CeFi and DeFi in the face of regulation
Ira Lam Contributor Ira Lam is chief legal officer at SuperLayer, a web3 venture studio for launching new multi-chain, tokenized consumer products. The full magnitude of the impact of the current market volatility in the wake of the collapse of FTX is still unknown. The dominoes keep falling and it is hard to predict how […].
Twitter partners with eToro to show real-time stock and crypto information
Twitter has partnered with the investment platform eToro to show real-time information about stocks and crypto prices. This expands upon the social network’s Cashtag feature, which provided info about a limited number of stocks and crypto coins through TradingView data. The social media company first introduced the feature in December, letting users search for a […].
MassMutual launches $100 million fund to invest in diverse founders
Insurance company MassMutual announced Thursday the launch of a new impact investing MM Catalyst Fund of $100 million. The money will be used to continue investing in Massachusetts-based diverse-led companies. It’s close to finishing the deployment of its first MM Catalyst Fund of $50 million, which launched two years ago and has so far invested […].
This startup wants to train art-generating AI strictly on licensed images
Generative AI, particularly text-to-image AI, is attracting as many lawsuits as it is venture dollars. Two companies behind popular AI art tools, Midjourney and Stability AI, are entangled in a legal case that alleges they infringed on the rights of millions of artists by training their tools on web-scraped images. Separately, stock image supplier Getty Images […].
With Bedrock, Amazon enters the generative AI race
Amazon is throwing its hat into the generative AI ring. But rather than build AI models entirely by itself, it’s recruiting third parties to host models on AWS. AWS today unveiled Amazon Bedrock, which provides a way to build generative AI-powered apps via pretrained models from startups including AI21 Labs, Anthropic and Stability AI. Available […].
Twitch CEO Dan Clancy defends cutting 400 employees, saying the move was vital to keep the service viable, and plans to meet with creators to allay their fears (Cecilia D’Anastasio/Bloomberg)
Cecilia D’Anastasio / Bloomberg: Twitch CEO Dan Clancy defends cutting 400 employees, saying the move was vital to keep the service viable, and plans to meet with creators to allay their fears — Dan Clancy, Twitch’s new chief executive officer, has led projects at NASA and Google, and once wanted to look for life on […].
AWS begins offering customers access to LLMs by Anthropic, Stability AI, AI21 Labs, and AWS, aiming to become a neutral platform for generative AI features (Tom Dotan/Wall Street Journal)
Tom Dotan / Wall Street Journal: AWS begins offering customers access to LLMs by Anthropic, Stability AI, AI21 Labs, and AWS, aiming to become a neutral platform for generative AI features — The world’s largest cloud provider wants to become the Switzerland of generative AI and let companies pick their own software and models from […].
Discord says it is cooperating with US law enforcement’s investigation into the classified material breach (Raphael Satter/Reuters)
Raphael Satter / Reuters: Discord says it is cooperating with US law enforcement’s investigation into the classified material breach — Instant messaging platform Discord said on Wednesday it was cooperating with U.S. law enforcement’s investigation into a leak of secret U.S. documents that has grabbed attention around the world. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/i8DTM1X.
Otterize raises $11.5M to help developers securely connect software services
Tomer Greenwald, Uri Sarid and Ori Shoshan, software developers by trade, found themselves building and configuring software authentication and authorization mechanisms repeatedly — each time with a different tech stack. Frustrated with the process, they sought to create a platform that enables developers to focus on writing code rather than on constantly configuring server permissions. […].
How the US is making arrests and seizing crypto funds, like James Zhong’s 50K+ bitcoin, using Chainalysis and other tools to identify criminals via transactions (Robert McMillan/Wall Street Journal)
Robert McMillan / Wall Street Journal: How the US is making arrests and seizing crypto funds, like James Zhong’s 50K+ bitcoin, using Chainalysis and other tools to identify criminals via transactions — Federal authorities are making arrests and seizing funds with the help of new tools to identify criminals through cryptocurrency transactions from Techmeme https://ift.tt/SoRr8ng.
