Here is the daily technology #threadcast for 11/27/24. The goal is to make this a technology "reddit".
Drop all question, comments, and articles relating to #technology and the future. The goal is make it a technology center.
Here is the daily technology #threadcast for 11/27/24. The goal is to make this a technology "reddit".
Drop all question, comments, and articles relating to #technology and the future. The goal is make it a technology center.
Military and AI will not be a pretty picture because now AI companies like Meta and OpenAI are working with the U.S. military to develop new technology.
This is not Nuclear or drone, this AI. I'm freaking out
Why are you freaking out?
because AI as a weapon is a massive problem, or am i missing something?
So you only see the downside of AI?
All technology could be used for nefarious intentions.
Imagine the fears related to the internet with spam, identity theft, malware, ramsonware, and a host of other unpleasant online attacks.
Consider the ability for hackers to shut down power grids and disrupt water systems.
Not very enviable. Perhaps we should fear the Internet and do away with it.
you know what you've got a great point. My perspective is wrong
well if you think about it, bro's got a justifiable reason to be freaking out, I see Nuclear weapons as nothing compared to weaponizing AI. It'll have more precision with targets than any soldier
Combining AI and Crispr gene editing will soon change medicine, farming and climate. AI has a way of speeding up research. We'll discover better treatments and smarter crops faster
Hello #technology!
Would you have the courage to have a robot pet in your home?
Do you think this will become a trend in the future?
I believe the chances are high. But if this robot pet helps me better protect my future home, I might be interested in buying it.
#ai #robot #pet
Big boobs? No I think we will see the same as in the past, some big, some small.
LOL
The good thing is that we will see all sizes, right? 😁
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https://inleo.io/threads/view/khaleelkazi/re-anderssinho-t5urgps1?referral=khaleelkazi
Today will be a very interesting day.
Robô-pombo voa como pássaro e elimina a cauda vertical dos aviões
O voo dos pássaros sempre foi considerado complexo demais para ser copiado por máquinas - é por isso que aviões, drones e robôs voadores não se parecem com as aves.
#technology #ai #robot #pombo #hivebr #military
Por exemplo, você já se perguntou por que um avião tem uma cauda vertical? É porque o avião precisa dela para estabilizar seu voo. O nome técnico daquela estrutura é estabilizador vertical, que contém ainda um leme, uma peça móvel utilizada para controlar o movimento lateral da aeronave.
Mas pássaros não têm caudas verticais e é fácil entender o porquê: Voar sem uma cauda vertical é muito mais eficiente em termos de energia.
Isto tem feito a indústria da aviação trabalhar há décadas para conseguir eliminar o estabilizador vertical dos aviões - até agora sem muito sucesso.
Nessa busca do biomimetismo, a pergunta fundamental é: Como os pássaros conseguem estabilidade e agilidade sem precisar de uma cauda vertical?
Eric Chang e colegas da Universidade de Groningen, nos Países Baixos, fazem parte da comunidade que tenta não apenas encontrar uma resposta para isso, mas sobretudo encontrar formas de copiar essa capacidade.
Inflection AI is shifting focus from creating new AI models to offering practical tools for businesses.
It acquired three startups and plans to compete with Salesforce and Meta in enterprise AI. AI business integration is going to boom
Imagine combining Tesla Optimus with Neuralink
Tesla and Neuralink are working to connect robotic arms with brain implants. Soon, people might control robot limbs with their minds🤯🤯🤯🤯
Brain-to-robot interface
yes exactly, I'm now thinking of both the positive and negative sides to that
New publisher Spines aims to 'disrupt' industry by using AI to publish 8,000 books in 2025 alone
Article via The Bookseller
Yep. People do not realize the sheer volume of things is going to alter the entire landscape of content. This is going to apply to books, music, and eventually films.
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hey, you just responded to me in the sports channel. Is this your channel?
I noticed from your cat profile. You're cat lover?
Just a profile.
cool, well have got 2 ginger kittens. Unfortunately their mother died last month.
Think she eat rat poison and it was too late for the vets.
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Hi, @mightpossibly,
This post has been voted on by @darkcloaks because you are an active member of the Darkcloaks gaming community.
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!summarize
talk about crypto adoption 😆, it's becoming a portfolio for big companies especially tech
https://inleo.io/threads/view/anderssinho/re-leothreads-2jjczfzwa?referral=anderssinho
If you guys have any time over feel free to drop by my threadcast as well :)
I will visit you as well... lol
guess what!
i haven't slept.. lol
Maaate take care of your mind and body :)
Thanks man!
