Thursday, September 19, 2024

FBI takes control of a Chinese government-linked hack

Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Welcome to TC PM! Today we're diving into another hack that the FBI throttled; an interesting deal between Lionsgate and an AI company; and all of the new features announced at YouTube's Made on YouTube event. It's go time.

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Aspen Cyber Summit / YouTube

🤓 Another day, another hack: The FBI announced last week that it took control of a botnet made up of hundreds of thousands of internet-connected devices being used to infiltrate U.S. infrastructure. The botnet was run by Chinese government hacking group Flax Typhoon. Read more

⛔️ Wrong order: LinkedIn may have trained its AI model on users' data before notifying them. U.S.-based users can opt out, but LinkedIn was a little late to update its privacy policy to reflect this data use. Read more

🍿 Studio model: Deals between media companies and AI companies have become common. The latest involves Lionsgate and AI video tool startup Runway. Runway is building a custom AI model based on Lionsgate's portfolio. Read more

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Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: Raja Ghawi and Clelia Warburg Peters / Era Ventures

💰 Props for proptech: It's been a tough year for emerging managers looking to fundraise, but some are seeing success. Era Ventures announced its $88 million debut fund today that will focus on proptech. Read more

📱 Customization hacks: Have you downloaded iOS 18? Sarah Perez offers three fun ways to organize your Home Screen and take advantage of the new customization features. Read more

🎮 Dev tools: Game developers can do a lot on Roblox, but they are missing the developer tools, including LiveOps, A/B testing capabilities, and real-time analytics, that are common on other platforms. Gamebeast is building them and just raised $3.7 million. Read more

🎦 Shorts update: YouTube announced on Wednesday that it's integrating Google DeepMind's AI video generation tool, Veo, into its YouTube Shorts program. Creators can use Veo to generate background images and make short clips. Read more

💡 More AI: Speaking of YouTube and AI, the video platform also announced on Wednesday that it will be rolling out a new feature that allows users to tap AI to help brainstorm video ideas directly in YouTube studio. Read more

📈 Cheers to smaller creators: YouTube announced a new feature today meant to help creators with fewer than 500,000 subscribers be featured more prominently in YouTube's algorithm. Users can "hype" a video to help it rank higher on a weekly leaderboard. Read more

🏥 Med device money: Luminate, the maker of a helmet that prevents people going through chemo from losing their hair, is looking to expand into at-home cancer care. The company is testing new products and just raised $15 million. Read more

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Around the web

🧬 The drama at genetic-testing company 23andMe continues. The Wall Street Journal reports that all seven independent board members at the company resigned, citing the inability for the company to produce an attractive take-private opportunity. Yikes! Read more

🔌 General Motors announced that it has updated the software in its electric cars and they can now tap into Tesla's Supercharger network. Drivers who want to take advantage of this now will have to pay for a Tesla adapter. Read more

⛓ The Information reports that Haun Ventures grabs a stake in blockchain analytics startup Chainalysis. Read more

🤖 Read what JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has to say about the economic state of affairs and AI's role in society. CNBC has more. Read more