DSA vs. DMA: How Europe's twin digital regulations are hitting Big Tech

It’s no accident that the European Union’s Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act have such similar-sounding names: They were conceived together and, at the end of 2020, proposed in unison as a twin package of digital policy reforms. EU lawmakers had overwhelmingly approved them by mid-2022, and both regimes …...Read More

How the theft of 40M UK voter register records was entirely preventable

A cyberattack on the U.K. Electoral Commission that resulted in the data breach of voter register records on 40 million people was entirely preventable had the organization used basic security measures, according to the findings from a damning report by the U.K.’s data protection watchdog published this week. The report …...Read More

Self-driving truck startup Aurora Innovation raises $483M in share sale ahead of commercial launch

Self-driving technology company Aurora Innovation was hoping to raise hundreds of millions in additional capital as it races toward a driverless commercial launch by the end of 2024. The company, which had arranged to sell up to $420 million worth of shares, exceeded its goal and raised $483 million. The …...Read More

FTC and Justice Department sue TikTok over alleged child privacy violations

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Justice Department are z TikTok and ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, with violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a law that requires digital platforms to notify and obtain parents’ consent before collecting and using personal data from children under the age …...Read More

Acquiring AI talent wholesale

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. This week we are looking at acquisitions of small startups, two new unicorns, wearable AI devices, and VCs who are supporting Kamala Harris. Let’s get into it. Most interesting startup stories from …...Read More

Character.AI CEO Noam Shazeer returns to Google

In a big move, Character.AI co-founder and CEO CEO Noam Shazeer is returning to Google after leaving the company in October 2021 to found the a16z-backed startup. In his previous stint, Shazeer spearheaded the team of researchers that built LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications), a language model that was …...Read More

Adept Materials' dehumidifying paint was inspired by trees and semiconductors

The steam that condenses on your bathroom mirror may not seem like a big deal, but for architects and builders, it can be an enormous headache. “Moisture control is something that is a major pain point,” Derek Stein, founder and CEO of Adept Materials. “If you just google your favorite …...Read More

Yelp's lack of transparency around API charges angers developers

On July 19, Yelp informed select indie developers that they would have to switch to paid accounts, due to high API usage. Developers were given four days to make the change, in a move that echoes recent communication bungles by Reddit and Twitter. When the developers replied to the July …...Read More

Cloud infrastructure revenue approached $80 billion this quarter

The cloud infrastructure market has put the doldrums of 2023 firmly behind it with another big quarter. Revenue continues to grow at a brisk pace, fueled by interest in AI. Synergy Research reports revenue totaled $79 billion for the quarter, up $14.1 billion or 22% from last year. This marked …...Read More

Pharma giant Cencora is alerting millions about its data breach

Cencora has so far notified over a million people around the U.S. that their personal and protected health information was compromised in a data breach earlier this year, TechCrunch has found. The pharmaceutical giant in May said that a February incident resulted in the compromise of patients’ data, which Cencora …...Read More