Artists Leak OpenAI's Sora Video Generator
A group of artists recently made a post claiming that OpenAI was using them as unpaid beta testers for Sora, OpenAI's video generator, and that the company was pressuring them to spin a positive narrative around the tool. OpenAI required every video clip to be approved before sharing, suggesting that the early access program was less about creative expression and critique and more about PR and advertisement. The artists leaked a version of Sora on Hugging Face that could create 10-second clips but OpenAI shut down early access for all artists three hours after it was posted. The artists said in their post that they hope OpenAI becomes more open, more artist friendly, and supports the arts beyond PR stunts.
#technology #openai #ai
OpenAI gets new $1.5 billion investment from SoftBank, allowing employees to sell shares in a tender offer
OpenAI on Tuesday introduced a new $1.5 billion tender offer, a continuation of its recent $6.6 billion funding round, led by SoftBank, CNBC has learned.
The new financing will allow the Japanese tech conglomerate to get an even larger slice of the AI startup, and it will allow current and former OpenAI employees to cash out their shares, two people familiar with the matter told CNBC.
#openai #funding #softbank #technology
billions of dollars into AI, when the profits start coming, the list of worlds richest people will change and most of them will be AI investors or owners
Leo needs to get moving on it.
Employees will have until Dec. 24 to decide if they want to participate in the new tender offer, which has not previously been reported, one of the people said. The deal was spurred by SoftBank billionaire founder and CEO Masayoshi Son, who was persistent in asking for a larger stake in the startup after putting $500 million into OpenAI's last funding round, one of the people said.
The tender offer is not related to OpenAI's potential plans to restructure the firm to a for-profit business, one of the people said.
Reddit targets international users for ad growth, teases bolstered search feature
Reddit is ramping up efforts to attract more users outside of the U.S., with
countries like India and Brazil in focus, a top company executive told CNBC.
In a wide-ranging interview, Jen Wong, chief operating officer of Reddit, said other platforms have 80% to 90% of users outside of the U.S. while about half of her company's current users are based internationally.
"So that points to a lot of our future user growth opportunity definitely outside of the U.S. and local language," Wong told CNBC. "The opportunity, the way I think about it, is every language is an opportunity for another Reddit."
#reddit #socialmedia #technology #ads
i personally think the easiest way to grow any social platform is to make rewards system for users and promote in African countries and countries with very low average income, it grows like wildfire
It has no stickiness to it. We see that on here. Most of those who were here simply looked to scalp rewards. They had not ownership mentality or the mindset of building something.
that's quite unfortunate
Hi, @taskmaster4450le,
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Reddit has historically been an English-language platform, but the company is looking to expand its international reach with the help of artificial intelligence translations. This year, Reddit launched a feature that automatically translates its site into different languages.
Wong said that around 20 to 30 languages could be available by the end of the year.
India opportunity
Among the company's fastest-growing markets in terms of users is the U.K., the Philippines, India and Brazil.
"India's growing really rapidly," Wong said. "We see a big opportunity in India."
The Reddit COO said that India has a large English-speaking internet population, and there are lots of engaged users around topics like cricket and the Bollywood movie industry.
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Hi, @taskmaster4450le,
This post has been voted on by @darkcloaks because you are an active member of the Darkcloaks gaming community.
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Elon Musk hints that X deprioritizes links to keep users on platform formerly known as Twitter
X owner Elon Musk has implied that the platform throttles the reach of posts, including links to external sites, to keep users from leaving.
Replying to a post on X by popular user Paul Graham on Sunday, Mr. Musk said if users want their links seen by other users, they should write long descriptions of what is in the link and then post the link in the replies.
#elonmusk #x #socialmedia #internet #links
“Just write a description in the main post and put the link in the reply,” Mr. Musk wrote on X. “This just stops lazy linking.”
Mr. Graham was criticizing a perceived deprioritization of links on X. He said that he visits X to “find out what’s going on, and you can’t do that without links.” Mr. Graham found Mr. Musk’s advice confusing.
“If I write a new essay and tweet a link to it, that’s ‘lazy linking,’” Mr. Graham wrote in a reply to Mr. Musk. “But if I tweet that I’ve written a new essay and then put the link in a reply, that’s somehow better?”
Sounds like Elon should join #inleo....
So it's better to describe what you read in the article, give opinions and then link it, rather than Just putting a title and a link
This is nothing more than data and control. The idea of driving traffic from other social media via links is going away. The Internet is changing.
Just following every other big tech platform then.
Social media creators turn to subscription apps due to increasingly competitive, volatile content economy
Many content creators are increasingly looking to monthly subscription platforms like Substack and Patreon for consistency in their monthly income.
Social media creators are turning to monthly subscription services to generate revenue directly from their followers in an attempt to find a stable source of income in an increasingly competitive and volatile market.
#socialmedia #subscriptions #contentcreators #substack #patreon
I heard that many are leaving Patreon because they are changing their payment levels and the options to adjust them.
It wouldnt surprise me. That is what happens when you have a company behind a platform instead of a cooperative.
