Anna Tong / Reuters:
Vercel, which develops the Next.js framework, raised a $250M Series E led by Accel at a $3.25B valuation, and says it recently exceeded $100M in annual revenue — Vercel, a software startup that provides a platform for building cloud-based web applications, on Thursday said it has raised $250 million …
Blackstone agrees to buy a majority stake in Israeli enterprise software company Priority Software, which has 17K clients and 500+ staff, at an $800M valuation (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg:
Blackstone agrees to buy a majority stake in Israeli enterprise software company Priority Software, which has 17K clients and 500+ staff, at an $800M valuation — – Deal values enterprise software company at $800 million — Transaction is latest in a string of Israeli tech deals
Microsoft’s decisions, like seemingly rowing back on Surface, Start Menu ads, closing studios, and porting AAA games to PS5, show a short-term financial focus (Jez Corden/Windows Central)
Jez Corden / Windows Central:
Microsoft’s decisions, like seemingly rowing back on Surface, Start Menu ads, closing studios, and porting AAA games to PS5, show a short-term financial focus — Microsoft has made a range of baffling decisions and awful mis-steps recently. You can trace everything back to insatiable desire for money.
A profile of Noland Arbaugh, who was paralyzed after an accident in mid-2016 and became the first person to receive Neuralink’s brain implant in January 2024 (Ashlee Vance/Bloomberg)
Ashlee Vance / Bloomberg:
A profile of Noland Arbaugh, who was paralyzed after an accident in mid-2016 and became the first person to receive Neuralink’s brain implant in January 2024 — For the first time, Noland Arbaugh explains how Elon Musk’s brain implant, which allows him to control a computer with his thoughts, has changed his life.
Senate hearing: US DNI Avril Haines says foreign adversaries will again seek to influence the upcoming elections, harnessing AI to spread disinformation (Associated Press)
Associated Press:
Senate hearing: US DNI Avril Haines says foreign adversaries will again seek to influence the upcoming elections, harnessing AI to spread disinformation — America’s foreign adversaries will again seek to influence the upcoming U.S. elections, top security officials warned members of the Senate Wednesday …
Chinese police in the Sichuan province dismantle an underground bank that used USDT for foreign currency exchanges worth $1.9B+, mainly to smuggle medicine (Timmy Shen/The Block)
Timmy Shen / The Block:
Chinese police in the Sichuan province dismantle an underground bank that used USDT for foreign currency exchanges worth $1.9B+, mainly to smuggle medicine — – Police in China have busted an underground bank that conducted foreign currency exchanges using USDT.
Ubisoft falls ~15% after warning that Q1 net bookings will be ~€275M, below €376M est., and reporting a €401M adjusted operating income in FY 2024 (Daniel Zuidijk/Bloomberg)
Daniel Zuidijk / Bloomberg:
Ubisoft falls ~15% after warning that Q1 net bookings will be ~€275M, below €376M est., and reporting a €401M adjusted operating income in FY 2024 — Ubisoft Entertainment SA shares fell the most in 16 months on Thursday after the French video game publisher warned bookings …
ElevenLabs quietly launches ElevenLabs Reader: AI Audio, its first consumer app to read web pages, PDFs and other documents aloud in 11 different voices (Ashley Carman/Bloomberg)
Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
ElevenLabs quietly launches ElevenLabs Reader: AI Audio, its first consumer app to read web pages, PDFs and other documents aloud in 11 different voices — The app is the first general consumer product from the unicorn startup … The app, called ElevenLabs Reader: AI Audio, can read web pages …
Google releases an emergency Chrome update to patch the third zero-day vulnerability exploited within a week, and the seventh zero-day fix in 2024 so far (Sergiu Gatlan/BleepingComputer)
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Google releases an emergency Chrome update to patch the third zero-day vulnerability exploited within a week, and the seventh zero-day fix in 2024 so far — Google has released a new emergency Chrome security update to address the third zero-day vulnerability exploited in attacks within a week.
Baidu reports Q1 revenue up 1% YoY to ~$4.4B, above ~$4.35B est., the slowest growth in over a year, and net income down 6% YoY to ~$755M, above ~$554M est. (Zheping Huang/Bloomberg)
Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:
Baidu reports Q1 revenue up 1% YoY to ~$4.4B, above ~$4.35B est., the slowest growth in over a year, and net income down 6% YoY to ~$755M, above ~$554M est. — Baidu Inc.’s revenue grew at the slowest pace in more than a year, as China’s flagging economy put pressure on its core advertising business.