FuriosaAI, a South Korean startup that makes chips for AI applications, has rejected an $800 million acquisition offer from Meta, opting instead to focus on developing and producing its AI chips, according to a local media report. Disagreements over post-acquisition business strategy and organizational structure, rather than price issues, caused the negotiations to break down, the report said. Along with other tech companies building large language models (LLMs) for various AI applications, Meta has been trying to reduce its reliance on Nvidia for chips that are specialized for training and building LLMs. The tech giant last year unveiled its custom AI chips, and in January said it would invest up to $65 billion this year to support its AI initiatives. Meanwhile, FuriosaAI is reportedly in talks with investors to raise approximately $48 million (KRW 70 billion), and aims to complete the fundraise this month. Read more on FuriosaAI at the link in the bio 👆 Article by Kate Park Image Credits: Getty Images; FuriosaAI #TechCrunch #technews #artificialintelligence #startup #Meta #MarkZuckerberg

Meta has added another privacy sanction to its extensive collection: South Korea’s data protection agency fined the social media giant around $15.7 million for processing sensitive user data and passing it to advertisers without a proper legal basis, Reuters reports. Seoul’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) found Facebook’s parent collected information from about 980,000 users, on sensitive topics such as politics, sexuality, and religion, without obtaining their permission. It then shared it with some 4,000 advertisers in violation of local data protection rules. Meta obtained the sensitive behavioral data by analyzing pages users had liked and ads they’d clicked on, among other tracking and profiling methods. Read more on Meta exposing North Korean defectors' info to advertisers at the link in the bio 👆 Article by Natasha Lomas Image Credits: Alex Wong / Staff / Getty Images #TechCrunch #technews #Meta #advertising #socialmedia #MarkZuckerberg #Meta

Meta, the parent of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has been hit with yet another huge regulatory fine in Europe, this time over abusive practices related to Facebook Marketplace. The European Commission announced that it would fine Meta €797.72 million — nearly $840 million — for breaching EU antitrust rules connected to how it ties its online classified ads service, Facebook Marketplace, to Facebook itself, creating “unfair trading conditions” for other providers of classifieds online. The fine is the latest installment of a case that dates back to June 2021. In December 2022, the regulators had determined that Facebook Marketplace violated antitrust rules. Today, it’s issuing the penalty for that violation. Read more on Meta's €798M fine at the link in the bio 👆 Article by Ingrid Lunden Image Credits: Jens Büttner / picture alliance / Getty Images #TechCrunch #technews #Meta #MarkZuckerberg #socialmedia

The adtech giant’s latest attempt to smuggle its surveillance ads machine past EU laws is an offer to display what it’s couching as “less personalized ads”. The European regulatory framework tightened earlier this year with the advent of the bloc’s flagship market contestability regulation (the Digital Markets Act, or DMA). In a blog post announcing a shift within “weeks” to how it targets ads at EU users, Meta said that users in the region who opt not to pay a subscription fee it launched just over a year ago (for ad-free versions of its social media services) will soon be shown ads that use less personal data for “context”-based targeting than is currently the case. Right now, Meta leverages cross-service (and cross-site) tracking and profiling (also known as surveillance). Read more on Meta's forced move towards ‘less personalized ads’ at the link in the bio 👆 Article by Natasha Lomas Image Credits: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP / Getty Images #TechCrunch #technews #Meta #MarkZuckerberg #Facebook #Instagram

X what? Bluesky where? On Friday, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced that Threads will start testing AI-powered summaries of what people are discussing on the platform in the app’s “Trending now” section in the U.S. The new addition sounds similar to X’s Stories feature, which uses Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok to summarize trending topics in the social network’s Explore section. Threads is also going to test an expanded set of trending topics, the company noted. Plus, users will now be able to search within a specific date range and search for posts from an individual account. In a post on Threads, Mosseri said the new additions are “long-overdue improvements to Search and Trending Now on Threads.” Read more on Threads testing AI-powered summaries at the link in the bio 👆 Article by Aisha Malik Image Credits: Jaap Arriens / NurPhoto / Getty Images #TechCrunch #technews #socialmedia #Threads #Meta #MarkZuckerberg

