Tootfinder

A few days back I tweeted and blogged about the brand-new RFC 9839, and also published the first draft of tiny Go library to help enforce the subsets defined in the RFC. Got lots of useful input on the library and have progressed it enough to do a v0.8.0 release: https://github.com/timbray/rfc9839…

China is expediting IPO approvals amid its AI rivalry with the US, recently approving listings for chip designers MetaX and Moore Threads in just three months (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/china-fast-tracks-tech-ipos-counter-…

China Fast Tracks Tech IPOs to Counter US AI rivalry
The tech rivalry with the U.S. has made China take an unusual step: It is accelerating the pace at which startups go public in hopes of increasing investment in the tech sector. In recent months, securities regulators in China approved the public listings of two chip designers, MetaX and Moore ...

Experts warn that Nvidia's large investments in data centers and startups, almost like a stimulus program, could be artificially inflating demand for its GPUs (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/jensen-huang-using-nvidia-cash-r…

How Jensen Huang is Using Nvidia Cash to Rule the AI Economy
Even by the standards of one of the most prodigious dealmakers in tech, the past month or so has been a head-spinning one for Nvidia’s Jensen Huang. Just in September, Nvidia agreed to buy any unused Nvidia graphics processing units that cloud provider CoreWeave doesn’t sell to other customers ...

Sources: DeepSeek plans to use Huawei's Ascend AI chips to train smaller versions of its upcoming R2 models but will still use Nvidia chips for largest models (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/deepseek-opts-huawei-chips-train-models…

DeepSeek Opts for Huawei Chips to Train Some Models
DeepSeek, one of China’s leading artificial intelligence developers, has decided to use Huawei Technologies’ AI chips to train some of its AI models, a sign it is reducing its reliance on Nvidia chips, according to three people with knowledge of the effort. The move follows pressure by the ...

Runway and Luma AI say they are talking to robotics and self-driving car companies about their video models and expect these revenue sources to eclipse studios (Rocket Drew/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/runway-luma-target-sales-r…

Runway, Luma Target Sales to Robotics Companies
Imax on Monday announced that it would screen the winning films from Runway’s AI-generated film festival at some of its theaters. Netflix recently said it had used AI to generate a scene in one of its shows for the first time: a building collapsing in The Eternaut, an Argentine sci-fi show.Both ...

Sources: Pinecone, which provides an AI-compatible vector database, is exploring a sale after receiving takeover interest; Pinecone was valued at $750M in 2023 (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/top-funded-ai-database-star…

Top-Funded AI Database Startup Pinecone Considers a Sale
When the artificial intelligence boom began a few years ago, investors flocked to startups that helped businesses transform and store proprietary data in a format AI could understand, known as a vector database. The technology allowed businesses to use a customized AI chatbot to search or ...

Memo: California's AG says OpenAI's restructuring has "no impact" on other cases, likely referring to Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI over its restructuring (Rocket Drew/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/m…

Musk Suit Unlikely to Unwind OpenAI Restructure
A memo from California’s attorney general suggested that Elon Musk’s federal lawsuit against OpenAI will be unaffected by the artificial intelligence startup’s restructuring. But now that the restructuring has occurred, it may be hard to unwind the change even if Musk wins. Both the attorneys general for Delaware, where OpenAI is incorporated, and California, where it is headquartered, had

Sources: data integration company Fivetran is in talks to acquire data management company dbt Labs in a deal valuing the combined entity at between $5B and $10B (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/data-startup-fi…

Data Startup Fivetran In Talks to Buy Dbt Labs in Multibillion Dollar Deal
Fivetran, a startup used by companies to manage and prepare data for analytics and artificial intelligence, is in talks to buy data management companydbt Labs, according to people with direct knowledge of the deal. The deal would combine two data companies that are facing competition from ...

Rain, a stablecoin-backed Visa card issuer, raised a $58M Series B led by Sapphire Ventures, after raising a $24.5M Series A led by Norwest in March (Yueqi Yang/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/stablecoin-…

Stablecoin Card Startup Rain Raises $58 Million Led By Sapphire Ventures
Rain, a stablecoin-backed card issuer that works with Visa, said it raised $58 million in Series B round led by Sapphire Ventures, just months after its last fundraising round, demonstrating once again investor enthusiasm for crypto startups flowing from congressional passage of stablecoin legislation in July. With the deal, Rain’s valuation increased nearly six times from its $24.5 million

Flip, a TikTok rival that let shoppers post video reviews and earn cash based on engagement, has shut down; it had raised $300M and was valued at $1B in 2024 (Ann Gehan/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/tiktok-challenger-flip-shuts

TikTok Challenger Flip Shuts Down
Flip, a video-sharing social media app that at one point tried to challenge TikTok’s dominance, has shut down, according to a message to users and the company’s website. Flip didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The social commerce app raised over $300 million from investors since its founding in 2019, and was valued in April 2024 at more than $1 billion, according to PitchBook