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Mon. 09/09 – The iPhone 16 Event Sep 09, 2024

Show notes

All the headlines from today’s iPhone event. It IS interesting the degree to which Elon’s various businesses have potential synergy. The Times digs into the content on Telegram and says, it ain’t pretty. And e-bikes seem to be back. In London, at least, anyway.

Links:

Apple Announces iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max with Larger Displays, New Camera Control, and More (MacRumors)
Apple announces iPhone 16: camera button, new colors, AI features (9to5Mac)
AirPods Pro 2 adds ‘clinical grade’ hearing aid feature (9to5Mac)
Musk’s xAI Has Discussed Deal for Share of Future Tesla Revenue (WSJ)
How Telegram Became a Playground for Criminals, Extremists and Terrorists (NYTimes)
London e-bike boom leads to clashes with councils (Financial Times)

Fri. 09/06 – Telegram Blinks. Sep 06, 2024

Show notes

Pavel Durov speaks, and Telegram blinks, both for the first time since the French arrest. Are XR glasses tethered to smartphones the next big product category? What if your smartphone could cure your vision problems? And in the longreads, if Waymo is about to scale, what, exactly, is the business model, long-term?

Links:

Pavel Durov: Telegram founder says France arrest is ‘misguided’ (The Guardian)
Exclusive: Qualcomm explores acquiring pieces of Intel chip-design business (Reuters)
Qualcomm says it’s working on mixed reality smart glasses with Samsung and Google (CNBC)
Review: Honor Magic V3 (Wired)
Exclusive: Honor's latest devices use AI to try to reverse nearsightedness (Android Central)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

Waymo’s Robot Taxis Are Almost Mainstream. Can They Now Turn a Profit? (NYTimes)
When the Bitcoin Scammers Came for Me (The Atlantic)
Among the Idlers (Curbed)

Thu. 09/05 – The DOJ Takes Down An Election Influence Campaign Sep 05, 2024

Show notes

The DOJ says it has taken down a big election influence campaign allegedly directed by Russia. The Internet Archive loses a big case. Android 15 is here. And two really interesting new gadgets, one I probably need to buy and one I want to buy but probably won’t.

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LinkedIn.com/ride

Links:

Wed. 09/04 – Elon Blinks In Brazil Sep 04, 2024

Show notes

SpaceX has agreed to block access to X, in Brazil, on Starlink. Looks like YubiKeys are hackable. Who is the mystery platform looking to expand AI datacenters at an historic scale? And the Catch 22 that Intel is in. They need CHIPS Act money, but can their troubles mean the CHIPS Act money shouldn’t be spent on them?

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Links:

Starlink backtracks, complies with order blocking X in Brazil, says regulator (Reuters)
No X in Brazil? No problem, Brazilians say. (Washington Post)
Microsoft to announce ‘next phase of Copilot’ on September 16th (The Verge)
YubiKeys are vulnerable to cloning attacks thanks to newly discovered side channel (ArsTechnica)
Nvidia Gets DOJ Subpoena in Escalating Antitrust Probe (Bloomberg)
Two AI Developers Are Plotting $125 Billion Supercomputers (The Information)
Exclusive: Intel manufacturing business suffers setback as Broadcom tests disappoint (Reuters)
Intel’s Money Woes Throw Biden Team’s Chip Strategy Into Turmoil (Bloomberg)

Tue. 09/03 – The X Ban In Brazil Sep 03, 2024

Show notes

We missed a pretty big story this weekend. X getting banned in Brazil. I’ll try to catch you up on all the contours of this. Canva’s raising prices and it’s pissing people off because, I mean, they are REALLY raising prices. And the two pretty big success stories in crypto this year that we haven’t spoken about yet.

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Links:

Brazil’s Most Powerful Judge Is in the Spotlight—Again (Americas Quarterly)
How Brazil’s Experiment Fighting Fake News Led to a Ban on X (NYTimes)
Canva says its AI features are worth the 300 percent price increase (The Verge)
HP to Pursue $4 Billion Damages After Mike Lynch Yacht Death (Bloomberg)
Pump.fun surpasses $100 million in revenue as Polymarket outshines NFTs in August (The Block)

Fri. 08/30 – Who ISN’T Investing In OpenAI? Aug 30, 2024

Show notes

At this point it would be quicker to name the big tech company that’s NOT investing in OpenAI’s latest round. Amazon’s new Alexa service is just going to be Anthropic’s Claude in drag disguise I guess. I’m starting to get really worried about Intel y’all. And, of course, The Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

Links:

