmeme | Bookmarks (997)

Ann Cao / South China Morning Post: Ant splits Alipay into the Digital Payment Business Group focused on new payment products, and the Alipay Business Group focused on user growth and monetization  —  The company will adopt a ‘rotating presidential system’ for the two new businesses, with each unit president serving a six-month term

Niket Nishant / Reuters: Fiserv to acquire Toronto-based Payfare, which lets gig workers on platforms like Uber access their wages early, for $140M, expected to close in H1 2025  —  U.S. fintech firm Fiserv (FI.N) will buy Canada's Payfare (PAY.TO) in a C$201.5 million ($140 million) deal as it looks …

Martin Matishak / The Record: President Biden signs the $895B 2025 defense policy bill, including $3B for the FCC's “rip and replace” program to get rid of Chinese networking equipment  —  The annual defense policy bill signed by President Joe Biden Monday evening allocates $3 billion to help telecom firms remove …

The Information: A look at OpenAI's interest in robotics, from investing in startups like Figure and Physical Intelligence to, sources say, considering making a humanoid robot  —  Over the past year, OpenAI has dropped not-so-subtle hints about its revived interest in robotics: investing in startups developing hardware …

Dan Primack / Axios: Sources: Founders Fund seeks ~$3B for its third growth equity fund; it raised $3.4B for its second growth fund and $1.8B for its eighth early-stage fund in 2022  —  - It also will have access to the incoming White House, thanks to Thiel's longtime support of President-elect Trump and the firm's numerous investments with Elon Musk.

Isaac Schorr / Mediaite: Elon Musk is one of two paid subscribers of an X account that has implied South Africa was better off under apartheid, slammed “Black ruled” countries, and more  —  Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and advisor to President-elect Donald Trump, is a paid subscriber to a virulently racist X account.

The Information: Two major China-based Amazon merchants say Amazon reps have recently been offering incentives like free ads and lower commissions if they stop selling on Temu  —  For popular China-based Amazon merchants, bargain site Temu has been an attractive new place to sell their wares.

Jody Godoy / Reuters: Filing: Apple asks to participate in the remedial phase of Google's US antitrust case, saying it can't rely on Google to defend their revenue-sharing agreements  —  Apple (AAPL.O) has asked to participate in Google's upcoming U.S. antitrust trial over online search, saying it cannot rely …

Bloomberg: Iran's Supreme Council of Cyberspace approves lifting its ban on “certain widely used foreign platforms”, naming WhatsApp and Google Play as the first two apps  —  - Allowing WhatsApp and Google Play may placate opponents  — Major social networking sites have been blocked for years

Stephanie Stacey / Financial Times: The biggest online dating companies are in crisis, as women and younger users increasingly look elsewhere, toward niche apps, websites, or real-life meetups  —  The biggest online dating companies are in crisis, as women and younger users look elsewhere, towards niche sites or real-life meets

Paresh Dave / Wired: West Bank residents, who have long complained of missing and outdated data on Google Maps, say the Israel-Hamas war has made the app even worse for navigation  —  One user told WIRED that Google Maps directed them to “drive right into a wall that's been up since 2003.”

Sheldon Reback / CoinDesk: US and Japanese law enforcement say North Korean hackers were responsible for stealing 4,502.9 BTC, worth $308M, from Japanese crypto exchange DMM in May 2024  —  The $308 million hack of Japanese crypto exchange DMM in May was the work of North Korean hackers, the U.S. and Japanese law enforcement agencies said Monday.

Pranshu Verma / Washington Post: Arizona's Maricopa County is set to have the second largest concentration of US data centers by 2028, as the state races to increase electricity production  —  As data centers drain America's power grids, a fierce battle is being waged for electricity.  On Navajo Nation land, many are on the losing end.

Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer: The US FTC orders Marriott and Starwood to implement a robust customer data security scheme after Starwood's 2014 to 2018 breaches and Marriott's 2018 breach  —  The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ordered Marriott International and Starwood Hotels to define and implement …

Michael Peel / Financial Times: A look at new tech-based mental health treatments like the Tetris method and Avatar therapy that are offering promising early results and possibilities  —  From video games to personal avatars, researchers are looking to develop a new generation of digital tools that do not involve taking a drug or therapy

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: OpenAI details “deliberative alignment”, a new method it used to make o1 and o3 “think” about its safety policy before responding, to improve overall alignment  —  OpenAI announced a new family of AI reasoning models on Friday, o3, which the startup claims to be more advanced …

Bloomberg: Sources: SoftBank's Masayoshi Son has recently become singularly obsessed with how to build the next Nvidia and wants competitive AI chips ready to ship by 2026  —  The billionaire SoftBank founder promises to invest $100 billion in the US as part of a sweeping redemption plan.

Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times: Broadcom CEO Hock Tan says AI spending frenzy will continue until the decade's end, and downplays an Intel bid, saying he had his “hands very full” in AI chips  —  CEO said Big Tech groups are ‘investing full tilt’ as US chipmaker soars to more than $1tn valuation

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Donald Trump announces that Sriram Krishnan, until recently a general partner at a16z, will serve as senior policy advisor for AI at the White House OSTP  —  Incoming president Donald Trump has confirmed reports that Sriram Krishnan, until recently a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz …

The Linux Foundation: A survey of 501 organizations globally estimates organizations contribute $7.7B annually to open source software and 86% of contribution value is employee labor  —  We've long understood that people are the engine that powers open source.  Prior research has found different ways to measure the value …

Financial Times: Sources: Palantir and Anduril are in talks with OpenAI, SpaceX, and more to form a consortium to bid for US defense contracts and plan to announce it in January  —  Consortium likely to include Elon Musk's SpaceX in move to grab a bigger slice of $850bn US defence budget

Bloomberg: A look at the challenges facing Crunchyroll, as current and ex-staffers say its management is out of touch, amid Disney and Netflix's expansion into anime  —  Disney and Netflix are expanding in the popular Japanese cartoon genre  —  At first glance, Sony Group Corp.'s $1.2 billion acquisition …

Kevin Roose / New York Times: A look at Amazon's revamped drone delivery program near Phoenix, Arizona, where the company's new MK-30 drones deliver dozens of packages a day to customers  —  A recent visit to the company's overhauled drone delivery program in Arizona left me impressed by the drones, but skeptical that the public will welcome them.

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple is working on a smart doorbell system with advanced facial recognition that can wirelessly connect and unlock third-party smart locks  —  Also: Company ramps up work on turning AirPods into a health device.