Yeah and when you remove flexibilty for the creator to charge the rates they want. Just heard this from a åodcast I listen to who will delete their patreon because they previously could charge $1 per episode, but not any more.
I am not surprised, YouTube very example is so competitive it's damn difficult to rise and get noticed. And even big channels don't get consistent income, I see how subscriptions can help em
The creator economy peaked in September 2021, according to research published this month by the Bank of America Institute. While the average monthly income for content creators has increased over the past three years, a typical, full-time U.S. employee makes five times as much in monthly income on average.
"This suggests that it's rare to earn a full-time wage in content creation — let alone get rich," said the research, which was also conducted by the Bank of America Institute, a think tank that conducts its research using Bank of America customer data.
Databricks closes in on multibillion funding round at $55 billion valuation to help employees cash out
Databricks is raising at least $5 billion in cash — though it could raise as much as $8 billion — pegging its new valuation at $55 billion, sources say.
One of the world's most valuable private tech companies is raising billions more in cash and is in no rush to go public, sources told CNBC.
San Francisco-based Databricks is raising at least another $5 billion in its latest funding round, though it could raise up to $8 billion given the round is ongoing, according to several people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the discussions were private. The latest raise would value the company at $55 billion and could top the largest round of the year, by OpenAI.
#databricks #data #technology #valuation #ai #sanfrancisco
The latest funding is designed to help Databricks employees sell shares, one of the people said. Reducing pressure from employees to cash out also reduces the need for a liquidity event such as an IPO. One source said the funding round makes Databricks' highly anticipated public debut less urgent. But it could still happen in the back half of next year.
Databricks was founded in 2013 and sells software that helps enterprises organize data and build their own generative AI products. It uses machine learning to help clients from AT&T to Walgreens parse and make sense of massive troves of data.
This equity round could be the largest in a banner year for artificial intelligence funding, when 1 in 3 venture dollars has gone to an AI startup, according to CB Insights. OpenAI holds the record in 2024, raising $6.6 billion in October at a $157 billion valuation.
Databricks last raised $500 million at a $43 billion valuation. It's backed by Nvidia, Capital One, Andreessen Horowitz, Baillie Gifford, Fidelity, Insight Partners, Tiger Global and others.
5 bill is a lot of cash but can't they invest some into $BTC to help the employees even more in the future? Just brainstorming here🤔
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The delisting will become effective from 8 a.m London time on Dec. 27, while Dec. 24 will mark the last date of trading of Just Eat Takeaway's shares on the LSE.
Earlier this month, Just Eat Takeaway.com said it would sell its GrubHub arm to New York-based online takeout startup Wonder for $650 million — a huge discount compared to the $7.3 billion the firm paid for the U.S. food delivery app.
Advertising opportunity
Growth in markets like India can propel Reddit to boost ad revenue, its main source of income.
International markets account for just over 17% of Reddit's revenue currently, according to the company's third-quarter results, despite around 50% of its users being located outside the U.S.
Wong said that Reddit first attempts cross-border advertising for international markets, such as when a European brand is looking to advertise in the U.S. Then, when Reddit hits about 10% of a country's internet population in a country, there is an opportunity to build teams focused on local advertising — like an Indian brand advertising to Indian users.
New search tools
Reddit users will know that it's not always the easiest site to find what you're looking for — a drawback that the company is now looking to change with new search tools.
During Reddit's third-quarter earnings call last month, CEO Steve Huffman called search on the platform a "focused investment" in 2025.
Wong expanded that the company is thinking of its search feature as a way of helping users to navigate around the site to find similar topics or posts that they may have otherwise missed.
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The news underscores Son's interest in the AI space and in backing the most valuable private players. SoftBank was an early investor in Arm, and Son said at a recent conference that he's saving "tens of billions of dollars" to make the "next big move" in artificial intelligence. He had previously invested in Apple, Qualcomm and Alibaba.
SoftBank's Vision Fund 2 recently invested in AI startups Glean, Perplexity and Poolside. SoftBank has about 470 portfolio companies and $160 billion in assets across its two vision funds.
"You land on a post and but it's almost like a dead end. But there are a lot of posts, often like that post, or there are other posts like that post in other communities. And so giving you a total view of what that looks like is a really interesting opportunity," Wong said.
"Guiding you through Reddit as you follow that line of thinking, is how we think of the opportunity."
Wong declined to say more except, "We're testing a lot of things."
The OpenAI investment matches SoftBank's eagerness to deploy cash, with a capital-intensive business model, a person close to Son told CNBC.
Even without SoftBank's deep pockets, OpenAI has had no trouble raising billions in cash. Its valuation has climbed to $157 billion in the two years since launching ChatGPT. OpenAI has raised roughly $13 billion from Microsoft, and it closed its latest $6.6 billion round in October, led by Thrive Capital and including participation from chipmaker Nvidia, SoftBank and others.
