Rakuten's Fintech Delay, Custom Chatbots on Instagram, Global Election Interference!

Rakuten's Fintech Reorganization Delay, Instagram's New AI Chatbots, Global Election Influence, Nvidia's AI Push, and More

Rakuten Slides Most Since May on Fintech Reorganization Delay - Bloomberg

• Rakuten Group has delayed the reorganization of its fintech operations until January 2025 due to regulatory issues and minority shareholder interests.

• The move had been planned to combine the company’s banking, securities, credit card, and insurance businesses under one umbrella to turn around its loss-churning wireless business.

Instagram to Let Users Create Custom Chatbots for Their Profiles - Bloomberg

• Meta Platforms Inc. will allow users to create their own AI-powered chatbots and add them to their profiles.

• The feature, called AI Studio, lets creators with professional accounts make a custom AI chatbot that can answer common questions.

Russia, Iran, China Seek to Shape US Election, Officials Say - Bloomberg

• Russian, China, and Iran are all recruiting Americans to spread propaganda ahead of the US presidential election

• Some US citizens are knowingly helping foreign governments to seed, promote and add credibility to narratives that serve their interests

• Intelligence officials believe Russia is trying to help Republican nominee Donald Trump while Iran is seeking to undermine his candidacy

• Russian operatives are using networks of US and Western “personalities” to create and disseminate Russian-friendly narratives

• Moscow is leveraging Russia-based influence-for-hire firms to shape public opinion in the US and create influence platforms discreetly

• China may try to denigrate down-ballot candidates seen as threatening China’s core interests in a handful of midterm races in 2022

• Influence actors affiliated with China continue to use social media to sow division and portray democracies as chaotic.

Nvidia Releases Software, Services to Boost Rapid Adoption of AI - Bloomberg

• Nvidia has released NIMs, or Nvidia inference micro services, software packages to make it easier for businesses to use generative artificial intelligence for specific purposes.

• The software and services are designed to work on Nvidia hardware and take care of the logistical issues needed to use AI for a specific purpose, for a fee.

• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang showcased the offerings at the Siggraph conference in Denver to persuade industries to start using his technology and make AI pervasive in the economy. - The company is on course to double its revenue in the current fiscal year due to the surge in building new systems being deployed to support AI computing.

French Olympic Security Tripped Up by Attacks Outside of Paris - Bloomberg

• Saboteurs targeted train and internet infrastructure in Paris during the Olympics

• Attacks on France’s high-speed railway hours before the opening ceremony targeted signaling cables

• Cables in multiple locations carrying broadband service were cut overnight across France

• The scale and coordination of the attacks have taken authorities by surprise

• France has about 35,000 kilometers of railway tracks and a vast network of long-distance internet cables, making it difficult to monitor

• Long-distance fiber optic cables typically run through underground pipes, only accessible through access hatches

• Investigations have opened a criminal probe into the rail attacks and an investigation has begun into internet cable sabotage

Germans Combat Climate Change With D.I.Y. Solar Panels - New York Times

• Lightweight solar panels are being installed in yards and on balcony railings across Germany, driven by bargain prices and looser regulations.

• Plug-and-play solar panels can be easily installed on balconies and plugged into a wall socket to feed energy produced by the sun directly into homes without the need for an electrician or heavy tools

• Individual plug-in panels sell for as low as 200 euros, or about $217, at big box stores

• New laws that relaxed rules around solar panel installation in China have contributed to a boom in use in Germany

• Germany is expected to add more solar power capacity than any other European country, according to Rystad Energy

• Some of the solar panels sold in Germany are made by European companies, but most are produced in China, whose dominance in the global industry allows for lower costs

• Solar installations are not only popular in homes but also in businesses

• The European Union aims to quadruple the amount of power generated through photovoltaic sources by 2030

Scammers Are Targeting Older Americans and Their Retirement Savings - New York Times

• Criminals are targeting Americans over the age of 60 because they are viewed as having the largest piles of savings.

