Bruna Horvath / NBC News:
Social media users criticize Coca-Cola over an AI-generated Christmas video; many creatives say it is distasteful to use AI tech instead of the work of artists — The video was meant to pay homage to a classic 1995 Coca-Cola commercial. — Coca-Cola is facing backlash online …
Sources: Sony is in talks to acquire Kadokawa, the Japanese media powerhouse behind the Elden Ring game, in the coming weeks; Kadokawa had a ~$2.7B market cap (Reuters)
Reuters:
Sources: Sony is in talks to acquire Kadokawa, the Japanese media powerhouse behind the Elden Ring game, in the coming weeks; Kadokawa had a ~$2.7B market cap — Sony (6758.T) is in talks to acquire Kadokawa (9468.T), the Japanese media powerhouse behind the “Elden Ring” game …
Atomico: European startups are on track to raise $45B in 2024, down from $47B in 2023, with only $3B in IPO value and $10B in M&A through mid-November (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Atomico: European startups are on track to raise $45B in 2024, down from $47B in 2023, with only $3B in IPO value and $10B in M&A through mid-November — Funding for European tech appears to have stabilized in 2024 after dropping precipitously in 2023, but the signs continue to point …
An interview with Meta’s heads of design for wearables Joshua To and Michelle Pujals on Orion’s design, aiming to make Orion the AirPods of AR, and more (Mark Wilson/Fast Company)
Mark Wilson / Fast Company:
An interview with Meta’s heads of design for wearables Joshua To and Michelle Pujals on Orion’s design, aiming to make Orion the AirPods of AR, and more — Meta’s heads of design for wearables tell the exclusive design story behind their upcoming Orion AR glasses. — Meta knows exactly what it doesn’t want to do.
Los Angeles-based Moonvalley, which is developing “transparent” generative AI video tools, raised a $70M seed co-led by General Catalyst and Khosla Ventures (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Los Angeles-based Moonvalley, which is developing “transparent” generative AI video tools, raised a $70M seed co-led by General Catalyst and Khosla Ventures — The wide availability of tools to build generative AI has led to a Cambrian explosion of startups in the space.
Bluesky is booming partly because it isn’t hindered by bad adtech, AI slop, throttled links, and largely hostile user experiences, unlike some of its big rivals (Brian Merchant/Blood in the Machine)
Brian Merchant / Blood in the Machine:
Bluesky is booming partly because it isn’t hindered by bad adtech, AI slop, throttled links, and largely hostile user experiences, unlike some of its big rivals — No bad adtech, no AI, no throttling links. Bluesky is a booming because it’s everything big tech is not — Greetings all —
Memo: Amazon employees have found there is too much of a delay between asking a question to the new AI-based Alexa and getting a response or completing a task (Jason Del Rey/Fortune)
Jason Del Rey / Fortune:
Memo: Amazon employees have found there is too much of a delay between asking a question to the new AI-based Alexa and getting a response or completing a task — Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. — Amazon’s race to create an AI-based successor to its voice assistant Alexa has hit more snags …
Sources: Apple has raised its offer to invest in Indonesia from about $10M to almost $100M, in a bid to persuade the government to lift its iPhone 16 sales ban (Faris Mokhtar/Bloomberg)
Faris Mokhtar / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple has raised its offer to invest in Indonesia from about $10M to almost $100M, in a bid to persuade the government to lift its iPhone 16 sales ban — – Company increases investment proposal tenfold, sources say — Indonesia banned sales of iPhone 16 over local content rules
In the Fifth Circuit, Amazon and SpaceX argued the NLRB, which recently ruled against them, is unconstitutional; the judges questioned their arbitrary deadlines (Daniel Wiessner/Reuters)
Daniel Wiessner / Reuters:
In the Fifth Circuit, Amazon and SpaceX argued the NLRB, which recently ruled against them, is unconstitutional; the judges questioned their arbitrary deadlines — A panel of U.S. judges on Monday seemed likely to rule that Amazon.com (AMZN.O) and Elon Musk’s SpaceX were too quick to bring …
Internal document: Amazon has held talks with several partners for handling specific tasks on the AI-powered Alexa, including Uber, Ticketmaster, and Instacart (Eugene Kim/Business Insider)
Eugene Kim / Business Insider:
Internal document: Amazon has held talks with several partners for handling specific tasks on the AI-powered Alexa, including Uber, Ticketmaster, and Instacart — – Amazon discussed partnerships with other companies for an AI-powered Alexa upgrade. — Partners under consideration included Uber …