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In some parts of the world, Workday is still facing more deal scrutiny than usual, Workday's finance chief, Zane Rowe, said on a conference call with analysts.
Now the company is looking to grow its business in the U.S. government, CEO Carl Eschenbach said. "We think there's a huge opportunity there with probably more than 80% of HCM and ERP still on premises," he said, referring to human capital management and enterprise resource planning.
The company also received a $4 billion revolving line of credit, bringing its total liquidity to more than $10 billion. OpenAI expects about $5 billion in losses on $3.7 billion in revenue this year, CNBC confirmed in September with a person familiar with the situation.
Earlier this month, President-elect Donald Trump announced plans for an advisory panel called the "Department of Government Efficiency."
"People are absolutely looking to drive more economies of scale and more efficiency," Eschenbach said.
Workday said Rob Enslin, the former Google and SAP executive who stepped down as UiPath CEO in June, was joining as president and chief commercial officer. In October, Workday told employees that Doug Robinson, a co-president, will retire.
OpenAI employees can cash out
The tender offer will be open to current and former employees who had been granted restricted stock units at least two years ago and have held the shares for at least that long, one of the people said. The unit price of $210 will align with the company's most recent funding round.
Tender offers have become crucial for tech employees amid a dormant IPO market and skyrocketing company valuations. Private companies rely on such deals to keep employees happy and reduce the pressure to list on public markets. Since OpenAI has no initial public offering immediately on the horizon and a price tag that makes the company prohibitively expensive for would-be acquirers, secondary stock sales are the only way in the near future for shareholders to pocket a portion of their paper wealth.
Databricks is another private company raising money to allow employees to cash out and avoid public markets pressure, CNBC reported this week.
OpenAI took a more restrictive approach to tender offers in the past, with rules allowing the company to determine who gets to participate in stock sales, CNBC reported in June. Current and former OpenAI employees previously told CNBC that there was growing concern about access to liquidity after reports that the company had the power to claw back vested equity.
During the quarter, Workday acquired contract lifecycle management software startup Evisort. Workday also said artificial intelligence agents for spotting inefficiencies, filing expense reports and updating succession plans would become available in early access in 2025.
"We think they're going to have a nice impact on bookings and revenue as we go into the new year," Eschenbach said.
Rowe called for $8.8 billion in fiscal year 2026 subscription revenue, good for 14% growth.
But the company reversed its policies toward secondary share sales this summer, and it now allows current and former employees to participate equally in annual tender offers.
The company expects to allow more of these secondary sales, and it will need to tap private markets again in the future based on demand from investors and the capital-intensive nature of the business, according to a person familiar with this week's tender offer.
OpenAI has faced increasing competition from startups like Anthropic and tech giants like Google. The generative AI market is predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade, and business spending on generative AI surged 500% this year, according to recent data from Menlo Ventures.
Last month OpenAI launched a search feature within ChatGPT, its viral chatbot, that positions the high-powered AI startup to better compete with search engines like Google, Microsoft's Bing and Perplexity.
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The Information first reported that Databricks was raising money.
The firm has capitalized on the momentum in artificial intelligence. This summer, it acquired MosaicML, a $1.3 billion software startup that focuses on large language models that can churn out natural-sounding text. Databricks told investors earlier this year that annualized revenue would hit $2.4 billion by the midpoint of 2024.
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Its decision to stay private comes as software stocks have struggled to get out of a rut brought on by higher interest rates. Shares of rival Snowflake are down 13% this year. While its fellow software IPO candidates such as Stripe have taken significant haircuts on valuations, Databricks has grown its value while expanding its employee base.
CEO Ali Ghodsi said at a conference Nov. 20 that he's optimizing for the success of Databricks over the next decade or two, not optimizing for an IPO.
"If we were going to go, the earliest would be, let's say, mid-next year, or something like that," Ghodsi said at Newcomer's Cerebral Valley AI Conference. "So, you know, could happen next year."
Analysts at the Bank of America Institute attribute this to a slowdown in paid partnerships, a more competitive market for creators, a decline in online viewership since the pandemic and a concentration of paid partnerships among the top creators.
While internet virality is unpredictable, turning content creation into a full-time career requires meeting certain financial needs, like the ability to pay monthly bills, content creators told CNBC. As a result, creators are looking to diversify their revenue streams, and in addition to paid partnerships, many content creators are increasingly looking to monthly subscription platforms like Substack and Patreon for consistency in their monthly income.
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Substack and Patreon have emerged as attractive options because they enable creators to charge their followers directly for their content. Creators can offer their followers different tiers of subscriptions for monthly fees, with each tier including different perks. Since its launch in 2013, Patreon has paid creators over $8 billion, while Substack claims to host more than 4 million paid subscribers.
