News

Damilare Dosunmu / Rest of World: Omdia: South African streaming company Showmax had 2.1M subscribers in Africa at the end of November 2023, ahead of Netflix’s 1.8M and Amazon Prime Video’s 300K  —  Showmax sits at the top of the… Read More »Omdia: South African streaming company Showmax had 2.1M subscribers in Africa at the end of November 2023, ahead of Netflix’s 1.8M and Amazon Prime Video’s 300K (Damilare Dosunmu/Rest of World)

Financial Times: A look at OpenAI’s business model as the company believes it can more than double the yearly run rate by 2025; ChatGPT enterprise now has 300+ paying customers  —  The AI startup is one of the fastest-growing companies… Read More »A look at OpenAI’s business model as the company believes it can more than double the yearly run rate by 2025; ChatGPT enterprise now has 300+ paying customers (Financial Times)

Zoë Schiffer / Wired: Extremely Hardcore book excerpt: how Elon Musk’s decision to impose rate limits on Twitter in summer 2023 helped upsell Blue, as he prepared to launch xAI  —  Last summer, Elon Musk began rate-limiting the number of… Read More »Extremely Hardcore book excerpt: how Elon Musk’s decision to impose rate limits on Twitter in summer 2023 helped upsell Blue, as he prepared to launch xAI (Zoë Schiffer/Wired)

Owen Walker / Financial Times: The CEO of Greek payments company Viva Wallet, co-owned by JPMorgan, sues the bank for allegedly suppressing Viva’s growth, as JPMorgan files a counter claim  —  Wall Street bank accused of trying to drive down… Read More »The CEO of Greek payments company Viva Wallet, co-owned by JPMorgan, sues the bank for allegedly suppressing Viva’s growth, as JPMorgan files a counter claim (Owen Walker/Financial Times)

Brian Fung / CNN: Prospects of a wide-ranging AI bill in the US this year are rapidly dimming, despite Senator Chuck Schumer’s push to put AI regulation at the top of the agenda  —  Artificial intelligence is already sowing chaos… Read More »Prospects of a wide-ranging AI bill in the US this year are rapidly dimming, despite Senator Chuck Schumer’s push to put AI regulation at the top of the agenda (Brian Fung/CNN)

Javier Espinoza / Financial Times: Some European entrepreneurs believe the EU’s scrutiny of deals involving tech giants will lead to less M&A activity, reducing exit routes from their business  —  Some entrepreneurs believe there will now be less deal activity,… Read More »Some European entrepreneurs believe the EU’s scrutiny of deals involving tech giants will lead to less M&A activity, reducing exit routes from their business (Javier Espinoza/Financial Times)

Joanna Stern / Wall Street Journal: A look at The Shotline, a project using ElevenLabs’ tech to create audio deepfakes of kids killed in gun violence, to place AI-generated calls to US lawmakers  —  Grieving parents made these audio deepfakes… Read More »A look at The Shotline, a project using ElevenLabs’ tech to create audio deepfakes of kids killed in gun violence, to place AI-generated calls to US lawmakers (Joanna Stern/Wall Street Journal)

Oliver Darcy / CNN: Meta struggles to precisely define what political content is, offering only a vague statement, after saying it wouldn’t amplify political content on Threads  —  What constitutes “political” content?  —  It’s an important question that Meta has… Read More »Meta struggles to precisely define what political content is, offering only a vague statement, after saying it wouldn’t amplify political content on Threads (Oliver Darcy/CNN)

The Information: Sources: Meta is reducing payments to news orgs that fact-check potential WhatsApp misinformation, including on elections, and has cut funding for CrowdTangle  —  Meta Platforms is reducing payments to news organizations that fact-check potential misinformation on WhatsApp, including… Read More »Sources: Meta is reducing payments to news orgs that fact-check potential WhatsApp misinformation, including on elections, and has cut funding for CrowdTangle (The Information)

Ashley Belanger / Ars Technica: The European Court of Human Rights rules backdoors that weaken E2EE violate human rights law, after Russia began requiring Telegram to decrypt messages in 2017  —  Cops have alternative means to access encrypted messages, court… Read More »The European Court of Human Rights rules backdoors that weaken E2EE violate human rights law, after Russia began requiring Telegram to decrypt messages in 2017 (Ashley Belanger/Ars Technica)