Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 8
Elon Musk shares letter by ex-OpenAI employees revealing damning allegations
The artificial intelligence industry has been rocked over the last couple of days as the leading company, OpenAI, had its CEO ousted by its board of directors.
Sam Altman, the co-founder of OpenAI, the developer behind the highly popular AI chatbot ChatGPT, was fired from his position at the company and was quickly snapped up by Microsoft to run its entire advanced AI research division. However, 700+ of the 800 employees at OpenAI wrote a letter to the company's board of directors demanding Altman be reinstated to his position, or they would walk off the job and go straight to Microsoft, along with Altman.
Currently, Altman is reportedly in "intense discussions" with OpenAI's board of directors on his return to the company, with, at the time of writing, no official confirmation as to whether he will be reinstated. So, where does the letter fit into this? Elon Musk took to his personal X account to share a letter penned by former OpenAI employees and sent to its board of directors. The letter outlined several concerns and requested the board conduct an internal investigation into the allegations and take appropriate action.
NVIDIA hires ex-Valeo staffer, who gets busted with trade secrets in a video call
NVIDIA is embroiled in a lawsuit from Germany-based automotive technology company Valeo Schalter und Sensoren, after an ex-Valeo and now NVIDIA staffer screen-shared during a meeting with "ValeoDocs" in a file and even Valeo code... all shown in a video meeting by accident.
It all started with a video call that software developer Mohammad Moniruzzaman was on, with Moniruzzaman joining NVIDIA back in 2021 after leaving German-based Valeo Schalter und Sensoren. He happened to be in a meeting between 4 people at Valeo, and 4 people from NVIDIA, as well as himself.
Moniruzzaman was finishing up showing a PowerPoint to everyone on the call when the screen-sharing function he was using allowed everyone to see what was showing on Moniruzzaman's entire screen, not just PowerPoint. As he minimized the PowerPoint presentation, what the video call participants saw was shocking: he had code from Valeo and a file description that said: "ValeoDocs".
Elon Musk vows to fire a 'thermonuclear' lawsuit against all who attacked his company
Elon Musk has taken to his personal X account to announce that X Corp will be filing a lawsuit against Media Matters and all those that participated in what Musk describes as a "fraudulent attack on our company".
The controversy began when the owner of the social media platform formerly called Twitter, now called X, replied to a post that stated Jewish communities support "dialectical hatred against whites". The divisiveness of this post had more fuel added to the fire when Media Matters, a nonprofit media watchdog group, published a story that reported X was placing ads next to pro-Nazi content. The initial post from Musk led to reports of major advertisers temporarily pausing advertising expenditure with X, which was further exacerbated following Media Matters' report.
Musk took to his personal X account with a response to these reports, stating that as soon as the courts open on Monday morning, X Corp will be filing a "thermonuclear" lawsuit against Media Matters and "ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company". Musk followed up with another post, adding, "Their board, their donors, their network of dark money, all of them ..." The lengthy statement that Musk had attached to his post claims Media Matters' report attempted to "misrepresent the real user experience" on X, "undermine freedom of speech," and "mislead advertisers".
Snoop Dogg quitting smoking has actually affected weed on the stock market
A legend of the cannabis community has hung up his boots when it comes to lighting one up, as Snoop Dogg has announced he has given up smoking altogether.
Calvin Broadus, more commonly known as Snoop Dogg, took to her social media channels, Instagram and X, to announce that he has quit smoking after having "much conversation with my family". The 52-year-old musician was synonymous with cannabis, even becoming an icon of the cannabis community for his constant use of it wherever he went.
Due to his close association with cannabis, many fans were shocked to hear that Snoop Dogg has stopped smoking, and it seems that same shock has made its way to the stock market.
Apple stops advertising on X after Elon Musk's controversial post
The advertising situation over at X has seemingly taken a hit, with multiple publications reporting that Apple has joined a few other big-name brands in pausing advertising expenditure on Elon Musk-owned social media platform X.
A new report from Axios has detailed the events that have taken place over the last few days, explaining that the problems began when X owner Elon Musk replied to a post that claimed Jewish communities support "dialectical hatred against whites." These reports indicate that Musk's response to the aforementioned post, "[y]ou have said the actual truth," has led to big advertising brands such as Google, Amazon, Disney, IBM, Oracle, and now Apple being pushed to stop ad expenditure.