On TikTok and Meta's Instagram, creators have to navigate algorithmic models that control when their content is shown, making income from those apps highly volatile. Earnings can fluctuate dramatically, spiking or plummeting based on how these platforms choose to promote their content.
"I can't rely on that to be what pays my bills," said Molly Burke, a creator with more than 4 million followers across her social apps. "As an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as a creator, I have to figure out how I'm going to sustain this as a career for as long as possible."
Molly Burke, a creator known for her videos about living with blindness and navigating daily life.
Social media platforms increasingly rely on algorithms to decide what content users see, based on their past interactions and preferences. These algorithms analyze user behavior to create personalized content feeds, which often prioritize posts that are likely to generate engagement, such as likes or shares.
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As a result, many creators feel pressured to make content that caters to the algorithm, even if they believe it lowers the quality of their work, content creators said.
"It ebbs and flows," Burke said. "Sometimes my TikToks are popping and I'm getting all the views, and then that algorithm just dips for a bit."
While nearly half of creators work full time, most rely heavily on brand deals for income, with more than two-thirds having brand partnerships as their primary revenue source, according to a separate study by influencer marketing agency NeoReach. The study found that more than 48% of creators earn $15,000 or less annually, even as the global influencer market reached $21 billion in 2023. There are more than 50 million content creators worldwide, Goldman Sachs said in April 2023.
Burke, a creator known for her videos about living with blindness and navigating daily life, has been producing content on the internet for five years. While it's not her biggest income stream, she uses her Patreon revenue to help cover essential expenses, including rent.
"I feel extremely lucky and grateful that it is a revenue stream that I can rely on, that I know at the bare minimum I can get my rent covered this month," she said.
Subscription platforms like Patreon address this by allowing creators to bypass the algorithm entirely, connecting directly with their most loyal fans who are willing to pay for exclusive content.
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"By extending the lifecycle of furniture, overall it's just better for the environment, whether it be less wood being chopped out of forests to just the supply chain associated with producing that furniture," said Reham Fagiri, founder and CEO of AptDeco.
For big furniture retailers, there is big waste in returns and the reverse logistics involved — from the costs to the transportation emissions. Instead, partner brands are now selling their returned items on AptDeco as soon as a customer requests a return, directly from the customer's home. AptDeco uses its own resale data to price items to sell quickly, often within a week. They can then retrieve the item from the returner's home and deliver it directly to a resale buyer, bypassing the need to take these returned items to a distribution center first.
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Kathleen O'Brien bought her dining room table, TV console and headboard from AptDeco.
"The world is kind of on fire, literally, and so anything that I can do to reduce my own footprint in the world is what I'm trying to do, like in all aspects of my life and furniture specifically," said O'Brien.
While the furniture sells at as much as a 50% discount to new, the service comes at a price.
"We earn a percentage that ranges from 15% to as high as 60% depending on the product, the brand, the condition, and a lot of different variations that go into it," said Fagiri.
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The company operates everywhere in the U.S. except Alaska and Hawaii. The company's carrier network across so many markets makes its expansion potential very attractive to investors like Initialized Capital.
"Contributing to the circular economy through their logistics business is a great example of the types of climate adaptation companies that we see as having longevity in the next phase of climate tech," said Zoe Perret, a partner at Initialized Capital,
AptDeco is also backed by Comcast Ventures, Y Combinator, Hearst Lab, Great Oaks Venture Capital and Soma Capital. It has raised $14.5 million in total funding so far.
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And if you’re working with the Compute Module 5, you can buy an IO board for $20 that lets you take advantage of all its interfaces and start developing. You can also turn the Compute Module 5 into a small desktop computer with a metal case that protects the Module hardware and the IO board.
Now, let’s see if Raspberry Pi plans to update the Raspberry Pi 400 next. That device is essentially a keyboard with a built-in Raspberry Pi computer based on the Raspberry Pi 4 — and it’s extremely cute.
Between 2015 and 2017, co-CEOs Boumediene and Oudghiri led Foodpanda’s regional operations under Rocket Internet and DeliveryHero ownership. Their experience scaling the food-delivery business – which they claim to have grown 50x in three years and taken to profitability – motivated them to start their own company.
“After our time with Foodpanda, we were hooked on entrepreneurship and knew we wanted to start something of our own,” shared co-CEO Boumediene on a call with TechCrunch. “We wanted to find the right problem to solve, so we started exploring ideas and comparing challenges we saw across different regions.”
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From delivering food to selling eyeglasses
The founders brainstormed 87 ideas, and after filtering options with a list of 15 criteria and conducting a six-month evaluation, they landed on the eyewear market, a vastly different industry from food delivery.
They discovered demand for eyewear was growing significantly, but the supply wasn’t keeping up. Myopia was rising in the region’s relatively young population (one study shows that the prevalence of myopia and high myopia in the UAE is around 27%). In addition, local eyewear companies were focused on in-store sales, rarely did any e-commerce, and their brands weren’t affordable or tailored to the mass market.
