Venture capitalists have always focused on investing in companies that leverage technology to either disrupt established industries or create entirely new business categories. But some VCs are starting to flip the script on their investing styles. Rather than funding startups, they are acquiring mature businesses βsuch as call centers, accounting firms, and other professional service [β¦]
As Paramount considers settling a lawsuit with Donald Trump over a "60 Minutes" interview, the Freedom of the Press Foundation warns that it will sue over a deal that allegedly βcould amount to a bribe.β
Trumpβs meme coin dropped 16% the morning after a black-tie gala for buyers, triggering political backlash that threatens to derail stablecoin legislation.
The winners of the $TRUMP meme coin contest did get to see President Donald Trump speak at a private dinner closed to the press - but his speech was probably the least exciting part of their night. They did get a better, more valuable, and potentially more lucrative experience: the opportunity to network with the biggest crypto traders in the game, win watches worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and attend a not-so-exclusive afterparty at the Capitol Hill Marriott afterward - all without having to complete particularly thorough background checks.
The vetting process for entering the dinner was a 'pretty light' KYC check
After being whisked behind the gates of the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, past a throng of journalists snapping photos and protesters screaming at them for being corrupt, the 220 attendees went through security and had their IDs checked. According to one attendee, many were wealthy but some were living on normal-ish paychecks. The other guests, he said, were largely foreigners from overseas, all with an extremely high risk tolerance for gambling with crypto. The attendee said the vetting process for entering the dinner was a "pretty light" β¦
Welcome to episode 55 of Pixelated, a podcast by 9to5Google. This week, we talk about Android 16 QPR1 Beta 1 and share our first thoughts on Google I/O 2025.
After three seasons, Amazonβs live-action take on Robert Jordan and Brandon Sandersonβs Wheel of Timeseries is coming to an end.
Though The Wheel of Timeβs third season was hailed by fans as the showβs strongest chapter yet, Deadline reports that Amazon has decided not to bring it back due to its relatively high production costs and flagging viewership numbers. Similar to Amazonβs Rings of Power series, The Wheel of Time was clearly a play to produce another Game of Thrones-style hit. When the series first debuted in 2021, it managed to capture an impressively large audience and become one of Amazonβs most-watched programs. But those numbers dwindled in subsequent seasons, leading Amazon to call it quits.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporterback in April right after The Wheel of Timeβs third season concluded, showrunner Rafe Judkins said that when when he and his team were first shopping the series around to studios, they ultimately chose Amazon as a production partner because it βfelt like a place where they do want to invest in shows for the long term.β
βThere are not a lot of places doing that anymore,β Judkins said. βFor Wheel of Time, itβs really important for us to be somewhere that does want to invest in shows for the long term and not just for the splash and leave.β
In February, Chegg sued Google, blaming the search giantβs AI-generated summaries for tanking its traffic, slashing revenue, and triggering a 90% stock collapse. Founded in 2005, Chegg built its business around online tutoring and academic support, helping students with test [β¦]
Amazon-owned autonomous vehicle company Zoox has issued its second voluntary software recall in a month, following a collision between one of its robotaxis and an e-scooter rider in San Francisco on May 8. The latest incident involved an unoccupied Zoox vehicle operating at low speed, which the company says was struck by the e-scooter after [β¦]
The hacker ecosystem in Russia, more than perhaps anywhere else in the world, has long blurred the lines between cybercrime, state-sponsored cyberwarfare, and espionage. Now an indictment of a group of Russian nationals and the takedown of their sprawling botnet offers the clearest example in years of how a single malware operation allegedly enabled hacking operations as varied as ransomware, wartime cyberattacks in Ukraine, and spying against foreign governments.
The US Department of Justice today announced criminal charges today against 16 individuals law enforcement authorities have linked to a malware operation known as DanaBot, which according to a complaint infected at least 300,000 machines around the world. The DOJβs announcement of the charges describes the group as βRussia-based,β and names two of the suspects, Aleksandr Stepanov and Artem Aleksandrovich Kalinkin, as living in Novosibirsk, Russia. Five other suspects are named in the indictment, while another nine are identified only by their pseudonyms. In addition to those charges, the Justice Department says the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS)βa criminal investigation arm of the Department of Defenseβcarried out seizures of DanaBot infrastructure around the world, including in the US.
Aside from alleging how DanaBot was used in for-profit criminal hacking, the indictment also makes a rarer claimβit describes how a second variant of the malware it says was used in espionage against military, government, and NGO targets. βPervasive malware like DanaBot harms hundreds of thousands of victims around the world, including sensitive military, diplomatic, and government entities, and causes many millions of dollars in losses,β US attorney Bill Essayli wrote in a statement.
Don't worry about the "mission-driven not-for-profit" College Boardβit's drowning in cash. The US group, which administers the SAT and AP tests to college-bound students, paid its CEO $2.38 million in total compensation in 2023 (the most recent year data is available). The senior VP in charge of AP programs made $694,662 in total compensation, while the senior VP for Technology Strategy made $765,267 in total compensation.
Given such eye-popping numbers, one would have expected the College Board's transition to digital exams to go smoothly, but it continues to have issues.
Just last week, the group's AP Psychology exam was disrupted nationally when the required "Bluebook" testing app couldn't be accessed by many students. Because the College Board shifted to digital-only exams for 28 of its 36 AP courses beginning this year, no paper-based backup options were available. The only "solution" was to wait quietly in a freezing gymnasium, surrounded by a hundred other stressed-out students, to see if College Board could get its digital act together.
The leaders of OpenAI and Google have been living rent-free in each other's heads since ChatGPT caught the world by storm. Heading into this week's I/O, Googlers were on edge about whether Sam Altman would try to upstage their show like last year, when OpenAI held an event the day before to showcase ChatGPT's advanced voice mode.
This time, OpenAI dropped its bombshell the day after.
OpenAI buying the "io" hardware division of Jony Ive's design studio, LoveFrom, is a delightfully petty bit of SEO sabotage, though I'm told the name stands for "input output" and was decided a while ago. Even still, the news of Ive and Altman teaming up quickly shifted the conversation away from what was a strong showing from Google at this year's I/O. The dueling announcements say a lot about what are arguably the world's two foremost AI companies: Google's models may be technically superior and more widely deployed, but OpenAI is kicking everyone's ass at capturing mindshare and buzz.
Speaking of buzz, it's worth looking past the headlines to what OpenAI actually announced this week: it's paying $6.5 billion in equity to hire roughly 55 people from LoveFrom, including ex-Apple design leaders E β¦
