Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: How a Chinese megabillionaire became the Jensen Huang of batteries. • Style and Shopping: Tech invaded Cannes. Then we went shopping.• Plus, Recommendations—our weekly pop culture picks: “Long Buried,” “How to Not Die in Prison” and “Dust Bunny”On Tuesday, a closely watched Congressional primary in New York City ended in defeat for Alex Bores, a former Palantir engineer turned state legislator who... Read more ›
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I’m at VidCon, where the Anaheim Convention Center is bustling and the mood is upbeat, even though it feels like brands and social apps shelled out less money for splashy pop up experiences and lounges than in the past. The displays did underscore how the creator economy is maturing, as more big brands get behind influencers.  Fanta parked a bright orange truck outside the convention center promoting the relaunch of... Read more ›
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Under pressure from regulators in Europe and elsewhere, Apple in recent years has taken small steps toward making the iPhone easier for consumers to repair. But self-repair remains a cumbersome step for consumers—particularly when it comes to battery replacement. Under a law passed by the European Union last year, phone makers have to ensure smartphone batteries can be replaced by their owners with easily accessible tools by 2025. With that... Read more ›
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U.S. rules curbing the export of artificial intelligence chips to China are beginning to squeeze the country’s AI industry. And companies ranging from behemoths like Alibaba to rising startups like Moonshot AI are all grappling with the impact. After Chinese online video giant Kuaishou unveiled a test version of Kling, its text-to-video AI model similar to OpenAI’s Sora, so many people rushed to sign up for the trial that Kuaishou... Read more ›
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We repeatedly heard two questions following our report on OpenAI’s staggering revenue growth earlier this month: What percentage of revenue comes from ChatGPT subscriptions versus OpenAI’s application programming interface, through which app developers can access its models? And what are OpenAI’s computing costs?This morning’s in-depth piece from Aaron brings us closer to answering both.Subscriptions to ChatGPT are the majority of OpenAI’s revenue by quite a margin—but its API business seems... Read more ›
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When Microsoft formed an alliance in 2019 with OpenAI to resell the startup’s artificial intelligence, it brought the reputation, connections and sales muscle to the table that seemed key for winning deals with large customers. Turns out OpenAI itself has gotten pretty good at cutting those deals. The revenue that the startup—best known for its ChatGPT chatbot—makes from selling access to AI models such as GPT-4 now exceeds what Microsoft... Read more ›
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A senior U.S. lithium industry executive has called for Western car and battery companies to pay a premium for lithium refined in the U.S., arguing that prices for the metal are too low to cover the cost of building and running processing plants there. Read more ›
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I'd prefer that artificial intelligence stay out of filmmaking, but like any other industry, AI is bound to disrupt Hollywood, especially if it’s left up to venture capitalists. News this morning proves it. Independent film studio A24 announced that it has raised money from New York venture capital firm Thrive Capital, run by Josh Kushner—brother of Jared Kushner. I hear that Thrive invested $75 million of a $250 million round... Read more ›
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The Kids Online Safety Act, a federal bill that requires social media platforms to take “reasonable measures” to prevent harm, is scheduled to be considered by the House Energy and Commerce Committee Thursday. It’s a small step for proponents of the bill after years of political rumblings about the need for tougher controls over social platforms. Some tech companies, notably Snap and X, support the proposed legislation. But there’s no... Read more ›
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Amazon plans to launch a section on its shopping site featuring cheap items that ship directly to overseas consumers from warehouses in China, according to slides shown to Chinese sellers, marking the e-commerce giant’s most aggressive response yet to the growth of bargain sites like Temu and Shein. The new marketplace will offer unbranded fashion, home goods and daily necessities, according to the slides, and orders will take 9 to... Read more ›
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We’re in the throes of artificial intelligence fever, but lessons from the last AI hype cycle still linger. Nearly four years ago, my colleague Amir published two stories detailing how businesses were starting to use artificial intelligence in meaningful (if sometimes rarified) ways, from checking the health of a Norwegian fish farm’s stock to scanning a T-Mobile customer service representative’s notes. Such practical uses were notable. At the time, AI... Read more ›
