Contemplations News
This is the latest addition to our website, and its purpose is to help you stay in touch with current news posts. Click on any post to read the full text.
- Delaware lawmakers are considering a bill that would transform the state's corporate law to keep it attractive to both investors and CEOs, following Musk's exit (Lora Kolodny/CNBC)
- A lack of consensus on what defines an AI "agent" is leading to customer frustration, as Microsoft, OpenAI, Salesforce, and others market it differently (TechCrunch)
- A look at the adoption of DeepSeek across China, as Chinese automakers, smartphone sellers, and others rush to build services on top of the homegrown AI model (Kinling Lo/Rest of World)
- China's National People's Congress saw an uncharacteristic surge in tech optimism, driven by DeepSeek, which has fired up investors, politicians, and regulators (Bloomberg)
- Meta's effort to neutralize Sarah Wynn-Williams' book, filled with gossipy anecdotes, feels less about defending its reputation than a need to punish a defector (Steven Levy/Wired)
- Foxconn says revenue from cloud and networking, including AI servers, made up 26% of its Q4 revenue and will almost catch up with consumer electronics in 2025 (Sherry Qin/Wall Street Journal)
- Nashville-based 360 Privacy, an identity and risk management startup protecting enterprises and high net-worth people from online threats, raised $36M from FTV (Ionut Arghire/SecurityWeek)
- Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Lumafield, which manufactures industrial CT scanners with cloud-based analysis software, raised a $75M Series C led by IVP (Aaron Weitzman/Axios)
- A look at some standout startups from YC's W25 Demo Day, which showcased 160 companies, including several creating tools to enhance other companies' AI agents (TechCrunch)
- Orlando-based Worth, whose tech lets fintechs, banks, and enterprises underwrite SMBs by automating KYC, fraud verification, and more, raised a $20M seed (Mary Ann Azevedo/TechCrunch)
- Meta debuts the highly requested Passthrough Camera API for Quest 3/3S as an experimental feature; developers can't ship apps with the API on Horizon Store yet (David Heaney/UploadVR)
- Streamers court YouTubers for new shows or spinoffs; sources: Amazon made $100M+ in profit on Beast Games and Netflix held talks with Dude Perfect for a series (Jessica Toonkel/Wall Street Journal)
- Email: Amazon says Echo users won't be able to set their devices to process Alexa requests locally, as new generative AI features need processing in the cloud (Scharon Harding/Ars Technica)
- Sources: Ubisoft explores selling a stake in a new entity holding IP like Assassin's Creed to investors including Tencent, at a higher valuation than Ubisoft (Bloomberg)
- Delaying a revamped Siri may be embarrassing for Apple, but rushing an update with half-baked features could have created a real crisis for the company (Ryan Christoffel/9to5Mac)
- Klarna reports 2024 revenue up 24% YoY to $2.81B, a net profit of $21M, compared with a net loss of $244M a year ago, and 93M active consumers (Ryan Lawler/Axios)
- Klarna files for a US IPO, with plans to list on the NYSE under KLAR, seeking to raise at least $1B and reportedly targeting a valuation of more than $15B (Bloomberg)
- Block says it is expanding consumer lending through Cash App Borrow after obtaining FDIC approval to issue loans out of its subsidiary Square Financial Services (MacKenzie Sigalos/CNBC)
- The UK held a hearing for Apple's legal battle with the government over providing a backdoor in its Advanced Data Protection service, without the media present (Dan Milmo/The Guardian)
- The GOP's Jim Jordan subpoenas Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, and 10 others over alleged Biden pressure to use AI to "censor lawful speech" (Tina Nguyen/The Verge)