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With no prior experience in the eyewear industry, Eyewa started by selling eyewear brands, including Ray-Ban, Gucci, Prada, and Johnson & Johnson, online for two years.
By then, it had enough data on customer behavior, including cart additions, website searches, and purchase patterns, to design and launch its own in-house brands. Now, Eyewa has nine proprietary brands for diverse preferences, from older customers seeking functional eyewear to younger buyers looking for trendy options. Currently, 96% of Eyewa’s revenue comes from these in-house brands, which, according to the company, has been key to keeping prices affordable for the mass market, including smaller cities across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman.
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Eyewa markets its eyeglasses, even the prescription ones, as fashion accessories, unlike traditional retailers, who tend to treat customers as patients, selling expensive brands like Prada in sterile settings.
“We kind of turned around the way we look at the eyewear experience, where fashion is the thing that customers really care about from a choice perspective,” co-CEO Oudghiri commented on the call. “So that’s what we focus on in the retail experience and the health care aspect, we take care of it. We’re going to give you very high-quality lenses and exhaustive eye tests, and we’ll make sure that you have the best health quality for the eyewear that you buy. But what we want to push in the retail experience is the fashion.”
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Eyewa also keeps prices low: In the Gulf states, Eyewa’s entry-level eyeglasses, including lenses, are priced around $100, approximately 50% less than similar products available in traditional stores.
Scaling its omnichannel experience
As an e-commerce platform, Eyewa exclusively served customers who already had prescriptions and knew the glasses they wanted. But that’s not exactly a mass market. So it began opening retail stores in December 2020 as Covid lockdowns slowly lifted.
The move allowed it to reach a broader customer base, as most eyewear shoppers still prefer in-store experiences to try on frames and complete their purchases. This also allowed Eyewa to own the full customer journey by providing eye examinations, which could only happen in physical stores equipped with optometrists and exam rooms.
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Eyewa raised a $21 million Series B from several investors, including Nuwa Capital and Endeavor Catalyst, in 2021 to scale this effort, and since then, it has grown to 150 stores, all wholly owned and operated — no franchises. The startup, which now employs 1,300 people, claims to be the largest eyewear brand in Saudi Arabia by store count and the fastest-growing eyewear retailer globally.
To put this growth into perspective: global benchmarks like Warby Parker took seven years to grow from their first store to 100, and Lenskart in India took about six years to achieve the same milestone.
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“We’re the fastest growing globally, but even across categories in the GCC, no other retailer in any other vertical did one store to 100 in less than four years. So we really executed super fast,” Boumediene remarked.
Boumediene declined to disclose how much eyewear the company has sold since its launch but did say Eyewa is profitable and growing at over 50% year-over-year in revenues. The company intends to add at least 100 more stores across six countries, including Qatar, its next market, in 2025; it will also open a production facility and fulfillment centre in Riyadh next quarter, said the executive.
With this round, General Atlantic joins a growing list of U.S. investors deepening their presence in the GCC by backing startups and establishing local teams, after receiving capital from the region’s sovereign wealth funds.
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Google offered to sell the ad exchange this year to end an EU antitrust investigation but European publishers rejected the proposal as insufficient, Reuters first reported in September.
Analysts view the ad tech case as a smaller financial risk than the case where a judge ruled Google maintains an illegal monopoly in online search, and where prosecutors have argued the company must be forced to sell its Chrome browser.
Criticisms include that the legislation had been rushed through Parliament without adequate scrutiny, would not work, would create privacy risks for users of all ages and would take away parents’ authority to decide what’s best for their children.
Critics also argue the ban would isolate children, deprive them of positive aspects of social media, drive children to the dark web, make children too young for social media reluctant to report harms encountered, and take away incentives for platforms to make online spaces safer.
Independent lawmaker Zoe Daniel said the legislation would “make zero difference to the harms that are inherent to social media.”
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“The true object of this legislation is not to make social media safe by design, but to make parents and voters feel like the government is doing something about it,” Daniel told Parliament.
“There is a reason why the government parades this legislation as world-leading, that’s because no other country wants to do it,” she added.
The platforms had asked for the vote to be delayed until at least June next year when a government-commissioned evaluation of age assurance technologies made its report on how the ban could be enforced.
Melbourne resident Wayne Holdsworth, whose 17-year-old son Mac took his own life last year after falling victim to an online sextortion scam, described the bill as “absolutely essential for the safety of our children.”
“It’s not the only thing that we need to do to protect them because education is the key, but to provide some immediate support for our children and parents to be able to manage this, it’s a great step,” the 65-year-old online safety campaigner told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
“And in my opinion, it’s the greatest time in our country’s history,” he added, referring to the pending legal reform.
