Ride-hailing giant Lyft said it has agreed to acquire FREENOW, a German multi-mobility app with ride-hail at its core, from BMW and Mercedes-Benz Mobility for about $197 million in cash. The acquisition opens up the European market to Lyft for the first time. The company has only operated in the U.S. and Canada since it […]
AMD takes $800M charge on US license requirement for AI chips
AMD says that the U.S. government’s license control requirement for exporting AI chips to China and certain other countries may impact its earnings materially. If AMD doesn’t successfully obtain a license, the company could be on the hook for roughly $800 million in inventory, purchase commitments, and related reserves charges, the company said in a […]
Patreon tests a native live video feature where creators can stream 24/7
Patreon is finally experimenting with a native livestreaming, a new feature that could attract more creators and help them earn more money. The capability is rolling out to select testers this week and will become more widely available this summer. Similar to other platforms, Patreon’s new livestream feature comes with a live chat where fans […]
Being A Tourist In My Own City
[[{“value”:” Recently, I had the privilege of being a tourist in my own city! My parents came to visit me last week from Michigan, and we packed our days full of things to do in and around the Brisbane area. They were only on the ground for six full days (it roughly takes a day to fly here and back…
A dev built a test to see how AI chatbots respond to controversial topics
A pseudonymous developer has created what they’re calling a “free speech eval,” SpeechMap, for the AI models powering chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and X’s Grok. The goal is to compare how different models treat sensitive and controversial subjects, the developer told TechCrunch, including political criticism and questions about civil rights and protest. AI companies have […]
X’s UK division saw revenue decline 66% in 2023 following Musk’s takeover
X has not been faring well in the U.K., which used to be a major source of revenue for the social network prior to Elon Musk’s takeover. Still named Twitter UK Ltd, revenues and profits for X’s U.K. entity collapsed by over 60% in 2023, according to accounts filed this week with the U.K.’s Companies […]
Cosmic Robotics’ robots could speed up solar panel deployments
Cosmic Robotics has developed a robotic assistant that does the heavy lifting on solar job sites.
Hammerspace, an unstructured data wrangler used by Nvidia, Meta and Tesla, raises $100M at $500M+ valuation
Artificial intelligence services at their heart are massive data plays: you need data — a lot of it — to build the models, and then the models need efficient ways to ingest and output data to work. A company called Hammerspace has built a system to help AI and other organisations tap into data troves […]
Google used AI to suspend over 39M ad accounts suspected of fraud
Google on Wednesday said it suspended 39.2 million advertiser accounts on its platform in 2024 — more than triple the number from the previous year — in its latest crackdown on ad fraud. By leveraging large language models (LLMs) and using signals such as business impersonation and illegitimate payment details, the search giant said it could suspend […]
Visa-backed African unicorn Moniepoint tackles remittances. But is it late to the game?
When Visa invested in Nigerian fintech Moniepoint earlier this year, it didn’t just validate the newly minted unicorn — it signaled a bold new direction. As part of that deal, the Nigerian fintech best known for building one of Africa’s largest business banking platforms, hinted at plans to integrate with Visa Direct, a move that […]