Sherry Qin / Wall Street Journal:
Foxconn reports Q2 revenue up 19% YoY to ~$48B and net profit up 6% YoY to ~$1.08B, above ~$1.04B est., on strong AI server demand; its stock is up ~80% in 2024  —  Quarterly revenue rose 19% from a year earlier  —  Foxconn Technology Group reported a 6% increase in quarterly net profit …

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
xAI launches Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini in beta with improved reasoning capabilities, available to X Premium and Premium+ users; the API will debut later in August  —  Elon Musk-owned launched Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini in beta today with improved reasoning.  The new Grok AI model can now generate images …

Pranav Dixit / Engadget:
Google says Gemini will replace Google Assistant as the default on the Google Pixel 9 lineup, but “users can go back to the classic Google Assistant”  —  This is the new Google Assistant now, a senior executive told Engadget.  —  Google’s new Pixel 9 lineup of phones will be different …

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
A look at challenges Google faces ahead of Pixel 9 launch in India; IDC: Google’s smartphone shipments in India grew over 1,300% in 2023 to a 0.5% market share  —  On Tuesday at its Made by Google event, Google announced that the new Pixel 9 line is coming to India.

Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE:
Guidewheel, which offers plug-and-play sensors to make factory machines smarter, raised a $31M Series B led by BlackRock and Temasek’s Decarbonization Partners  —  Factory software startup Guidewheel said today it’s looking to usher in a new era of artificial intelligence-powered automation …

Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch:
Chinese self-driving startup WeRide gets permission to test its robotaxis with passengers in California after testing without passengers in San Jose since 2021  —  Chinese autonomous vehicle company WeRide has received the green light to test its driverless vehicles with passengers in California.

John Koblin / New York Times:
A look at the growth of free streaming service Tubi, which does not require an account to use, is entirely dependent on ad revenue, and is not yet profitable  —  Tubi has exploded in popularity over the past 18 months, outpacing some competitors with much bigger budgets.

Bobby Allyn / NPR:
US District Judge Reed O’Connor recuses himself from X’s advertiser lawsuit over an alleged ad boycott; O’Connor held stock in Tesla and Unilever  —  A U.S. District Judge in Texas has recused himself from a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s X days after NPR drew scrutiny to the judge’s investment …

Ian King / Bloomberg:
Filing: Intel sold its 1.18M shares in Arm during the second quarter, which, based on the stock’s average price in Q2, would have raised ~$147M for the company  —  Intel Corp., which is slashing jobs and expenses in a bid to turn around the business, sold its holdings in chip technology …

Blake Brittain / Reuters:
A US judge rules that a group of artists can pursue some copyright infringement claims in their lawsuit against Stability AI, Midjourney, and other companies  —  A group of visual artists can continue to pursue some claims that Stability AI, Midjourney, DeviantArt and Runway AI’s artificial …