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Tuesday, August 01, 2023

You’ve made it to Tuesday, folks. Congrats — the week’s not quite halfway through yet, but we’re making slow and steady progress.

Speaking of progress, YouTube hopes to challenge TikTok with the launch of new creation tools, including Q&As and collaborative capabilities. Realistically, TikTok’s got nothing to worry about — YouTube Shorts remains a distant third in the short-form video race, with Instagram Reels coming in second. But competition’s a good thing, no?

Turning our attention elsewhere for a moment, Meta says that it plans to offer Europeans a free choice to deny tracking. It’s not out of the goodness of the tech giant’s heart — Meta’s under pressure from EU privacy regulators to obtain users’ consent for data-driven services, like behavioral advertising — but I’d say it’s a win for consumer privacy nonetheless.

Regulators in China, meanwhile, are concerned with a different sort of transgression: generative AI. Multiple generative AI apps have been removed from Apple's China App Store this week, thanks to new rules that’ll require AI apps operating in China to obtain an administrative license.

But the coming regulations around generative AI — and AI in general — likely won’t stop the tech industry’s rush to embrace it. To wit, Google reportedly plans to give its AI assistant, Google Assistant, a face-lift with large language model tech — the same tech behind OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot.

Image Credits: Andrew Brookes / Getty Images

More top reads

Macs go Pocketless: Read-it-later app Pocket intends to shut down its Mac app on August 15. But not to worry — it’ll be replaced with the Pocket iOS app for Apple silicon Macs instead, meaning those models introduced in late 2020 and later.

Tradeshift lands moolah, launches financing: Tradeshift, the AI-powered business-to-business (B2B) commerce startup, has raised $70 million as it rolls out financing products with HSBC, focused on B2B trade.

Nigeria’s merchant acquiring space heats up: Traction, the Nigeria-based merchant solution platform, has raised $6 million — another notch in Nigeria’s belt where it concerns fintechs focused on helping small businesses manage and receive payments.

Rapyd pays for PayU: Fintech-as-a-service startup Rapyd has acquired a piece of PayU, the Netherlands-based payment service provider for online merchants, from investment group Prosus for $610 million.

Ford’s F-150 Lightning starts living up to its name: Ford has resumed production of its F-150 Lightning as price cuts it made in July drive up demand.

GM rolls out its EV: The Chevrolet Blazer EV, a battery electric SUV that’s part of GM's bid to surpass Tesla in U.S. EV sales by 2025, is finally headed to dealerships.

YouTube gives AI the reins: YouTube is experimenting with AI auto-generated video summaries. The jury’s out on how accurate they are.

Amazon’s health ambitions become clearer: Amazon has expanded its Amazon Clinic virtual healthcare marketplace to customers nationwide. Customers in all 50 states can access clinicians via video visits for common health concerns, such as pink eye and urinary tract infections.

The one that flips, Samsung style: TC reviewed Samsung’s new Galaxy Z Flip 5. The verdict? The foldable gets a much-improved external screen amid otherwise modest upgrades.

Using the cloud for evil: Researchers claim that U.S.-registered cloud host Cloudzy facilitated more than two dozen different state-backed cyberattacks.

Uber achieves a profit: Uber reported its first quarterly operating profit in its Q2 2023 results. The company attributed the net gain to an increase in trips on the platform and “cost discipline.”

BBC dips its toes in the “fediverse” waters: The BBC has set up its own Mastodon server instance — https://social.bbc. The British broadcaster is labeling the move as an experiment, for now, but it’s a sign of the decentralized movement’s staying power.

Reddit makes log-outs easier: This week Reddit rolled out several updates to its website for logged-out users, including improved performance, a more helpful search results page and better communities and post suggestions.

Snapchat launches rewards program: Snapchat is introducing a new Lens Creator Rewards program to give AR creators and developers the chance to earn money for top-performing Lenses.

Worried about WormGPT? Don’t be: One might assume that a new, malicious-sounding breed of LLMs — WormGPT, FraudGPT and others — heralds a terrifying trend of AI-enabled mass hacking. But there's more nuance than that.

Over on TC+:

Not all early-stage AI startups are created equal

How SaaS architecture impacts pricing and profitability

Curve Finance's $62M exploit exposes larger issues for DeFi ecosystem

Uber is now a profitable, cash-generating machine

Image Credits: Matt Burns

From the "pod" files

On today’s episode of Found, Becca and Dom are joined by Rebecca Rosenberg, the founder and CEO of ReBokeh, a startup that created an app that applies filters that allow people with low vision to see better. Rebecca talked about how her own experience with having low vision inspired the product and what it was like building the startup as an undergrad when everything went remote in 2020. She also spoke about how the app will likely have multiple revenue streams and what it was like pitching the product to VCs who didn't believe the disability Rebecca has even exists.

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

VC Office Hours: Black Girls Code founder Kimberly Bryant starts a new chapter

Nearly a year ago, the board of nonprofit Black Girls Code fired the group’s founder and CEO, Kimberly Bryant.

Although that “situation is still developing,” Dominic-Madori Davis interviewed Bryant about her next move: launching an accelerator in her hometown of Memphis, TN “under the umbrella of her newly launched investment firm, Ascend Ventures.”

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