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Animoca Brands, a crypto gaming and metaverse conglomerate valued at $6 billion in 2022, is considering a public listing in Hong Kong or the Middle East as early as next year, co-founder and executive chair Yat Siu said. That would mark a return to public markets for the company, more than four years after it delisted from the Australian Securities Exchange amid questions about its accounting. Hong Kong and the... Read more ›
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And now for some good news. Self-driving cars, after more than a decade of overhyped chatter, are actually getting somewhere.Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving car unit, on Tuesday extended its robotaxi service to everyone in San Francisco, four years after it made a similar move in Phoenix. Also on Tuesday, Uber Freight and Aurora announced that Uber Freight will use Aurora-powered self-driving trucks, expected to begin service on the Dallas-Houston route at... Read more ›
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Last week, I reported that Zepto, an Indian instant-delivery company, was closing a new round at a valuation of $3.6 billion, the first financing for a non–artificial intelligence startup I’ve written about in ages. Since then, I’ve learned the company is already in discussions with investors about raising more, at a higher valuation, as U.S. firms plead for a spot aboard what they claim is an Indian rocket ship. Zepto... Read more ›
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I’m in Los Angeles this week ahead of VidCon, the annual conference focused on creators. The organizers of the event, which last year drew 55,000 people, expect the biggest theme this year to be the creator economy’s “coming of age.” After the boom in venture funding for startups and hype around the sector dissipated, investments have rebounded. The big question is what comes next.  “We’re starting to see content creators... Read more ›
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The Biden administration has suddenly imperiled China’s ability to produce alternatives to Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips. Officials at the U.S. Commerce Department in recent months have pressured American chip equipment makers and their suppliers to stop selling to Huawei Technologies, China’s top chip designer, and to the Chinese firm that manufactures Huawei chips. As a result, Huawei hit a snag in recent weeks, struggling to ramp up production of its... Read more ›
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OpenAI isn’t normally an acquirer of other companies but it has announced two purchases in the last week, of search and analytics firm Rockset and collaboration startup Multi. Both highlight how OpenAI is focused on enterprise offerings, and features that big business appreciate such as retrieval augmented generation, despite the attention given to its consumer products like its “flirtatious” ChatGPT.That makes sense: there’s surely more money in business-focused AI services... Read more ›
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Matt Mattingly sold the bed-and-breakfast inn he owned in southern Maine several years ago and was trying to “figure out what I want to be when I grow up.” This year, after looking for a remote job that would put his communications Ph.D. to use, he responded to an online ad looking for people to train artificial intelligence models from home. Mattingly passed a paid assessment lasting nearly six hours,... Read more ›
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Anduril has lined up backers for one of the biggest venture deals this year. The defense startup is close to finalizing a $1.5 billion investment co-led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, according to two people involved in the deal. Sands Capital, known for investments just before public offerings, is co-leading the deal as a new investor, according to one of those people. The investment will value the 7-year-old company at... Read more ›
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Students of history will recall the Hundred Years’ War between England and France in the 1300s and 1400s. It feels like we’re in the early stages of a second Hundred Years’ War, this time pitting U.S. tech firms against the European Commission.On Monday, the commission opened a new front in that war by issuing “preliminary findings” that Apple has breached the Digital Markets Act, one of the newish bits of... Read more ›
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Google wants chatbots that people can hang with—not just pelt with questions. The search engine giant has been developing a product for creating and conversing with customizable chatbots, which could be modeled on celebrities or made by users, two people with direct knowledge of the project said. The bots would be similar to the online personalities from Meta Platforms and startup Character.AI, based on celebrities like football star Tom Brady... Read more ›
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30.06.2026 09:44
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