Larry Dignan / Constellation Research:
Google Cloud debuts Gemini 1.5 Flash and 1.5 Pro with a 2M context window, twice as big as before, “grounding” for better Google search accuracy, and new agents — Google Cloud launched a series of updates including new Gemini 1.5 Flash and 1.5 Pro models with a 2 million context window …
Sources describe Meta’s efforts to de-emphasize political content across its family of apps, its reduction and reshuffling of election integrity staff, and more (New York Times)
New York Times:
Sources describe Meta’s efforts to de-emphasize political content across its family of apps, its reduction and reshuffling of election integrity staff, and more — In January 2021, after pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, Mark Zuckerberg announced a new priority for Meta …
Sources: Mark Zuckerberg wants to get away from politics, pulling back from charitable causes that may seem partisan, tamping down employee activism, and more (New York Times)
New York Times:
Sources: Mark Zuckerberg wants to get away from politics, pulling back from charitable causes that may seem partisan, tamping down employee activism, and more — It was only a little more than a decade ago that Mark Zuckerberg had few qualms about airing his politics.
Sources: some key staff working on Microsoft’s distilled AI models like Phi, trained on synthetic data, have left the Microsoft AI unit led by Mustafa Suleyman (Aaron Holmes/The Information)
Aaron Holmes / The Information:
Sources: some key staff working on Microsoft’s distilled AI models like Phi, trained on synthetic data, have left the Microsoft AI unit led by Mustafa Suleyman — In case you missed it, my colleagues broke news yesterday about Anthropic’s attempt to draft off OpenAI’s pending fundraising, by looking to do its own funding round.
Roku unveils the $100 Roku Ultra, which is 30% faster than its other streaming players and has Wi-Fi 6, HDMI 2.1, Dolby Atmos, the Voice Remote Pro, and more (Chris Welch/The Verge)
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Roku unveils the $100 Roku Ultra, which is 30% faster than its other streaming players and has Wi-Fi 6, HDMI 2.1, Dolby Atmos, the Voice Remote Pro, and more — One day after the Google TV Streamer hit stores, Roku is announcing its latest streaming player.
Sources: Scale AI nearly quadrupled sales YoY to ~$400M in H1 2024 and had ~$980M in cash; the data labeling startup raised $1B at a $13.8B valuation in May (Cory Weinberg/The Information)
Cory Weinberg / The Information:
Sources: Scale AI nearly quadrupled sales YoY to ~$400M in H1 2024 and had ~$980M in cash; the data labeling startup raised $1B at a $13.8B valuation in May — Helping artificial intelligence companies improve the accuracy of their large language models is turning into a giant business for Scale AI …
Collaboration software maker Smartsheet agrees to be acquired by Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners for $8.4B in cash, or $56.50/share, closing in early 2025 (Rohan Goswami/CNBC)
Rohan Goswami / CNBC:
Collaboration software maker Smartsheet agrees to be acquired by Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners for $8.4B in cash, or $56.50/share, closing in early 2025 — Collaboration software maker Smartsheet announced Tuesday Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners will acquire it in an all-cash deal valuing the company at about $8.4 billion.
Spotify rolls out its AI Playlist feature in beta to Premium subscribers in the US, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, after launching in the UK and Australia (Jess Weatherbed/The Verge)
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Spotify rolls out its AI Playlist feature in beta to Premium subscribers in the US, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, after launching in the UK and Australia — Spotify is expanding an AI feature that creates customized playlists from your text descriptions to additional English-speaking regions.
Portland-based Torq, which helps IT teams automate security workflows, raised a $70M Series C led by Evolution Equity Partners, for $192M in total funding (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Portland-based Torq, which helps IT teams automate security workflows, raised a $70M Series C led by Evolution Equity Partners, for $192M in total funding — As the volume of cyberattacks grows, there’s increasing interest from the corporate sector in tech to help automate responses to breaches.
Logitech MX Creative Console review: the $200 control surface for apps like Lightroom is an affordable entry point, but pros may find the controls limiting (Steve Dent/Engadget)
Steve Dent / Engadget:
Logitech MX Creative Console review: the $200 control surface for apps like Lightroom is an affordable entry point, but pros may find the controls limiting — The quality and design are solid, but pros may find the controls limiting. — Last year, Logitech leaped into the content creator market …