Instagram is introducing the ability for users to share their locations with their friends via DMs. The feature indicates that the Meta-owned social network is looking to challenge services like Apple’s “Find My” and Snapchat’s Snap Map, both of which are popular ways for users to see their friends’ and loved ones’ live locations. Unlike Apple and Snapchat, which let you share your location with others indefinitely, Instagram is only letting users do so for up to one hour. Instagram says the feature can be used to coordinate arrival times or to find your friends in crowded spaces. You can choose to share your location with one person, or with a group chat. Once you share your location, only the people in the specific chat will be able to see where you are, and your location can’t be forwarded to other chats. Read more on Instagram's new location-sharing feature at the link in the bio 👆 Article by Aisha Malik Image Credits: Getty Images; Meta #TechCrunch #technews #Meta #socialmedia #Instagram #MarkZuckerberg

At 24, Matt Deitke stunned Silicon Valley by rejecting Meta’s $125M offer for his AI startup, Vercept. Mark Zuckerberg doubled it to $250M—securing Deitke and his 10-person team for Meta’s Superintelligence Labs. Now leading AGI work, Deitke’s expertise in multimodal AI (text, image, audio) is key to Meta’s future. From PhD dropout to AI visionary, his journey reflects the fierce talent war driving the next tech revolution. Liked this content? Follow @BusinessBulls.in for more! #Businessbulls #Business #AI #Meta #MarkZuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg is making a bold move in AI—Meta just hired top talent from OpenAI, DeepMind, GitHub, Scale AI, and more in the biggest AI talent raid yet. With the co-creator of GPT-4o and the CEO of Scale AI leading the charge, Meta’s new Superintelligence Labs aims to push boundaries. Is this a game-changer or a cause for concern? What’s your take on Meta’s AI strategy? Liked this content? Follow @BusinessBulls.in for more!

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At the start of the year, there were widespread concerns about how generative AI could be used to interfere in global elections to spread propaganda and disinformation. Fast-forward to the end of the year, Meta claims those fears did not play out, at least on its platforms, as it shared that the technology had limited impact across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. The company says its findings are based on content around major elections in the U.S., Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, the EU Parliament, France, the U.K., South Africa, Mexico, and Brazil. Meta notes that its Imagine AI image generator rejected 590,000 requests to create images of President-elect Trump, Vice President-elect Vance, Vice President Harris, Governor Walz, and President Biden in the month leading up to election day in order to prevent people from creating election-related deepfakes. Read more on Meta's claims at the link in the bio 👆 Article by Aisha Malik Image Credits: Bloomberg / Contributor / Getty Images; Meta #TechCrunch #technews #artificialintelligence #Meta #MarkZuckerberg #GenerativeAI #GenAI

Earlier this year, Meta tried to get its own nuclear powered data center the easy way, by building one next to an existing reactor. But after regulators threw cold water on the plan — the site was reportedly home to a rare bee species — the company is back with a new idea: find a developer who will build one or more nuclear power plants somewhere, anywhere. Meta announced yesterday a request for proposals from nuclear power developers who would help the company add 1 to 4 gigawatts of electricity generating capacity in the U.S. It’s willing to share costs early in the cycle, according to Axios, and it’ll commit to buying power once the reactors are up and running. The hitch? Applicants have to move fast. Initial proposals are due February 5, 2025, and Meta wants the power plants to begin operation in the early 2030s. Read more on Meta jumping aboard the nuclear-powered data center bandwagon at the link in the bio 👆 Article by Tim De Chant Image Credits: Micha Pawlitzki / Getty Images; Meta #TechCrunch #technews #artificialintelligence #climate #Meta #MarkZuckerberg