• Barry Heitin, a 76-year-old retired lawyer, was the victim of a sophisticated online scam that cost him almost all of his retirement savings of roughly $740,000

• He believed he was part of a government investigation to safeguard his money and catch thieves who were after it

• Sophisticated criminals use manipulative psychological tactics and impersonate government officials, tech support staff, or love interests to keep the scam going

• The nature of these schemes makes it nearly impossible to recover the money, leaving victims with little recourse

• Potential losses from cybercrime exceeded $12.5 billion in 2023, a 22% jump from 2022, but many victims don’t report their losses

• People over 60 experienced the steepest losses among all age groups, at more than $3.4 billion, according to the F.B.I.

Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman and Other Tech Billionaires Brawl Over Politics - New York Times

• Tech billionaires, including Elon Musk and Reid Hoffman, are openly brawling with each other over politics as tensions rise in Silicon Valley.

• David Sacks, a venture capitalist, directed his anger towards a former colleague after a gunman tried to assassinate Donald Trump in Butler, Pa., in response to the recent shooting in San Francisco.

• The brawling has spilled into public view online, at conferences and on podcasts, as debates about the country’s future have turned into personal broadsides. The animus has pitied those who once worked side by side and attended each other’s weddings against one another, fraying friendships and alliances that could shift Silicon Valley’s power centers. The fighting has been particularly acute among the “PayPal Mafia,” a wealthy group of tech executives who worked together at the online payments company in the 1990s and later founded their own companies or turned into high-profile investors.

• Other tech leaders, including Vinod Khosla, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and other prominent investors, have also been pulled into the political spats. They were previously seen as liberal bastions in the nation’s tech capital.

Democratic Meme Makers Rejoice During Kamala Harris’s Campaign - New York Times

• Liberal social media creators are seeing their messages resonate as Kamala Harris campaigns for the White House after a few sluggish years under President Biden.

• Democratic meme makers rejoiced after President Biden announced he was stepping down from his presidential campaign and endorsing her as his replacement, endorsing her instead

• A group chat called the Rebel Alliance lit up with excited messages about Ms. Harris’s candidacy

• Liberal creators are relieved to not have to fill their pages with strained pro-Biden messages for several months

• Engagement on many left-wing Facebook and Instagram pages fell sharply from 2020 to 2024, with some liberal pages losing as much as 80% of their engagement

• Meta has purposefully de-emphasized political content since 2020, showing fewer partisan posts to users in an attempt to lower the temperature on its platforms

• Some liberal voices have decamped to smaller, more insular platforms like Threads and Bluesky.

Ackman’s Long-Awaited Pershing Square USA Fund Is Delayed - New York Times

• Bill Ackman has delayed the IPO of his Pershing Square USA investment vehicle due to scrutiny of a letter he sent to investors about its prospects.

• The I.P.O. of the fund has been pushed back at least a few days as the S.E.C. reviews a letter Ackman sent to shareholders about his expectations for the offering, which was previously expected to be one of the biggest initial offerings of the year

• Ackman noted in the letter that the deal would likely come in at $2.5 billion to $4 billion, but the fund was being capped at $10 billion

• Famous investors such as the Baupost Group, Putnam, and the Teachers Retirement System of Texas have placed orders for the IPO, but it is still on track to price by late this week or next Monday

• Venezuela is being watched closely by US officials due to concerns over its oil reserves and ties with Russia, China, and Iran

• Simone Biles is expected to perform well at the Paris Olympics.

India expands airport facial recognition amid surveillance fears - Financial Times

• India is using facial recognition technology at airports to streamline security checks.

• The use of digital biometric systems doubled last month to 28 airports, covering about 90% of India’s sky-bound travel volumes.

• Digi Yatra, an industry-led initiative co-ordinated by the country’s civil aviation ministry, is a critical part of the government’s ambition to turn India into a global aviation hub.

