~techmeme | Bookmarks (1043)

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Charlotte, NC-based Aiwyn, which provides automation software for accounting firms, raised $113M led by KKR and Bessemer, bringing its total funding to $127M  —  Accounting firms are struggling to adopt high-tech solutions.  That's according to a survey earlier this year from Rightsworks …

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: YouTube plans to start a crackdown on “egregious clickbait”, or videos where the titles or thumbnails make claims the videos don't back up, beginning in India  —  A lot of YouTube videos have flashy, misleading titles and thumbnails, such as “BREAKING NEWS” or “The president steps down …

Bloomberg: A look at Frank McCourt's efforts to acquire TikTok and the obstacles he faces, as he lobbies Congress and Trump's team and recruits former TikTok executives  —  - TikTok hopes Supreme Court will halt ban at final hour  — McCourt is pitching his bid to Congress, Trump's team

Charles Rollet / TechCrunch: Backflip, which is building AI models that can generate 3D designs using text, sketches, or photos as prompts, raised a $30M Series A co-led by NEA and a16z  —  What if it were as easy to generate a usable 3D design as prompting ChatGPT?  That's the mission of Backflip …

Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information: Anthropic, whose CEO, Dario Amodei, has vocally opposed Donald Trump, and OpenAI look to hire more people with ties to Trump and the GOP for their policy teams  —  Lately, AI developer Anthropic has been riding high, with its models' impressive performance on tasks like code generation helping …

New York Times: Sources: the US' proposed AI chip framework would block adversaries entirely, and give others quotas based on their US alignment, threatening Nvidia's expansion  —  The chipmaker expects more than $10 billion in foreign sales this year, but the Biden administration is advancing rules that could curb that growth.

New York Times: In 150+ X posts, Elon Musk led the charge to kill a bipartisan spending deal, in part by sharing misinfo, which may lead to a government shutdown over Christmas  —  The world's richest man led the charge to kill a bipartisan spending deal, in part by promoting false and misleading claims about it.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Google releases Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking, an experimental “reasoning” model that “explicitly shows its thoughts” and can use them to strengthen its reasoning  —  Google has released what it's calling a new “reasoning” AI model — but it's in the experimental stages …

Allyson Versprille / Bloomberg: The US FAA publishes 22 temporary flight restrictions for drones over parts of New Jersey, as public hysteria over sightings of possible drone activity persists  —  The US Federal Aviation Administration prohibited drone flights over several parts of New Jersey as public hysteria over sightings continues to persist.