OpenAI Funding Round Tempts Nvidia as Big Tech Leans on ChatGPT (Bloomberg)
Apple, Nvidia Are in Talks to Invest in OpenAI (WSJ)
Ask Claude: Amazon turns to Anthropic's AI for Alexa revamp (Reuters)
ChatGPT’s weekly users have doubled in less than a year (The Verge)
Intel Weighs Options Including Foundry Split to Stem Losses (Bloomberg)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

Sunk cost (the Open Sea story) (The Verge)
The secret inside One Million Checkboxes (eieio.games)
I Watched Footage of Jerry Lewis’s Unreleased 1972 Holocaust Film (The New Republic)
End of the Road: An AnandTech Farewell (AnandTech)

Thu. 08/29 – Nvidia Earnings… Are Ok… Aug 29, 2024

Show notes

Nvidia’s earnings were huge but because they didn’t manage to beat the biggest expectations out there, it’s kind of a miss? Pavel Durov has been formally charged by France. Does TikTok fall outside of Section 230 protection? And it seems like the effort by the car companies to wean themselves off of smartphone tech is… not going great.

Links:

Nvidia’s CEO Says New Chip Will Have ‘Lots and Lots’ of Supply (Bloomberg)
Telegram CEO Charged in France for Crimes Committed on His App (Bloomberg)
TikTok must face lawsuit over 10-year-old girl's death, US court rules (Reuters)
OpenAI in Talks for Funding Round Valuing It Above $100 Billion (WSJ)
Top Movie Piracy Ring Taken Down, Major Studios’ Enforcement Group Claims (The Hollywood Reporter)
GM's 'Google Built-In' Is Glitchy, Requires A Subscription To Use Google Maps (Jalopnik)

Wed. 08/28 – Strawberry Emoji Aug 28, 2024

Show notes

I explain why everyone has been posting strawberries in AI circles. It’s cause of a potential new breakthrough at OpenAI. Cerebras launches the first new AI chip competition to Nvidia. China has reportedly burrowed into US ISPs. And continuing interesting details pouring out of that Pavel Durov situation.

Sponsors:

Timeline.com/ride

Links:

OpenAI Shows ‘Strawberry’ AI to the Feds and Uses It to Develop ‘Orion’ (The Information)
OpenAI Races to Launch ‘Strawberry’ Reasoning AI to Boost Chatbot Business (The Information)
Cerebras Systems throws down gauntlet to Nvidia with launch of ‘world’s fastest’ AI inference service (SiliconAngle)
Chinese government hackers penetrate U.S. internet providers to spy (Washington Post)
Google Meet’s automatic AI note-taking is here (The Verge)
Instagram adds what photos have always needed: words (The Verge)
Telegram Founder Was Wooed and Targeted by Governments (WSJ)
Can Tech Executives Be Held Responsible for What Happens on Their Platforms? (NYTimes)

Tue. 08/27 – More On Pavel Durov Aug 27, 2024

Show notes

As more details come out about the arrest of the founder of Telegram, a deeper look at Pavel Durov himself. We have the date of the iPhone event. We have a new record gaming number from Steam. And are Apple’s experiment with big budget Hollywood movies losing them bucket loads of money?

Sponsors:

Links:

Telegram Founder’s Arrest Part of Broad Investigation, French Prosecutors Say (NYTimes)
Macron loves Telegram. French judges hate it. (Politico)
How Telegram’s Founder Went From Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg to Wanted Man (NYTimes)
Steam surpasses 37 million concurrent users for the first time ever thanks to Black Myth: Wukong (PC Gamer)
Anthropic publishes the ‘system prompts’ that make Claude tick (TechCrunch)
Apple Rethinks Its Movie Strategy After a String of Misses (NYTimes)

Mon. 08/26 – Telegram CEO Arrested Aug 26, 2024

Show notes

French authorities have arrested Telegram CEO Pavel Durov. Chinese tech companies are spending like crazy on AI too, btw. What are the smart glasses and VR gear Meta is poised to give us next month? And Nvidia might make you rich, but it still seems like a bear of a place to work at.

Sponsors:

Lumen.me/ride

Links:

Telegram CEO Held Over Alleged Child Protection Failures on App (Bloomberg)
Telegram messaging app CEO Durov arrested in France (Reuters)
Is Telegram really an encrypted messaging app? (Matthew Green)
China’s tech giants splash out on AI despite US restrictions (Financial Times)
Apple Explores Robotics in Search of Life Beyond the iPhone (Bloomberg)
Nvidia Rally Mints Millionaires Too Busy to Bask in New Wealth (Bloomberg)

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