Core Insights - Amazon is attempting to penetrate the AI coding tool market by offering its tool for free to early-stage startups [1][2] - The initiative includes a free year of credits for qualified startups to use Kiro Pro+, a competitor in the AI coding space [2] Eligibility and Restrictions - Only startups that have secured venture capital funding from pre-seed to Series B are eligible for the free credits [3] - The offer is limited to U.S.-based startups, with geographic restrictions in countries such as France, Germany, Italy, and much of South America, as well as trade-sanctioned countries [3] - Applications for the free credits must be submitted by December 31 [3]

Alan Dye, the design executive who led Apple’s user interface team for the last decade, is leaving the company to join Meta, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.This is a significant hire for Meta, as the company makes a push toward consumer devices like smart glasses and virtual reality headsets. Dye will focus on improving AI features in these devices and report directly to Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth. At Apple, Dye will be replaced by Steve Lemay, who has had “a key role in t ...

Core Insights - Alan Dye, the design executive who led Apple's user interface team for the last decade, is leaving to join Meta, marking a significant hire for Meta as it focuses on consumer devices like smart glasses and virtual reality headsets [1] - Dye will concentrate on enhancing AI features in these devices and will report directly to Meta's Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth [1] - Steve Lemay will replace Dye at Apple, having played a key role in the design of every major Apple interface since 1999, as stated by Apple CEO Tim Cook [2] - Meta is actively recruiting from competitors to strengthen its position in the AI race, having also hired researchers from OpenAI this summer [3] - Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has engaged in personal recruitment efforts, including delivering homemade soup to potential recruits from OpenAI [3]

The online gaming platform Roblox has been banned in Russia, according to a report from Russian state media.Roblox is a user-generated content platform where players can create and share their own games and experiences, similar to Minecraft. The platform hosts various interest-based and affinity communities, including military roleplaying games and LGBTQ solidarity groups. But Russia has laws designating public LGBTQ advocacy as “extremist activity.“ According to a translation of an article in TASS, a stat ...

Can any company, big or small, really topple Nvidia’s AI chip dominance? Maybe not. But there are hundreds of billions of dollars of revenue for those that can even peel off a chunk of it for themselves, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said this week.As expected, the company announced during the AWS Re:Invent conference the next generation of its Nvidia-competitor AI chip, Trainium3, which is four times faster yet uses less power than the current Trainium2. Jassy revealed a few tidbits about the current Trainium in a ...

Waymo is adding another four cities to its growing list of robotaxi rollouts. The company announced Wednesday it has begun testing its autonomous vehicles (with a safety monitor) in Philadelphia, and that it will start manual driving to collect data in Baltimore, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh.Waymo did not offer a timeline for when it plans to launch commercial services in those locations, nor do we know whether the Alphabet-owned company will partner with other companies to operate robotaxis in each one. That ...

Amazon announced a new product Tuesday called “AI Factories” that allows big corporations and governments to run its AI systems in their own data centers. Or as AWS puts it: Customers supply the power and the data center, and AWS plunks in the AI system, manages it, and can tie it into other AWS cloud services.The idea is to cater to companies and governments concerned with data sovereignty, or absolute control over their data so it can’t wind up in a competitor’s or foreign adversary’s hands. An on-prem AI ...

Core Insights - Bending Spoons has agreed to acquire Eventbrite for approximately $500 million, significantly lower than its $1.76 billion valuation at the time of its IPO in 2018 [1][5] - Eventbrite's revenue has stagnated, with audited annual revenue remaining flat at about $325 million for both fiscal years 2024 and 2023 [5] Company Overview - Eventbrite was co-founded in 2006 by Julia and Kevin Hartz, and Renaud Visage, raising around $330 million in venture capital from notable investors like Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global Management during its private years [2] - Bending Spoons operates differently from traditional private equity firms, focusing on acquiring companies to hold indefinitely, aiming to make them profitable through cost-cutting, price increases, and new product features [3] Acquisition Details - The acquisition price represents about 1.7 times Eventbrite's trailing twelve months revenue of $295 million [5] - Eventbrite stockholders will receive $4.50 in cash per share, which is an 81% premium over the previous day's closing price of $2.48 [5] Industry Context - Other investors are also pursuing a similar strategy of acquiring and revitalizing stalled software firms, often referred to as "venture zombie" companies, including firms like Constellation Software and Curious [4] - Andrew Dumont, CEO of Curious, indicated that their strategy involves purchasing quality companies at low prices and quickly reviving them to achieve profit margins of 20% to 30% [4]

Amazon Web Services on Tuesday announced three new AI agents it calls “frontier agents,” including one designed to learn how you like to work and then operate on its own for days.Each of these agents handle different tasks such as writing code, security processes like code reviews, and automating DevOps tasks such as preventing incidents when pushing new code live. Preview versions of the agents are available now. Perhaps the biggest and most interesting claim by AWS is its promise that the frontier agent ...

Amazon Web Services is rolling out a slate of new homegrown AI models and a service for enterprise customers to build their own custom versions.The cloud provider launched Nova 2, a fleet of four new AI models to its Nova model family, during AWS CEO Matt Garman’s AWS Re:Invent keynote on Tuesday. The first version of AWS Nova was announced last year at the company’s annual tech conference. At the time, the company released four text-generating models and one image-generating model. This year, AWS is givi ...