Tech Meme

New York Times: Sources: Stripe is aiming to raise ~$2.5B at a $55B to $60B valuation, led by Thrive Capital, which has committed $1B; Stripe was valued at ~$95B in March 2021  —  Thrive has committed $1 billion, which would value the payments provider Stripe at about $55 billion to $60 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Kim Jaewon / Nikkei Asia: Samsung reports Q4 operating profit down 69% YoY to ~$3.5B, its lowest since Q3 2014, and revenue down 8% YoY to ~$57.3B, citing weak chip and smartphone demand  —  South Korean tech giant’s slump expected to continue in first half of this year  —  SEOUL — Samsung Electronics said Tuesday … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Erin Mulvaney / Wall Street Journal: A look at MetaBirkins, 100 NFTs created by a self-described entrepreneur and artist in 2021, as Hermès goes to court in NYC seeking to stop the use of its brand  —  Lawsuit is an early test of how a company can exercise its rights against virtual assets it didn’t authorize Lees verder op Tech Meme

Kat Bailey / IGN: Sources: Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony do not plan to attend E3 2023, to be held in-person from June 13 to June 16; E3 2022 was canceled due to the pandemic  —  All three of gaming’s first-party console manufacturers appear poised to skip E3’s big return.  —  E3’s first physical event … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch: Payment card services company Marqeta plans to acquire NYC-based fintech infrastructure startup Power Finance for $223M in cash plus $52M subject to a milestone  —  Marqeta has agreed to acquire two-year-old fintech infrastructure startup Power Finance for $223 million in cash … Lees verder op Tech Meme

James Vincent / The Verge: After OpenAI opened a waitlist for a faster, paid version of ChatGPT, some users report seeing a “pro” plan for $42/month; the company hasn’t announced pricing  —  Earlier this month, OpenAI said it was exploring ways to monetize its AI chatbot ChatGPT, giving users the opportunity … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Tiernan Ray / ZDNet: Meta Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun says ChatGPT is “not particularly innovative” in its underlying techniques and other research labs are doing similar work  —  Much ink has been spilled of late about the tremendous promise of OpenAI’s ChatGPT program for generating natural-language utterances in response to human prompts. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Hannah Murphy / Financial Times: How Esther Crawford, Twitter’s director of product management, became one of the most influential leaders from the old guard in Elon Musk’s “hardcore” Twitter  —  Days after Elon Musk had completed his $44bn buyout of Twitter, Esther Crawford shared a picture of herself sleeping … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Dan Taylor / Tech.eu: Paris-based PASQAL, which builds quantum computers using neutral atoms, raised a €100M Series B led by Temasek, bringing its total funding to €125M  —  Once the stuff of Feynman’s dreams, Pascal executives predict that their solution will deliver major commercial advantages over classical computers by 2024. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Nicole Farley / Search Engine Land: Google plans to sunset Optimize and Optimize 360, which let marketers conduct A/B testing to improve their website or app user experience, on September 30, 2023  —  Any experiments and personalizations still active will end.  —  Google Optimize and Optimize 360 will no longer be available after September 30, 2023. Lees verder op Tech Meme