X is now attempting to clean the PR nightmare up with an executive speaking to Axios on Thursday night, saying internally X has scanned the accounts mentioned in a Media Matters report that showed ads by Apple, IBM, Amazon, and Oracle next to far-right posts. X's response to these now swept accounts is, "they will [no] longer be monetizable" and a "sensitive media" label will be placed on the specific posts in question.
Continue reading: Apple stops advertising on X after Elon Musk's controversial post (full post)
Apple reportedly snags more than 35% of all Google's search revenue m
In open court on Monday an Alphabet witness said that Google pays 36% of its search advertising revenue from Safari directly to Apple, which equates to billions of dollars per year.
This information surfaced during a court battle between Google and the Department of Justice that is claiming Google has a monopoly on the Search Engine market. The jaw-dropping figure came from Alphabet's expert witness Kevin Murphy, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, and was used to fight the Justice Department's claims that Google has a stranglehold on the both the Search Engine and advertising markets.
Notably, this figure wasn't expected to be revealed in court as both Google and Apple have made efforts to keep any of its search engine deals under wraps, citing potential anticompetitive effects. So, what is the agreement? It's quite simply. Google is paying Apple to keep Google Search as its primary search engine on Apple's Safari app, which comes pre-installed on every Apple device.
Continue reading: Apple reportedly snags more than 35% of all Google's search revenue m (full post)
AMD's Q3 2023 financial report shows Ryzen mobile sales are up, while Gaming revenue is down
AMD has posted its latest financial results for Q3 2023, with the $5.8 billion 4% year-over-year growth attributed to Ryzen and "record server processor sales," according to AMD Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. Like many other big tech companies, AMD is riding the wave of AI with its new MI300 chips set to drive sales to $2 billion in 2024.
"AMD Instinct MI300A and MI300X GPUs are on track for volume production in the fourth quarter to support deployments with several leading HPC, cloud, and AI customers," the Q3 earnings report writes. The company's Data Center segment showed flat year-over-year growth but is expected to grow as the company's new CPU and AI hardware takes hold.
The biggest growth sector for AMD was the Client segment (where most enthusiasts reside), with revenue up 42% year-over-year, driven by Ryzen mobile processor sales. AMD specifically highlights the success of its AMD Ryzen 7000 Series CPU in the mobile space as driving growth.
Elon Musk lets Joe Rogan fire an arrow at his Cybertruck to test if its bullet proof
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has returned to The Joe Rogan podcast for an epic interview that covers a variety of topics that Musk has his fingers in - one of which is the highly anticipated Cybertruck.
Tesla recently announced it would be launching the Cybertruck next month, with the company specifically saying that it will begin deliveries of the vehicle on November 30. This statement from Tesla was backed up by company CEO Elon Musk during a recent podcast with Joe Rogan, where the two decided to test if an arrow was able to penetrate the Cybertruck's bulletproof shell.
Rogan explains that he used an 80-pound draw-weight bow that launched a "545-grain arrow" at a speed of approximately 275 feet a second. This arrow was a broad head, and from the video, you can see the immediate spark that is caused when it hit the side of the Cybertruck. As Rogan says, the arrow barely made a scratch on the Cybertruck, only causing a small dent in its side and completely destroying the arrowhead.
Survey claims everyone wants to work at Netflix - but Intel, not so much...
A new report attempts to gauge how popular tech firms are by using the number of applicants for various jobs on LinkedIn, with Netflix coming out as the top place folks want to work at.
This comes from Resume.io which conducted a study of LinkedIn job postings, keeping tabs on the number of daily applications for a whole swathe of job ads for big tech companies.
Resume.io explained that to compile the figures for the survey, it collected a sample of job ads from big tech firms (and companies in other sectors, too), finding out the number of people who applied, and the time the advert had been in play (listings that were a month or older were discarded).
NVIDIA and Foxconn team up to build AI factories: will build self-driving cars, and more
Foxconn Technology Group and NVIDIA have announced they're working together on building a new kind of data center; it will use NVIDIA's extensive GPU technology and software for various markets... including self-driving cars.
NVIDIA and Foxconn will work together on "AI factories" that will work on various applications, with both of the companies chipping in considerably in terms of what they individually excel in. Foxconn is a champion of manufacturing, while NVIDIA is a champion of technology and software.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Foxconn Chairman Liu Young, at the recent Foxconn annual tech showcase held in Taipei, discussed their plans for a very ambitious AI factory initiative. Huang highlighted the "production of intelligence" as a new wave of manufacturing, which will be managed by massive AI-powered data centers filled with NVIDIA technologies and software.