The battle over $20 billion worth of climate-related funding authorized by Congress continues as an appellate court ruled on Tuesday in favor of the Environmental Protection Agency, which had terminated Biden-era grants made to nonprofits. The legal tussle stems from EPA administrator Lee Zeldin’s decision to cancel grants dispersed as …
Read More »Amazon launches Lens Live, an AI-powered shopping tool for use in the real world
Amazon is further investing in AI-powered shopping experiences with Tuesday’s launch of Lens Live, a new AI-powered upgrade to its Amazon Lens shopping feature that allows consumers to discover new products through visual search, similar to competitors like Google Lens and Pinterest Lens. The tool will also integrate with Amazon’s …
Read More »OpenAI acquires product testing startup Statsig and shakes up its leadership team
OpenAI announced in a blog post on Tuesday that it agreed to acquire the product testing startup, Statsig, and bring on its founder and CEO, Vijaye Raji, as the company’s CTO of Applications. OpenAI is paying $1.1 billion for Statsig in an all-stock deal — one of the largest acquisitions …
Read More »Klarna revives IPO plans, aims to raise $1.27B
Swedish buy now, pay later (BNPL) startup Klarna and its shareholders are reviving its initial public offering, hoping to raise as much as $1.27 billion in a listing that would value the company at up to $14 billion. The company and some of its shareholders are together selling approximately 34.3 …
Read More »MrBeast reportedly plans to launch a phone company
MrBeast, the 27-year-old popular YouTuber known for his elaborate challenges and giveaways, is venturing into a new realm: He’s reportedly launching his own phone company. According to Business Insider, which viewed a leaked investor deck, MrBeast is planning to launch a mobile phone service next year. Business Insider also reported …
Read More »Tesla Dojo: the rise and fall of Elon Musk’s AI supercomputer
For years, Elon Musk has spoken of the promise of Dojo, the AI supercomputer that was supposed to be the cornerstone of Tesla’s AI ambitions. It was important enough to Musk that in July 2024, he said the company’s AI team would “double down” on Dojo in the lead-up to …
Read More »Tesla’s fourth ‘Master Plan’ reads like LLM-generated nonsense
Tesla has published its fourth so-called “Master Plan,” and at a high level it is about how the company wants to lead the charge into planet-wide adoption of humanoid robots and sustainable energy. But the post lacks an important building block of plans: specifics. Even CEO Elon Musk agrees. In …
Read More »WordPress shows off Telex, its experimental AI development tool
Web publishing platform WordPress is introducing an early version of an AI development tool, which CEO Matt Mullenweg described as a “V0 or Lovable, but specifically for WordPress” — V0 and Lovable being references to popular “vibe coding” services for building software using prompt-based, AI interfaces. Mullenweg introduced the new …
Read More »Tesla’s Dojo, a timeline | TechCrunch
Elon Musk doesn’t want Tesla to be just an automaker. He wants Tesla to be an AI company, one that’s figured out how to make cars drive themselves. Crucial to that mission was Dojo, a custom-built supercomputer designed by Tesla to train its Full Self-Driving (FSD) neural networks. FSD isn’t …
Read More »Anthropic raises $13B Series F at $183B valuation
AI firm Anthropic has raised a $13 billion Series F round that brings its post-money valuation up to $183 billion – funds the company says will be used to grow its enterprise adoption, deepen safety research, and support international expansion. Iconiq co-led the round with Fidelity Management & Research Company …
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