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Amazon debuts free channels: Amazon is doubling down on free, ad-supported content with this week’s introduction of Fire TV Channels. The new, free and ad-supported video experience, which came to Fire TV devices this week, will be continuously updated throughout the day and integrated into several areas across the Fire TV interface, Sarah reports.
Bio update for a check: Briefly, a bug on Twitter let legacy blue check holders get their badge back by updating their bio. Readers will recall that blue checks on Twitter once signified that a user was “verified,” but now serve as an indication that they’re paying for Twitter’s premium subscription service, Twitter Blue. Verified users who chose not to pay recently faced the prospect of blue check removal — but not necessarily permanently, judging by the bug.
Google ditches passwords for passkeys: This week Google rolled out passkeys to Google Account users globally, roughly a year after the company — alongside Apple, Microsoft and the FIDO Alliance — announced a partnership to broadly advance passkey adoption. With passkeys, users’ authentication synchronizes across devices through the cloud using cryptographic key pairs, allowing them to sign in to websites and apps using the same biometrics or screen-lock PIN they use to unlock their devices.
Microsoft debuts Pegasus: Microsoft this week announced that it’ll extend the Startup Founders Hub, its self-service platform that provides founders with free resources, including Azure credits, with a new incubator program called the Pegasus Program. Pegasus will select startups with products that “fill a market need” and give them up to $350,000 in Azure, GitHub and LinkedIn credits plus backing from advisors, as well as “access to the best Microsoft tech,” Microsoft says.
Blue check marks come to Gmail: Google is going to start displaying a blue check mark next to select senders’ names on Gmail to verify their identity, the company said on Wednesday. The check marks will automatically appear next to companies that have adopted Gmail’s existing brand indicators for message identification feature, reports Aisha.
OpenAI rakes in the dough: OpenAI, the startup behind the widely used conversational AI model ChatGPT, has picked up new backers. In an exclusive report, Jagmeet and Ingrid reveal that VC firms, including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive, K2 Global and Founders Fund, have put just over $300 million into OpenAI, valuing the company at between $27 billion and $29 billion.
Apple releases security fix: On Monday, Apple released its first batch of publicly available “rapid security” patches, aimed at quickly fixing security vulnerabilities that are under active exploitation or pose significant risks to its customers. Apple says that these patches, which are enabled by default, were intended to let customers update their devices faster than a typical software upgrade.
Musk settles for less: A defamation case brought against Tesla chief executive Elon Musk by critic Randeep Hothi is coming to a close, reportedly costing the billionaire ten big ones. Lawyers representing Hothi — a vocal member of the TSLAQ short-seller community on Twitter who rose to prominence as a skeptic of Tesla’s gigafactory plans and “full self-driving” tech — said in a statement that Musk asked to settle the nearly three-year-old case back in March.
A new LLM for Alexa: Amazon is building a more “generalized and capable” large language model to power Alexa, said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy during the company’s first-quarter earnings call this week. He added that although Amazon has had an LLM powering Alexa, Amazon is working on one that’s more capable than the current one.
Left out to dry: Ann Lai, a general partner at Bullpen Capital, was fired from the firm in what she describes as a “discriminatory and retaliatory” experience. Lai helped raise Bullpen Capital’s most recent fund, a $145 million investment vehicle, the first investment vehicle in which she was named an equal partner.
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