Tech Meme

Wired: At a protest in SF, blind Uber and Lyft users claim the companies aren’t doing enough to prevent drivers from turning away passengers with visual impairments  —  At a protest in San Francisco, blind Uber and Lyft users claim that the ride-hailing companies aren’t doing enough to prevent drivers from turning them away. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Wall Street Journal: Sources: Perplexity is looking to raise ~$500M to double its valuation to $8B or more; Perplexity’s annualized revenue is ~$50M, up from ~$10M in March  —  Search-based chatbot seeks to raise about $500 million in what would be its fourth funding round in a year Lees verder op Tech Meme

Alexandra Marquez / NBC News: After Musk promises to give $1M to one swing state voter a day who signs his PAC’s petition, PA’s governor says “law enforcement could take a look at” the plan  —  Musk announced Saturday that every day until Election Day, he would give $1 million to a randomly selected voter … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Lisa Bonos / Washington Post: About $2B has been bet on predicting the next US president on Polymarket, which has excluded US users since 2022 as part of a settlement with federal regulators  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Scott Owens, an amateur watchmaker in Madison, Wis., waited years for a chance to legally bet money on U.S. politics. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: some at Apple think it is over two years behind the leaders in generative AI; a closer look at changes in Apple’s HR and hardware engineering groups  —  Apple’s new iPad mini highlights the company’s secret advantage in artificial intelligence.  Also: Sonos weighs a headphone reboot … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Daysia Tolentino / NBC News: After allegations of poor working conditions on MrBeast’s Amazon Studios show Beast Games, industry insiders call for more safety oversight on creator-run sets  —  YouTube channels are gaining more mainstream attention — but some in the digital entertainment industry think growth should require better oversight. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Anthropic: Anthropic evaluates four “sabotage” threat vectors for its Claude 3 Opus and Claude 3.5 Sonnet models and finds that “minimal mitigations are sufficient”  —  Any industry where there are potential harms needs evaluations.  Nuclear power stations have continuous radiation monitoring … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Mackenzie Hawkins / Bloomberg: In a letter, key US lawmakers urged Japan to strengthen restrictions on sales of chipmaking equipment to China or risk facing US curbs on Japanese companies  —  – China Committee leaders write to Japan’s ambassador to US  — Failure to act risks new US limits on Japanese firms, they say Lees verder op Tech Meme

Cate Lawrence / Tech.eu: Kazakhstan-based Kaspi.kz agrees to acquire a majority share, or 65.4%, of Turkish e-commerce platform Hepsiburada for ~$1.13B, expected to close in Q1 2025  —  The share acquisition is poised to benefit entrepreneurs and SMEs in Kazakhstan and Turkey.  —  Kazakhstan fintech Kaspi.kz … Lees verder op Tech Meme

David Pan / Bloomberg: Six months after the bitcoin halving, some miners hold their bitcoin, while others spend more on developing AI data centers and see the largest stock gains  —  – Shares of firms keeping tokens they mint are lagging Bitcoin  — Best performers are spending on developing AI data centers Lees verder op Tech Meme