Benjamin S. Weiss / Courthouse News Service:
US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says the Senate will take up the Kids Online Safety Act this week, signaling there’s enough support among his colleagues — The Kids Online Safety Act would force tech companies to enable the highest possible privacy settings for minor users …
Internal messages: Meta staff complained about Threads’ algorithm limiting political posts, after the For You page was slow to show news of Biden dropping out (The Information)
The Information:
Internal messages: Meta staff complained about Threads’ algorithm limiting political posts, after the For You page was slow to show news of Biden dropping out — Shortly after Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential election Sunday, an employee at Meta Platforms posted in the company’s internal forum …
Source: OpenAI has reassigned Aleksander Mądry, the head of its Preparedness AI safety team, to a role within its research organization focusing on reasoning (Stephanie Palazzolo/The Information)
Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information:
Source: OpenAI has reassigned Aleksander Mądry, the head of its Preparedness AI safety team, to a role within its research organization focusing on reasoning — OpenAI has reassigned the executive in charge of ensuring that its artificial intelligence won’t harm society …
Alphabet Q2: revenue of $84.7B, up 14% YoY, net income of $23.6B, up 29% YoY, Search revenue of $48.5B, up from $42.6B YoY, and headcount down 1% to 179,582 (Alphabet)
Alphabet:
Alphabet Q2: revenue of $84.7B, up 14% YoY, net income of $23.6B, up 29% YoY, Search revenue of $48.5B, up from $42.6B YoY, and headcount down 1% to 179,582 — MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – July 23, 2024 – Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG, GOOGL) today announced financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2024.
YouTube Q2 ad revenue grew 13% YoY to $8.66B, vs. $8.93B est.; Google’s subscriptions, platforms, and devices unit that includes YouTube TV had revenue of $9.3B (Alex Weprin/The Hollywood Reporter)
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
YouTube Q2 ad revenue grew 13% YoY to $8.66B, vs. $8.93B est.; Google’s subscriptions, platforms, and devices unit that includes YouTube TV had revenue of $9.3B — The Google-owned video platform still saw its ad haul rise by 13 percent compared to last year.
Google Cloud Q2 revenue grew 29% YoY to $10.35B, vs. $10.2B est.; Cloud exceeded $10B in quarterly revenues and $1B in operating profit for the first time (Jennifer Elias/CNBC)
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
Google Cloud Q2 revenue grew 29% YoY to $10.35B, vs. $10.2B est.; Cloud exceeded $10B in quarterly revenues and $1B in operating profit for the first time — Google parent company Alphabet reported earnings after the bell Tuesday. — Here’s how the company did, compared with estimates from analysts polled by LSEG:
Comcast reports Peacock Q2 revenue up 28% YoY to $1B, and a $348M loss, down from $651M in Q2 2023; paying subs were up 38% YoY to 33M but down from 33.5M in Q1 (The Hollywood Reporter)
The Hollywood Reporter:
Comcast reports Peacock Q2 revenue up 28% YoY to $1B, and a $348M loss, down from $651M in Q2 2023; paying subs were up 38% YoY to 33M but down from 33.5M in Q1 — Meanwhile, Comcast’s core cable and telecom business once again lost pay-TV and broadband subscribers in the second quarter.
Daniel Ek says Spotify is working on a deluxe Spotify tier, around a $17-$18 price point, that has “a lot more control, a lot higher quality across the board” (Chris Welch/The Verge)
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Daniel Ek says Spotify is working on a deluxe Spotify tier, around a $17-$18 price point, that has “a lot more control, a lot higher quality across the board” — The saga of Spotify HiFi has many twists and turns. First announced over three years ago, the music service’s higher …
Harvey, which is building an AI-powered “copilot” for lawyers, raised a $100M Series C led by GV that values it at $1.5B and brings its total funding to $206M (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Harvey, which is building an AI-powered “copilot” for lawyers, raised a $100M Series C led by GV that values it at $1.5B and brings its total funding to $206M — Harvey, a startup building what it describes as an AI-powered “copilot” for lawyers, has raised $100 million …
A staffer at Activision Blizzard, which had layoffs in 2024 affecting many 2D artists, says some remaining artists were “forced to use AI to aid in their work” (Brian Merchant/Wired)
Brian Merchant / Wired:
A staffer at Activision Blizzard, which had layoffs in 2024 affecting many 2D artists, says some remaining artists were “forced to use AI to aid in their work” — A WIRED investigation finds that major players like Activision Blizzard, which recently laid off scores of workers, are using generative AI for game development.