~techmeme | Bookmarks (1054)

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Following Grok's “white genocide in South Africa” responses on X, xAI says an “unauthorized modification” was made to the Grok response bot's prompt on May 14  —  xAI blamed an “unauthorized modification” for a bug in its AI-powered Grok chatbot that caused Grok to repeatedly refer to …

Matthew Guariglia / Electronic Frontier Foundation: Montana became the first US state to close a data broker loophole that let police buy users' geolocation data and other digital info without a judge's warrant  —  Montana has done something that many states and the United States Congress have debated but failed to do: it has just enacted …

Tom Warren / The Verge: Sources: Microsoft stops production of its Surface Laptop Studio 2 and plans to mark the device's end of life in June, with no plans for a successor  —  The Surface Laptop Studio 2 is no longer being manufactured and there's no replacement in sight. … Microsoft has been quietly killing off …

Adi Robertson / The Verge: FTC v. Meta: Meta asks the judge to throw out the antitrust case, arguing the FTC failed to prove that Meta is an illegal monopoly after five weeks of trial  —  The government just rested its case. … Meta has filed a motion for judgment on the antitrust case it's currently fighting in court.

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: Windsurf launches SWE-1, its first family of software engineering AI models, claiming its largest model matches Claude 3.5 Sonnet, GPT-4.1, and Gemini 2.5 Pro  —  On Thursday, Windsurf, a startup that develops popular AI tools for software engineers, announced the launch of its first family …

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Apple says a warning on EU App Store listings for apps with no IAP has been live since March 2024, and the EU told it to hold off on tweaks that Apple proposed  —  Apple says the warning messages now appearing next to EU App Store listings that use third-party payment systems are not actually new.

Bloomberg: Sources: DOJ is conducting a criminal antitrust probe into whether Live Nation and AEG illegally colluded on concert refunds at the start of the COVID pandemic  —  The US Justice Department is conducting a criminal antitrust probe into how companies responded to mass concert cancellations …

Jason Schreier / Bloomberg: Take-Two reports Q4 net bookings up 17% YoY to $1.58B, vs. $1.55B est., net revenue up 13% YoY to $1.58B, and forecasts FY 2026 net bookings below expectations  —  Bookings, a measure of sales, grew 17% to $1.58 billion in the fourth quarter ended March 31, surpassing Wall Street projections of $1.55 billion.

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: Filing: Anthropic apologizes after one of its expert witnesses cited a fake article hallucinated by Claude in the company's legal battle with music publishers  —  A lawyer representing Anthropic admitted to using an erroneous citation created by the company's Claude AI chatbot …

Todd Spangler / Variety: Neal Mohan says the monetization rate of Shorts hit parity with core YouTube in the US and multiple other countries, and Shorts viewing grew 20% YoY in Q1 2025  —  YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, the morning after the platform's big ad pitch and party in New York City, had a new milestone to share …

Steve Lohr / New York Times: How Mayo Clinic is using AI to boost efficiency and amplify human abilities in its radiology department, which has an AI team of 40 people and 400+ radiologists  —  Experts predicted that artificial intelligence would steal radiology jobs.  But at the Mayo Clinic, the technology has been more friend than foe.

Katie Roof / Bloomberg: Sources: Spark Capital saw a gain of about $530M this week when eToro went public; Spark was eToro's largest shareholder with a 13% stake and had invested $19M  —  The venture firm first invested in the Israeli Robinhood competitor 15 years ago.  —  Venture firm Spark Capital saw a gain …

Issie Lapowsky / Vanity Fair: Q&A with FT's Patrick McGee on his new book Apple in China, which examines Apple's role in enabling China's rise; Apple says the book is “full of inaccuracies”  —  In his new book, Apple in China, Patrick McGee examines how Tim Cook unwittingly led Apple right into the heart of Trump's trade war.

Newley Purnell / Bloomberg: Meta promotes Benjamin Joe, its longtime VP for Southeast Asia, to VP of Asia Pacific and expands India VP Sandhya Devanathan's role to include Southeast Asia  —  Benjamin Joe has been appointed Meta's new regional vice president for the region, a Meta spokesperson said Thursday.

Andy Greenberg / Wired: Huione Guarantee, a Telegram-based black market for crypto scammers and money launderers that enabled $27B+ in transactions, shuts down after mass account bans  —  Following a WIRED inquiry, Telegram banned thousands of accounts used for crypto scam money laundering, including those of Haowang Guarantee …

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: OpenAI launches the Safety Evaluations Hub, a page showing how the company's models score on various tests for harmful content, jailbreaks, and hallucinations  —  OpenAI is moving to publish the results of its internal AI model safety evaluations more regularly in what the outfit is saying is an effort to increase transparency.

Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch: Austin Russell, the founder and CEO of lidar manufacturer Luminar, resigns following an ethics inquiry and is replaced by former Nuance CEO Paul Ricci  —  Austin Russell, who became a billionaire after his lidar startup Luminar went public, appears to be out as CEO, according to the company's board.

Jeremy Kahn / Fortune: Samaya AI, which is building AI models to assist financial analysts, raised a $43.5M Series A led by NEA, with participation from Eric Schmidt and others  —  Samaya AI cofounder and CEO Maithra Raghu.  —  Photo courtesy of Samaya AI  —  Samaya AI, a startup that creates AI models …

Reuters: CoreWeave plans to spend $20B to $23B in 2025 on AI infrastructure and data center capacity to meet demand, including from Microsoft; CRWV drops 7%+ after hours  —  CoreWeave (CRWV.O) is looking to spend $20 billion to $23 billion this year on AI infrastructure and data center capacity …

Natalie Lung / Bloomberg: Uber and delivery service iFood partner to integrate their services into each others' apps in Brazil; Uber ended its Uber Eats service in Brazil in March 2022  —  Rideshare giant Uber Technologies Inc. and Prosus NV-backed delivery service iFood are partnering to integrate their services …

Paresh Dave / Wired: Microsoft plans to shut down Bing Search APIs on August 11; a source says the largest customers will retain access, and DuckDuckGo confirms it won't be affected  —  Microsoft is limiting access to tools that boosted its rivals, but larger customers like DuckDuckGo say they won't be affected.

Reuters: Chinese sites like JD.com are offering discounts of up to 2,530 yuan, ~$350, on iPhone 16 models, an effort to spur sales after Q1 shipments fell  —  Chinese e-commerce platforms are offering discounts of up to 2,530 yuan ($351) on Apple's latest iPhone 16 models, an effort to spur sales …

Jordan Novet / CNBC: Cisco reports Q3 revenue up 11% YoY to $14.15B, vs. $14.08B est., forecasts Q4 revenue above estimates, and announces CFO Scott Herren will retire on July 26  —  Cisco reported earnings and revenue that topped analysts' estimates on Wednesday and issued guidance that also exceeded Wall Street's prediction.

Jordan Novet / CNBC: CoreWeave reports Q1 revenue up 420% YoY to $981.6M, vs. $853M est., and net loss of $314.6M, up from $129.2M a year earlier  —  Artificial intelligence infrastructure provider CoreWeave reported better-than-expected revenue on Wednesday in the company's first earnings release since going public.