The Download: testing new AI agent Manus, and Waabi’s virtual robotruck ambitions
U.K.’s competition authority says Microsoft’s OpenAI partnership doesn’t quality for investigation
Britain’s competition authority, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), said Wednesday that Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI doesn’t qualify for investigation under the merger provisions of the U.K.’s Enterprise Act 2002, the country’s anticompetitive practices law. “Overall, taking into account all of the available evidence […] the CMA does not believe that Microsoft currently controls OpenAI’s […]
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Grain emerges from stealth with $50M to help any business hedge against FX volatility
Foreign exchange fluctuations can make or break a business that trades across borders, but trying to respond to that can be tricky if you’re anything smaller than the world’s largest enterprises. Today, a startup called Grain is emerging from stealth with a product it said will let finance teams from companies of any size better […]
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Kevin Rose and Alexis Ohanian acquire Digg
Here’s a blast from the past: Digg, one of the web’s early news aggregators, is now back under the ownership of original founder Kevin Rose. Notably, he’s joined as co-owner by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian (both pictured above). Digg and Reddit were once fierce rivals in the online social news aggregation space, launching within a […]
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ARM to sign $250M chip deal with Malaysia
The SoftBank-backed chipmaker has signed an agreement with the Malaysian government to bolster the country’s chip design ecosystem.
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AI reasoning models can cheat to win chess games
Apple is challenging U.K.’s iCloud encryption backdoor order
Apple is challenging a U.K. Government data access order in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), the Financial Times reports. The order targeted iCloud backups that are protected by end-to-end encryption. Last month, press leaks revealed the existence of the January order asking Apple to build a backdoor in iCloud’s encrypted backups. U.K. officials are exercising […]
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Darwinbox, the HR upstart from India, raises $140M to take on Deel and Rippling
Darwinbox, an Indian startup building a SaaS platform for hiring, onboarding and employee administration, has raised $140 million to take on the likes of Rippling and Deel as it seeks to expand internationally, especially in the U.S. The funding is being co-led by KKR and Partners Group, and is a mix of primary and secondary […]
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From high school science project to $18.3M: AI-accelerated enzymes are coming for fast fashion’s plastic waste
A U.K. startup, originating from founder Jacob Nathan’s high school science project on using enzymes to break down plastic waste, has secured an oversubscribed $18.3 million in Series A funding. Founded in 2019 in London, Epoch Biodesign now a 30+ strong multidisciplinary team of chemists, biologists and software engineers. It will be using the new […]
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CoreWeave acquires AI developer platform Weights & Biases
Nvidia-backed data center company CoreWeave has acquired AI developer platform Weights & Biases for an undisclosed sum. According to The Information, CoreWeave spent $1.7 billion on the transaction. Weights & Biases was valued at $1.25 billion in 2023, and it recently filed for an IPO. Lukas Biewald, Chris Van Pelt, and Shawn Lewis founded Weights & Biases […]
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