An investor in 50+ AI startups warns against building a “God-like AI” and says companies are “running towards a finish line” without knowing the ramifications (Ian Hogarth/Financial Times)
Ian Hogarth / Financial Times: An investor in 50+ AI startups warns against building a “God-like AI” and says companies are “running towards a finish line” without knowing the ramifications — The writer of this essay is an investor and co-author of the annual “State of AI” report from Techmeme https://ift.tt/tEYiWkO.
Sources: ByteDance is offering to pay developers who made VR apps for Meta to bring them to its Pico headsets, paying between $15K and $25K per title (Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street Journal: Sources: ByteDance is offering to pay developers who made VR apps for Meta to bring them to its Pico headsets, paying between $15K and $25K per title — ByteDance offers to pay software makers to bring apps to its VR device, while Meta sees friction over its app-store approvals from Techmeme https://ift.tt/zE5iVoy.
As tech slumps, SoftBank sells VC unit to Singapore-based firm led by Masayoshi Son’s brother
SoftBank is selling one of its venture capital arms, South Korea-based SoftBank Ventures Asia (SBVA), to The Edgeof, a Singaporean investment firm, according to the two companies. The deal’s financial terms have not been disclosed, but the Singaporean VC firm aims to complete the acquisition this year. Last month, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son’s younger brother […].
Taiwan Ministry of Finance data: chipmaking machine exports to the US rose 42.6% YoY to $71.3M in March 2023, while exports to China dropped 33.7% YoY (Yoshihiro Sato/Bloomberg)
Yoshihiro Sato / Bloomberg: Taiwan Ministry of Finance data: chipmaking machine exports to the US rose 42.6% YoY to $71.3M in March 2023, while exports to China dropped 33.7% YoY — US purchases of machines to make computer chips from Taiwan rose to a record in March, as the Biden administration works to reinvigorate the […].
Denmark-based LMS365, an online learning management system for Microsoft 365 and Teams, raised $20M in its first institutional funding round (Paul Sawers/TechCrunch)
Paul Sawers / TechCrunch: Denmark-based LMS365, an online learning management system for Microsoft 365 and Teams, raised $20M in its first institutional funding round — Danish company LMS365, an online learning management system (LMS) built for use inside Microsoft products, has raised $20 million in its first institutional round of funding. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/l52SEFP.
Google plans to shut Currents, its Google+ replacement for G Suite launched in 2019, on August 8 so users don’t have to work in a “separate, siloed destination” (Mitchell Clark/The Verge)
Mitchell Clark / The Verge: Google plans to shut Currents, its Google+ replacement for G Suite launched in 2019, on August 8 so users don’t have to work in a “separate, siloed destination” — / It’ll wind down starting in 2023 and be replaced with Spaces … Google has announced that it’ll shut down Currents […].
Ethereum successfully completes its Shanghai, or Shapella update, letting users withdraw staked ether tokens; ~1.2M ETH are expected to be withdrawn in a week (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg: Ethereum successfully completes its Shanghai, or Shapella update, letting users withdraw staked ether tokens; ~1.2M ETH are expected to be withdrawn in a week — The Ethereum blockchain, the most important commercial highway in the digital-asset sector, successfully implemented a widely anticipated software upgrade. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/x2IltE9.
A look at researchers’ use of deep neural networks to examine historical documents and the risks, such as models slipping bias or falsifications into records (Moira Donovan/MIT Technology Review)
Moira Donovan / MIT Technology Review: A look at researchers’ use of deep neural networks to examine historical documents and the risks, such as models slipping bias or falsifications into records — The historians of tomorrow are using computer science to analyze how people lived centuries ago. — It’s an evening in 1531, in the […].
Snap signs new music licensing deals to expand its Sounds library
Snap has signed a deal with multiple music labels to expand its Sounds library, the social app’s product that lets people use song clips in Snaps and Stories. The company said participating labels include US-based UnitedMasters, Netherlands-based BUMA/STEMRA, and SUISA Digital Licensing AG. This includes a repertoire of IP bodies including SUISA: Switzerland, AKKA/LAA: Latvia, […].
Thynk wants to upgrade hotel stays with a vertical software platform
Meet Thynk, a new company that wants to build the definite enterprise software solution for the hospitality industry. The startup just raised a $13 million Series A round. This round was led by Singular, with a New-York based fund managed by Itai Tsiddon and Belgian investment firm CNP (Groupe Frère) also participating. Fly Ventures, an existing shareholder […].