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.
Mark Zuckerberg argues “open source AI” is the path forward, that closed models are vulnerable to vendor lock-in, state-backed espionage, and more (Mark Zuckerberg/Meta)
Mark Zuckerberg / Meta:
Mark Zuckerberg argues “open source AI” is the path forward, that closed models are vulnerable to vendor lock-in, state-backed espionage, and more — In the early days of high-performance computing, the major tech companies of the day each invested heavily in developing their own closed source versions of Unix.
dYdX, which is reportedly exploring a sale, says v3, an older version of its DeFi crypto exchange that averages ~$1.5B/week in derivates trading, was hacked (Danny Nelson/CoinDesk)
Danny Nelson / CoinDesk:
dYdX, which is reportedly exploring a sale, says v3, an older version of its DeFi crypto exchange that averages ~$1.5B/week in derivates trading, was hacked — News of the problem emerged just as Bloomberg reported dYdX v3 is for sale. — Decentralized crypto-exchange giant dYdX said Tuesday …
The FTC seeks info from Mastercard, JPMorgan, and six other companies related to their “surveillance pricing products” that use personal data, AI, and more (Suzanne Smalley/The Record)
Suzanne Smalley / The Record:
The FTC seeks info from Mastercard, JPMorgan, and six other companies related to their “surveillance pricing products” that use personal data, AI, and more — The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced Tuesday that it has launched an inquiry into how companies surveil consumers …
Meta VP Rob Sherman confirms a report that Meta received an EU request to pause future AI model training on data in the EU, and says the EU may get left behind (Financial Times)
Financial Times:
Meta VP Rob Sherman confirms a report that Meta received an EU request to pause future AI model training on data in the EU, and says the EU may get left behind — Comments come after privacy watchdog asks Facebook owner to pause training of future AI models on region’s data
Meta plans to roll out its AI assistant to Quest in August, limited to US and Canada users in experimental mode, after first coming to Ray-Ban smart glasses (Mariella Moon/Engadget)
Mariella Moon / Engadget:
Meta plans to roll out its AI assistant to Quest in August, limited to US and Canada users in experimental mode, after first coming to Ray-Ban smart glasses — The experimental version of the AI assistant will make its way to Quest headsets in August. — Meta’s AI-powered assistant …
Sources: Apple is working on a foldable, clamshell design iPhone that could launch as soon as 2026, and has reached out to component suppliers in recent months (The Information)
The Information:
Sources: Apple is working on a foldable, clamshell design iPhone that could launch as soon as 2026, and has reached out to component suppliers in recent months — Apple is working on a foldable iPhone that could be released as early as 2026 and in recent months reached out to suppliers …
