Tech Meme

Christine Hall / TechCrunch: Banking app Clair, which helps employees get paid after finishing a shift, raised $25M led by Thrive Capital and $150M in debt from partner bank Pathward  —  After developing a free earned-wage advance offering for frontline workers two years ago, fintech company Clair is back with a new tool … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Dell Cameron / Wired: A look at a National Defense Authorization Act amendment, which if passed would forbid US government agencies from buying citizens’ search histories and more  —  An amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act would forbid government entities from buying Americans’ search histories, location data, and more. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times: Instagram Threads feels like Twitter’s early days, offering users an insta-network underpinned by Meta’s infrastructure that helped surpass smaller rivals  —  Launch of Mark Zuckerberg’s social network as a rival to Elon Musk’s platform sparks excited online chatter  —  It feels like 2006 all over again. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Antoine Gara / Financial Times: US fintech group FIS agrees to sell a majority stake in its merchant payments arm Worldpay to private equity firm GTCR for up to $18.5B, including $11.7B cash  —  Sale to GTCR will be one of the biggest corporate carve-outs in history  —  US financial technology group Fidelity National Information Services … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Sarah McBride / Bloomberg: PitchBook: US VCs invested $39.8B in Q2 2023, down ~50% YoY, across 3,011 startup deals, down ~33% YoY, with the number of angel or seed deals falling ~50% YoY  —  Venture capitalists are funding fewer startups, especially at the earliest stages of a company’s life, according to new data from research firm PitchBook. Lees verder op Tech Meme

New York Times: How Tom Brady’s crypto ambitions, including a bet on FTX, collided with reality, an example of the humiliating reckoning facing celebrities who embraced crypto  —  The superstar quarterback is among the celebrities dealing with the fallout from the crypto crash.  Others, like Taylor Swift, escaped. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Ben Blanchard / Reuters: TSMC does not expect China’s gallium and germanium export curbs to have any “impact on TSMC’s production”; a Chinese official said the rules are “just a start”  —  Taiwan’s TSMC (2330.TW), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said on Thursday it does not expect … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Olivia Solon / Bloomberg: Mastercard says nine UK banks, including Lloyds and NatWest, signed up to use its AI-based Consumer Fraud Risk system, trained on years of transaction data  —  Mastercard Inc. is selling a new artificial intelligence-powered tool that helps banks more effectively spot if their customers are trying to send money to fraudsters. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Emily M. Bender: Framing AI debates as a schism between people worried about AI going rogue and those illuminating actual harms is ahistorical and obscures important research  —  In two recent conversations with very thoughtful journalists, I was asked about the apparent ‘schism’ between those making a lot … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Meta’s Supplemental Privacy Policy for Threads says “your Threads profile can only be deleted by deleting your Instagram account”, surprising some users  —  Threads, Meta’s Twitter rival, is drawing users at an astounding pace, amassing 10 million signups in just seven hours … Lees verder op Tech Meme