~techmeme | Bookmarks (1054)

Rebecca Szkutak / TechCrunch: ServiceNow agrees to acquire cloud-native data catalog and data governance startup Data.World, which had raised over $130M and was valued at $350M in 2022  —  Enterprise workflow management platform ServiceNow on Wednesday announced its second AI-related acquisition this year.

Stuart Condie / Wall Street Journal: US real estate analytics provider CoStar agrees to acquire Domain, an Australian property listings website that competes with News Corp's REA, for about $1.92B  —  Domain shareholder Nine Entertainment said it supported the proposal  —  SYDNEY—U.S. real-estate analytics provider CoStar agreed …

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: SoundCloud quietly changed its policies to allow the company to use audio uploaded by users on its platform to “inform, train, develop or serve as input to AI”  —  SoundCloud appears to have quietly changed its terms of use to allow the company to train AI on audio that users upload to its platform.

Reuters: Japan's NTT, which owns 57.7% of IT services provider and data center operator NTT Data, launches a $16.4B take-private tender offer to buy the remaining stake  —  Japanese telecoms firm Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (9432.T) announced plans on Thursday to take its subsidiary NTT Data …

Natalie Lung / Bloomberg: How the three largest US gig economy companies, Lyft, DoorDash, and Uber, are aggressively expanding into Europe and Turkey through acquisitions  —  Tech Across the Globe … Revalued  —  Companies from Apple Inc. to Ford Motor Co. have revealed the shock their bottom lines are experiencing …

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Datadog acquires Eppo, which offers feature flagging and app experimentation tools, reportedly for $220M; Eppo had raised $47.5M and was valued at $80M in 2022  —  Datadog is on an acquisition spree.  Just a few weeks after snatching up Metaplane, an AI-powered observability startup …

Conor Hale / Fierce Biotech: The US FDA plans to deploy AI tools to all centers by June 30, 2025 to speed up scientific reviews, after completing a pilot and naming its first AI chief  —  FDA Artificial Intelligence AI and Machine Learning Biotech  —  The FDA has appointed its first chief artificial intelligence officer …

David Heaney / UploadVR: Meta unveils AssetGen 2.0, an AI system that generates higher quality 3D assets compared to AssetGen 1.0, rolling out to Horizon creators later in 2025  —  Meta has revealed a new version of its 3D asset generation AI system that it says is a “significant leap forward”.

Ben Thompson / Stratechery: Q&A with SAP CEO Christian Klein on data security, Databricks partnership, building a “social network for B2B”, positioning SAP as a neutral player, and more  —  Today's Stratechery Interview is with SAP CEO Christian Klein.  Klein started working for SAP as a 15 year-old student …

Ryan Autullo / Bloomberg Law: Google agrees to pay Texas $1.4B to settle two lawsuits claiming it tracks Texans' personal location and maintains their facial recognition data without consent  —  Google will pay the state of Texas $1.375 billion to resolve two privacy lawsuits claiming the tech giant tracks Texans' personal location …

Eli Tan / New York Times: Pinterest agrees to pay $34.7M to settle a 2021 lawsuit from Christine Martinez, an early adviser who claimed she co-created the platform without compensation  —  Christine Martinez, who was a friend of two of Pinterest's three co-founders, sued the company in 2021 for breach of implied contract and other claims.

Dan Mangan / CNBC: Google agrees to pay Texas $1.4 billion data privacy settlement … Google agreed to pay nearly $1.4 billion to the state of Texas to settle allegations of violating data privacy rights of the state's residents, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Friday.

Nancy Scola / Politico: A profile of Gail Slater, the head of the DOJ's antitrust unit who has become the leader of the MAGA antitrust movement over Big Tech “censorship” concerns  —  Gail Slater, the head of the DOJ's antitrust division, will show how serious the right is about bringing big tech companies to heel.

Coco Feng / South China Morning Post: Huawei unveiled its first laptop running HarmonyOS 5, after its Windows license for PCs expired in March 2025; the unnamed laptop uses Huawei's Celia assistant  —  Huawei Technologies on Thursday unveiled its first laptop that runs the company's self-developed operating system, HarmonyOS …

Scharon Harding / Ars Technica: Broadcom is sending cease-and-desist letters to owners of VMware perpetual licenses with expired support contracts, to get them to buy VMware product bundles  —  Broadcom has been sending cease-and-desist letters to owners of VMware perpetual licenses with expired support contracts, Ars Technica has confirmed.

Karissa Bell / Engadget: Meta rolls out its Account Status feature to Threads, letting users see when the company has removed or demoted posts or handed out other penalties  —  Threads will finally start giving users more visibility into when their accounts are penalized for breaking its rules.

Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat: Alibaba researchers detail ZeroSearch, a technique allowing LLMs to develop advanced search capabilities via simulation, claiming it cuts costs by up to 88%  —  Researchers at Alibaba Group have developed a novel approach that could dramatically reduce the cost and complexity of training AI systems …

Chris Cameron / New York Times: Trump threatens to end the Digital Equity Act, a Biden-era law aimed at expanding high-speed internet access, calling it “racist” and “totally unconstitutional”  —  President Trump denounced the Biden-era Digital Equity Act as “woke handouts based on race,” …

Reinhardt Krause / Investor's Business Daily: Cloudflare reports Q1 revenue up 27% YoY to $479.1M, vs. $469.3M est., and forecasts Q2 revenue of $500M to $501M, vs. $500.4M est.; NET jumps 8%+ after hours  —  Cloudflare (NET) stock climbed Thursday after the company reported first-quarter earnings that met views while revenue topped Wall Street targets.

Washington Post: Senate hearing: Sam Altman says that requiring government approval to release AI would be “disastrous” for the US' lead in AI, a reversal from his 2023 comments  —  Congressional testimony Thursday from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman illustrated a shift in the tech industry's attitude to the potential risks of AI.

Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch: SEC filing: Sterling Anderson, CPO and co-founder of self-driving truck startup Aurora, is resigning effective June 1, and will leave the board on August 31  —  Sterling Anderson, a veteran of the nascent autonomous vehicle sector and co-founder of Aurora, is resigning just a week …

Helene Braun / CoinDesk: Coinbase reports Q1 revenue up 24% YoY to $2B, vs. $2.1B est., trading volume up 26% YoY to $393B, and earnings per share of $0.24, vs. $1.93 est.  —  Shares of Coinbase (COIN) fell nearly 3% in post-market trading after it reported a significant drop in revenue in the first quarter of the year …

MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC: Affirm reports Q3 revenue up 36% YoY to $783M, vs. $783M est., GMV up 36% to $8.6B, above est., and forecasts Q4 revenue below est.; AFRM drops 8%+ after hours  —  WATCH NOW  —  Affirm, the provider of buy now, pay later loans, gave a revenue forecast for the current quarter …

Akash Sriram / Reuters: Lyft reports Q1 revenue up 14% YoY to $1.45B, vs. $1.47B est., increases its share buyback program to $750M after activist pressure; LYFT jumps 7%+ after hours  —  Lyft (LYFT.O) increased its stock buyback program to $750 million and posted a 14% rise in first-quarter revenue on Thursday …