News

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Web design and hosting platform Webflow acquires Intellimize, which raised $50M and offers AI-powered webpage personalization, a source says for “eight-figures”  —  Webflow, a web design and hosting platform that’s raised over $330 million at a… Read More »Web design and hosting platform Webflow acquires Intellimize, which raised $50M and offers AI-powered webpage personalization, a source says for “eight-figures” (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: Meta is restricting certain election-related keywords for Meta AI in India due to ongoing elections; Meta started testing its AI chatbot in India last week  —  Last week, Meta started testing its AI chatbot in India… Read More »Meta is restricting certain election-related keywords for Meta AI in India due to ongoing elections; Meta started testing its AI chatbot in India last week (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

Financial Times: Sources: Mistral plans to raise €500M at an over €5B valuation from multiple VCs and wealth funds, after raising ~€400M at a €2B valuation in December 2023  —  One-year-old French start-up approached by multiple investors who view it… Read More »Sources: Mistral plans to raise €500M at an over €5B valuation from multiple VCs and wealth funds, after raising ~€400M at a €2B valuation in December 2023 (Financial Times)

Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media: A look at Salad, which pays gamers in Fortnite skins and Roblox gift cards to rent their GPUs remotely to AI companies, including those making AI-generated porn  —  Salad, a company that pays gamers in… Read More »A look at Salad, which pays gamers in Fortnite skins and Roblox gift cards to rent their GPUs remotely to AI companies, including those making AI-generated porn (Emanuel Maiberg/404 Media)

James Reddick / The Record: Sophos researchers find “crude”, cheap ransomware tools being sold on the dark web, enabling inexperienced freelancers to easily launch attacks  —  Cheap ransomware is being sold for one-time use on dark web forums, allowing inexperienced… Read More »Sophos researchers find “crude”, cheap ransomware tools being sold on the dark web, enabling inexperienced freelancers to easily launch attacks (James Reddick/The Record)

Wall Street Journal: Internal draft: UK’s ICO says Google’s Privacy Sandbox falls short and leaves gaps that can be exploited to undermine privacy of users who should be anonymous  —  The Information Commissioner’s Office said in a draft report that… Read More »Internal draft: UK’s ICO says Google’s Privacy Sandbox falls short and leaves gaps that can be exploited to undermine privacy of users who should be anonymous (Wall Street Journal)

Raffaele Huang / Wall Street Journal: Apple removes WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China, saying it was ordered to do so by China’s cyberspace officials citing national security concerns  —  China’s cyberspace officials cite national-security concerns for… Read More »Apple removes WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China, saying it was ordered to do so by China’s cyberspace officials citing national security concerns (Raffaele Huang/Wall Street Journal)

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Washington, DC-based Cape, which is developing a mobile service that doesn’t ask for customers’ personal data, raised a $40M Series B co-led by A-Star and a16z  —  AT&T’s recent mega customer data breach — 74 million… Read More »Washington, DC-based Cape, which is developing a mobile service that doesn’t ask for customers’ personal data, raised a $40M Series B co-led by A-Star and a16z (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

Ryan Morrison / Tom’s Guide: Microsoft researchers introduce VASA-1, an AI model that creates a realistic talking face video from a portrait photo and an audio file, in research preview  —  Impressive lip-syncing  —  A new AI research paper from… Read More »Microsoft researchers introduce VASA-1, an AI model that creates a realistic talking face video from a portrait photo and an audio file, in research preview (Ryan Morrison/Tom’s Guide)

Dwarkesh Patel / Dwarkesh Podcast: Q&A with Mark Zuckerberg on Llama 3, buying H100 GPUs for Reels, AGI, energy constraints, dangers of open source, the metaverse, Meta’s custom silicon, and more  —  Caeser Augustus, intelligence explosion, bioweapons, $10b models, &… Read More »Q&A with Mark Zuckerberg on Llama 3, buying H100 GPUs for Reels, AGI, energy constraints, dangers of open source, the metaverse, Meta’s custom silicon, and more (Dwarkesh Patel/Dwarkesh Podcast)