Mr. Musk’s post seems to confirm what some journalists and X users had feared: X is keeping links off of user feeds so that users stay on the platform. Since Mr. Musk took over the site previously known as Twitter, reports have shown that X has limited the reach and performance of links to X competitors like Facebook.
Additionally, X’s apparent deprioritization of links goes hand-in-hand with other policy decisions made by the Mr. Musk-run platform. Earlier this year, Mr. Musk announced that posts containing links to news articles would no longer automatically display the headline, with users needing to manually write out headlines and other text.
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It did not come as a surprise that head coach Brian Daboll decided to bench Daniel Jones after the overtime loss to the Panthers in Munich.
It was a surprise that Daboll bypassed Lock — the backup all season — in favor of DeVito, who had been the No. 3 quarterback all season.
The Giants signed Lock to a one-year, $5 million deal in offseason and he admitted he was frustrated by the Giants decision last week.
All of those features result in lower utility costs — and it’s attracting residents.
“It’s very important to know that you are having a positive impact on the Earth,” says Jason Upperco, a 49-year-old executive who recently had a house built in Babcock Ranch.
Upperco even moved in ahead of plan, leasing a place in the community’s build-to-rent area, called The Flatwoods, to get the lay of the land.
Resident Janette Dulaney says when she opened her first electric bill after moving to Babcock Ranch, it was “mind-blowing.”
“It was half the cost of our old home’s, yet we have double the square footage now,” she told the Babcock Ranch Telegraph.
“It’s also helping the environment,” Dulaney noted, calling it a major win-win.
Homes are climate-resilient, too
The energy-efficient homes in Babcock Ranch are climate-resilient, too. The community has even gained fame as “Florida’s first hurricane-proof town.”
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“We are on a mission to build the most innovative, resilient, and climate-resilient town in America, and in a few short years, we’ve done just that,” says former NFL player Syd Kitson, co-founder of Babcock Ranch.
Even though Florida is the hurricane capital of America, all the homes and buildings in Babcock Ranch are built to withstand 150 mph winds. They’re also situated inland and 30 feet above sea level, which minimizes the impact of storm surges.
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About 90% of the community is built on preserved wetland, which naturally collects excess water and prevents flooding.
The community even has Smart Pond systems, which are connected to live weather forecast data. That information is used to project water levels and, if necessary, automatically lower the water levels before a storm arrives.
When Hurricane Milton hit Florida last month, two Babcock Ranch buildings were designated as shelters by the Florida Division of Emergency Management, and 2,000 people sought shelter there.
Although 3.3 million people lost power in Florida in the storm, Babcock Ranch never did.
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That’s because power lines are buried underground to protect them from wind damage — and the large on-site solar farm provides reliable power even during grid outages.
Kitson says his Babcock Ranch teams work with (not against) Mother Nature and constantly monitor changing environmental demands.
The inspiration for Babcock Ranch
Sustainability, resiliency, and innovation have been passions of Kitson’s since his college days at Wake Forest University.
After graduation, he was drafted by the NFL and went on to play for the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys.
Shortly after hanging up his pads and helmet, he founded a real estate development company.
“In the early 2000s, we believed that clean energy and sustainable development could set the standard for the future of development around the world,” says Kitson.
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In 2006, his team put that belief in motion and purchased Babcock Ranch in Southwest Florida—an area five times the size of Manhattan.
“Soon after, we sold 73,000 acres back to Florida to be preserved for future generations,” says Kitson.
They then set out to do what no one has done before: build a profitable community that works hand in hand with Mother Nature.
For his ingenuity and his efforts, Kitson was named Time magazine’s “Dreamer of the Year” in 2023.
The road to get here hasn’t always been easy, he admits. “To future ‘innovators,’ if you are going to do something unprecedented, be prepared for rejection.”
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Kitson has overcome countless roadblocks throughout his journey, but now hopes the “growth and success of Babcock Ranch can inspire communities around the world seeking to leave a positive—or neutral—impact on the planet.”
Upperco believes other communities around the country should follow suit.
“This town should be duplicated all over,” he says.
An array of activities are offered at Babcock Ranch to help residents reduce their carbon footprint by driving less and staying local.
“I especially like attending the Friday night live concerts and food trucks in Founder’s Square, the weekend pop-up farmers markets, as well as the various fitness and nutrition classes offered through the WellWay health and fitness center on property,” says Upperco.
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The neighborhood is walkable, and many children walk or ride their bikes to school.
“My children spend the majority of their time playing outside all day with their friends,” one homeowner wrote on Reddit. “All the parents know to watch out for each other and the kids, so there are always eyes on them at all times. My kids are 9 and 7 and they finally have a life! Honestly, I never want to move.”
There are five neighborhood lakes, which offer canoeing, kayaking, and paddleboarding.
Two lodges for residents—Lake Timber Lodge and Cypress Lodge — feature swimming pools, game lawns, and fishing docks.
