Erin Woo / The Information:
Letter to investors: Bolt is finalizing a $450M Series F valuing the startup at $14B but with harsh terms for existing investors; Ryan Breslow to return as CEO — As startup founder comebacks go, this may rank as one of the most remarkable. — Bolt founder Ryan Breslow is returning as CEO …
Qualcomm details its mid-range Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 SoC, based on TSMC’s N4P, with up to 40% better GPU performance than the 7s Gen 2, shipping via Xiaomi first (Ryan Smith/AnandTech)
Ryan Smith / AnandTech:
Qualcomm details its mid-range Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 SoC, based on TSMC’s N4P, with up to 40% better GPU performance than the 7s Gen 2, shipping via Xiaomi first — Qualcomm this morning is taking the wraps off of a new smartphone SoC for the mid-range market, the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3.
The UK CMA accepts Meta’s changes to its ad rules to ensure Marketplace advertisers’ data is not used to improve Marketplace, without having to opt in or out (Radhika Anilkumar/Reuters)
Radhika Anilkumar / Reuters:
The UK CMA accepts Meta’s changes to its ad rules to ensure Marketplace advertisers’ data is not used to improve Marketplace, without having to opt in or out — Britain’s competition watchdog said on Tuesday it has accepted Meta’s (META.O) proposed changes to the way it uses the data …
Nvidia plans to let users link an Xbox account to its GeForce Now streaming service to enable automatic sign-in for supported games, starting on August 22 (Tom Warren/The Verge)
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Nvidia plans to let users link an Xbox account to its GeForce Now streaming service to enable automatic sign-in for supported games, starting on August 22 — Nvidia will soon let you link an Xbox account to its GeForce Now streaming service to enable automatic sign-in for supported games.
Virginia-based Defcon AI, which aims to use ML to improve US military logistics, raised a $44M seed led by Bessemer, and has earned $15M in government contracts (Aria Alamalhodaei/TechCrunch)
Aria Alamalhodaei / TechCrunch:
Virginia-based Defcon AI, which aims to use ML to improve US military logistics, raised a $44M seed led by Bessemer, and has earned $15M in government contracts — The U.S. Department of Defense is a mammoth organization. It not only employs millions of service members and hundreds …
The AGs of 10 states join the DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit seeking to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster; 39 states, plus DC, are now part of the lawsuit (Daniel Tencer/Music Business Worldwide)
Daniel Tencer / Music Business Worldwide:
The AGs of 10 states join the DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit seeking to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster; 39 states, plus DC, are now part of the lawsuit — The attorneys general of 10 states have joined the US Department of Justice (DoJ)’s antitrust lawsuit seeking to break off Live Nation from its ticketing subsidiary, Ticketmaster.
PitchBook: seven banks’ ~$13B loans to Elon Musk to buy X have been “hung” for two years, weighing on balance sheets, the worst buyout for banks since 2008-09 (Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street Journal:
PitchBook: seven banks’ ~$13B loans to Elon Musk to buy X have been “hung” for two years, weighing on balance sheets, the worst buyout for banks since 2008-09 — Loans of around $13 billion have remained ‘hung’ for nearly two years, bringing in interest payments but weighing on banks’ balance sheets
Black Myth: Wukong, a Chinese-made, Tencent-backed game, became Steam’s fourth most popular title ever within hours of its launch with 1.4M+ concurrent players (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg:
Black Myth: Wukong, a Chinese-made, Tencent-backed game, became Steam’s fourth most popular title ever within hours of its launch with 1.4M+ concurrent players — – The made-in-China blockbuster surpasses Cyberpunk play record — Monkey King epic on track to set records for concurrent gamers
Updated antitrust complaint: the DOJ says Ticketmaster’s push for nontransferable SafeTix tickets, rolled out in 2019, aimed to make using rival services harder (Gaby Del Valle/The Verge)
Gaby Del Valle / The Verge:
Updated antitrust complaint: the DOJ says Ticketmaster’s push for nontransferable SafeTix tickets, rolled out in 2019, aimed to make using rival services harder — The real intent of Ticketmaster’s push for nontransferable tickets was to make it harder for fans to use rival platforms …
US labor and environmental groups submit comments to the Commerce Department saying draft health and environmental assessments for new chip factories fall short (Justine Calma/The Verge)
Justine Calma / The Verge:
US labor and environmental groups submit comments to the Commerce Department saying draft health and environmental assessments for new chip factories fall short — The Biden administration has been on a funding spree for new computer chip factories. It needs to conduct more thorough environmental reviews …