Australia’s Fortescue drops after block of shares put up for sale - Financial Times

• White House sees no significant impact from rising Israel-Hizbollah tensions

• McDonald’s experiences its first global drop in sales since 2020

• US stocks and Treasuries start the week with cautious moves

• Oil prices fell to the lowest level in seven weeks due to weak Chinese demand

YouTube sports viewing soars as streaming moves to big-screen TVs - Financial Times

• YouTube users are watching sports on the streaming platform in rapidly growing numbers

• More than 35bn hours of sports content was viewed on YouTube in the past year, marking a 45% increase on the previous year

• Viewers are embracing a more traditional TV experience to watch the online video app

• YouTube has deals with some of the biggest Olympics broadcasters, including NBCUniversal in the US and Warner Bros Discovery’s Eurosport in Europe

• In Latin America, YouTube is live-streaming some sports in collaboration with Brazilian influencer Casimiro and Mexican broadcaster Claro Sports

Congrats Spotify! You are profitable. Now can you keep it up? - Financial Times

• Spotify has posted its second consecutive quarter of profit, with net income of €274mn compared to a loss of €302mn in the year-ago period.

• The company has embarked on aggressive cost-cutting measures, with operating expenses down 16% year-on-year to €846mn and gross margins rising more than 500 basis points to 29.2%.

• Spotify’s price increases for premium subscribers have been successful, with a 14% increase in monthly active users and a 12% rise in paid subscribers. However, the company faces limits on how fast it can increase profits, with its biggest cost center being song royalties and fees to artists.

Space industry calls for bolder bets in UK funding strategy - Financial Times

• The UK space agency has awarded £33mn to over 20 companies, including £5mn to HyImpulse, a German launcher start-up.

• The funding package for almost two dozen national space projects has been criticized by space industry executives for its lack of innovation and focus on suborbital launches.

• Orbex, a UK-based rocket company, questioned the government’s decision to award the funding and called on it to focus on a national project to secure leadership on the global stage. The funding highlights a lack of focus in the UK’s space strategy and a bolder move towards a bigger rocket than the 180kg capacity Prime. The National Audit Office has questioned the effectiveness of the UK Space Agency and Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s national space strategy. The agency defended the award of grants to 23 projects, including foreign-owned start-ups, and wants international firms to view the UK as an attractive place to launch from.

Apple Intelligence: Here’s When the New AI Features Come to the iPhone and iPad - Wall Street Journal

• New Siri and other tools will not be available until iOS 18.1 is released later this fall

• Apple is bringing AI to iPhone, iPad, and Mac in a big way

Amazon Paid Almost $1 Billion for Twitch in 2014. It’s Still Losing Money. - Wall Street Journal

• Twitch is experiencing slowing user growth and employees are expecting layoffs.

• Despite periods of popularity, Twitch remains unprofitable.

One of America’s Hottest Entertainment Apps Is Chinese-Owned - Wall Street Journal

• Chinese-owned chatbot app Talkie offers AI-generated conversations with virtual characters in the US

• Talkie ranks No. 5 among the most-downloaded free entertainment apps in the U.S.

• The app was launched around a year ago and traces its ownership roots to a Singapore firm, but its ultimate parent company is Shanghai-based MiniMax

• Beijing’s strict regulations and censorship have undercut free-wielding usage that could improve Chinese AI

• Talkingie brings in real revenue for MiniMax through advertisements and subscriptions

• Users can create their own virtual characters on the app and customize their look, life story, and voices

• More interactions can reap rewards, such as a digital trading card of a user’s Talkie, which can be sold to others with the app’s in-house currency.

CrowdStrike’s CEO Has Known Failure—but Never Like This - Wall Street Journal

• An errant product update from CrowdStrike caused a global outage of 8.5 million devices running Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

• The issue led to flight cancellations, hospital postponements, and workers waking up to a blue screen of death at 3 a.m.

OpenAI Tests SearchGPT, Taking Aim at Google - Wall Street Journal

• OpenAI has partnered with publishers to build a new AI search tool called SearchGPT. The tool will summarize information found on websites and allow users to ask follow-up questions. It is OpenAI’s most direct challenge to Google’s dominance in search since the release of ChatGPT in 2022.- Other AI companies, such as Perplexity, are also entering the search battle. Publishers are concerned that AI-powered search tools from OpenAI or Alphabet’s Google will serve up complete answers based on news content, starving publishers of online traffic and advertising revenue. OpenAI plans to offer a wait list for U.S. users to sign up to try the tool. News publishers and creators will be among the first few testers and creators.