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Four years ago, James previously joined Combs on an Instagram Live, where the four-time NBA champ referenced the celeb’s now-famous parties.
“Hey, everybody know, ain’t no party like a Diddy party,” James said at the time.
The clip resurfaced when the Combs case was made public — among separate videos with other celebrities at past parties thrown by the rapper.
James, 39, has not been linked to the case.
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Rumors are floating that famous Hollywood celebrities will be impacted as more information comes out in the case.
Combs was notorious for throwing star-studded parties, and he previously bragged about it in interviews.
In an unsealed indictment against Combs, federal prosecutors claim that the hip-hop star hosted “freak off” parties where individuals were coerced into engaging in sexual performances with male sex workers.
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The Cardano founder believes that the growing inflow of institutional investments and the recognition of Bitcoin as “digital gold” will bring its value closer to the global gold market. Currently, Bitcoin’s market cap is under $2 trillion, while that of gold is more than $18 trillion.
Many are expecting the upcoming Donald Trump administration to declare Bitcoin a strategic reserve asset and accumulate 1 million BTC over the next five years. According to CNF, the Trump team is working to have a crypto czar position at the White House, with Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson eyeing an advisory role.
Cardano and Bitcoin Collaboration
A significant development in Cardano’s network is its ability to integrate Bitcoin directly onto Cardano’s L1 blockchain without any intermediaries. Cardano is the first blockchain to achieve L1 BTC integration, setting it apart in decentralized finance and reinforcing its commitment to enabling secure, intermediary-free transactions.
According to an article from Crypto News Flash, Charles Hoskinson has been highly bullish about the growth of the Cardano ecosystem. In a bold prediction, he also said that Cardano could outpace Bitcoin and Ethereum.
In another development, Cardano, a Layer-1 Proof-of-Stake blockchain, has successfully launched its first Zero-Knowledge (ZK) transaction on the mainnet, utilizing Halo2 technology. Core developer Sebastian Guillemot marked the milestone by sharing the transaction hash for verification.
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@taskmaster4450le have you seen any update on yesterdays numbers?
No
Just Eat Takeaway to delist from London Stock Exchange in blow to UK market
Dec. 24 will mark the last date of trading of Just Eat Takeaway's shares on the London Stock Exchange.
Just Eat Takeaway will delist from the London Stock Exchange next month, in a blow to the U.K.'s ambitions to attract more high-growth tech firms to its stock market.
After completing a review of optimal listing venues, the Anglo-Dutch food delivery firm said Wednesday that it intends to delist from London's stock exchange, making Amsterdam Just Eat Takeaway.com's sole trading venue.
#technology #justeattakeaway #uk #london #stock #delisting
Explaining its decision, Just Eat Takeaway said it was delisting its shares from the LSE in a bid to "reduce the administrative burden, complexity and costs associated with the disclosure and regulatory requirements of maintaining the LSE listing, and in the context of low liquidity and trading volumes."
Just Eat Takeaway shares slipped 1.5% following the delisting announcement.
It has requested that the LSE and the Financial Conduct Authority, the U.K.'s markets watchdog, cancel its listing, so that it can remain primarily listed on the Amsterdam exchange.
Workday stock slips on light quarterly forecast
Workday called for a 25% adjusted operating margin in the current quarter, below Wall Street's estimate of 25.5%.
Workday shares slipped as much as 11% in extended trading Tuesday after the human resources and finance software maker issued a quarterly forecast that came in below Wall Street projections.
#workday #earnings #stock
For the fiscal fourth quarter, Workday called for an adjusted operating margin of 25% on $2.03 billion in subscription revenue. Analysts polled by StreetAccount were looking for a 25.5% margin and $2.04 billion in subscription revenue.
Here's how the company performed during the fiscal third quarter compared with the consensus among analysts surveyed by LSEG:
Earnings per share: $1.89 adjusted vs. $1.76 expected
Revenue: $2.16 billion vs. $2.13 billion expected
Workday's total revenue grew about 16% year over year in the quarter ended Oct. 31, according to a statement. Subscription revenue totaled $1.96 billion, up around 16%, consistent with the $1.96 billion consensus among analysts surveyed by StreetAccount.
The company reported net income of $193 million or 72 cents per share, up $114 million or 43 cents per share in the same quarter a year ago. The adjusted operating margin for the quarter was 26.3%. StreetAccount had expected 25.4%.
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Study found people couldn't easily tell AI art from human art, guessing wrong 40% of the time. Surprisingly, many liked AI art more.
Can you tell which is AI?
thanks to how advanced technology is getting, NASA can take better images of planets. This is Jupiter close up
Binance added six new tokens including Hedera, Solana, and meme coins. They also launched new trading options to improve user experience.
Although I hope for decentralized exchange to grow, I gotta say Binance is doing well
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