Journals

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica: The US FCC waives a rule that forced Verizon to unlock phones 60 days after they are activated, which could make it harder for people to switch from Verizon  —  The Federal Communications Commission is… Read More »The US FCC waives a rule that forced Verizon to unlock phones 60 days after they are activated, which could make it harder for people to switch from Verizon (Jon Brodkin/Ars Technica)

Li Liu / Bloomberg: Taiwan issues an arrest warrant for OnePlus CEO Pete Lau for allegedly illegally hiring 70+ Taiwanese engineers, as it tries to stop China from raiding workers  —  Prosecutors in Taiwan issued an arrest warrant for the… Read More »Taiwan issues an arrest warrant for OnePlus CEO Pete Lau for allegedly illegally hiring 70+ Taiwanese engineers, as it tries to stop China from raiding workers (Li Liu/Bloomberg)

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica: A look at Confer, an open-source AI assistant project from Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike that is designed to provide end-to-end encryption for AI chats  —  Moxie Marlinspike—the pseudonym of an engineer who set a new… Read More »A look at Confer, an open-source AI assistant project from Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike that is designed to provide end-to-end encryption for AI chats (Dan Goodin/Ars Technica)

Jess Weatherbed / The Verge: Google makes improvements to Veo 3.1’s Ingredients to Video feature to make videos more expressive, and adds native vertical video generation and 4K upscaling  —  Videos should now be more consistent with the images they’re… Read More »Google makes improvements to Veo 3.1’s Ingredients to Video feature to make videos more expressive, and adds native vertical video generation and 4K upscaling (Jess Weatherbed/The Verge)

Bloomberg: Sources: India asked quick commerce companies to drop their 10-minute delivery promise due to concerns about rider safety; Blinkit already removed the assurance  —  India is asking quick commerce companies to drop their 10-minute delivery promise amid mounting concerns… Read More »Sources: India asked quick commerce companies to drop their 10-minute delivery promise due to concerns about rider safety; Blinkit already removed the assurance (Bloomberg)

Qianer Liu / The Information: Sources: China has told some tech companies that it will approve Nvidia H200 chip purchases only under special circumstances, such as for university research  —  The Chinese government this week told some tech companies it… Read More »Sources: China has told some tech companies that it will approve Nvidia H200 chip purchases only under special circumstances, such as for university research (Qianer Liu/The Information)

Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News: Flip, which offers an Alexa-like voice AI experience for businesses, raised a $20M Series A, bringing its total funding to $31M  —  Flip, a startup that claims to offer an Amazon Alexa-like voice AI… Read More »Flip, which offers an Alexa-like voice AI experience for businesses, raised a $20M Series A, bringing its total funding to $31M (Mary Ann Azevedo/Crunchbase News)

Politico: Governor Gavin Newsom says he has been negotiating for four months to neutralize California’s wealth tax ballot proposal; a compromise does not appear imminent  —  A compromise does not appear imminent.  A union official cast doubt on the possibility… Read More »Governor Gavin Newsom says he has been negotiating for four months to neutralize California’s wealth tax ballot proposal; a compromise does not appear imminent (Politico)

Colin Demarest / Axios: Onebrief, which makes AI-powered military workflow software, raised a $200M Series D, nearly doubling its valuation from $1.1B to $2.1B in about half of a year  —  Defense software company Onebrief raised $200 million and snapped… Read More »Onebrief, which makes AI-powered military workflow software, raised a $200M Series D, nearly doubling its valuation from $1.1B to $2.1B in about half of a year (Colin Demarest/Axios)

Meir Orbach / CTech: CrowdStrike acquires Israel-based browser security startup Seraphic, a source says for around $400M; Seraphic has raised around $37M in total  —  Founded in 2020, the Israeli company focuses on embedding security directly into the browser.  — … Read More »CrowdStrike acquires Israel-based browser security startup Seraphic, a source says for around $400M; Seraphic has raised around $37M in total (Meir Orbach/CTech)