Techmeme
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Microsoft announces a Windows 11 search overhaul that prioritizes local results, removes promotional web content, and more, rolling out to Windows Insiders (Zac Bowden/Windows Central)
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Q&A with Xinzhou Wu, head of automotive at Nvidia, on Nvidia's chips and AI models for autonomous driving, lidar's usefulness for Level 4 autonomy, and more (Nilay Patel/The Verge)
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Doc: DHS analysts twice dismissed signs of intruders inside the DHS' network, first detected in May, as harmless activity before confirming a breach in June (David DiMolfetta/Nextgov/FCW)
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A coalition of 12 states led by California files an antitrust lawsuit to block Paramount's WBD merger, alleging it lessens competition in three markets (Gene Maddaus/Variety)
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London-based Valarian, which allows companies to use US cloud providers for AI workloads but retain control of their data, raised a $50M Series A led by NEA (Lily Mae Lazarus/Fortune)
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Seattle-based Augmodo, whose AI-powered "Smartbadges" worn by employees track shelf inventory, raised $21M led by TQ Ventures at a $350M valuation (Kurt Schlosser/GeekWire)
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Gauntlet, which helps institutions and crypto companies allocate their digital assets, raised a $125M Series C from Japanese financial conglomerate SBI Holdings (Ben Weiss/Fortune)
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Global smartphone shipments fell 11% YoY in Q2 to the lowest Q2 levels since 2013 amid the DRAM and NAND shortage; Samsung returns to #1 with a 24% market share (Shilpi Jain/Counterpoint Research)
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Apple's stock is up 16% since June 25, adding ~$650B in market value and pushing shares back to record territory, as investors flee an AI stock selloff to Apple (Ryan Vlastelica/Bloomberg)
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Sources: US officials estimate unauthorized distillation costs US AI labs up to $6B/year; US AI labs told the White House it could become an existential threat (Maggie Eastland/Bloomberg)
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Source: OpenAI still believes it is on track to unveil its first device in 2026 and release it in 2027; Apple's lawsuit may complicate hiring and supply chains (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)
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Anthropic hires Tom Blomfield, a Monzo co-founder and one of the biggest names in UK tech, to join its compute team; he is taking a leave of absence from YC (Robert Scammell/Business Insider)
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Intel plans to invest €5B to expand chip manufacturing at its Leixlip facility in Ireland; in 2025, Intel canceled a planned €30B factory in Magdeburg, Germany (Financial Times)
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Nearly 200 economists, including 15 Nobel laureates and Anthropic's Jack Clark, sign a letter titled We Must Act Now, warning of rapid AI-led job displacement (Ben Casselman/New York Times)
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Samsung says it now aims to begin operations at its first chipmaking plant in South Korea's Yongin by 2029, bringing the timeline forward from 2030 or 2031 (Henry Siu/The Information)