Tootfinder

NetChoice sues Arkansas over two laws that would put limits on social media content and let parents of children who died by suicide sue over platform content (Andrew Demillo/Associated Press)
https://apnews.com/article/net-choice-ar…

Tech industry group sues Arkansas over new social media laws
A tech industry trade group has sued Arkansas over two new law placing limits on content on social media platforms. The lawsuit was filed Friday in federal court by NetChoice, whose members include TikTok, Facebook parent Meta, and X, formerly known as Twitter. The lawsuit comes months after a federal judge struck down an Arkansas law that would have required parental consent for minors to create new social media accounts. The new laws the group is challenging include one that would allow paren…

Experts detail how the Trump administration has seriously weakened the public-private partnerships that protect US critical infrastructure from cyberattacks (Eric Geller/Cybersecurity Dive)
https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/n…

‘Suspended animation’: US government upheaval has frayed partnerships with critical infrastructure
Recent federal cuts, reorganizations and other disruptions have alarmed industry leaders, who say the government is a less reliable partner even as cyber threats increase.

Yeah. That's PRECISELY what we need. A nuclear industry with hallucinations.
https://mstdn.social/@TechCrunch/114585600591143214

TechCrunch (@TechCrunch@mstdn.social)
Attached: 1 image Atomic Canyon wants to be ChatGPT for the nuclear industry https://tcrn.ch/4kD4ut0

It’s better to have Matthew Prince on the side of good than to have him in opposition. https://mastodon.social/@dangillmor/114764009764346430

"Woodside boss says young people ‘ideological’ on fossil fuels while ‘happily ordering from Temu’"
#FossilFuels #Climate #ClimateChange

A #ClimateChange increase in a ticks range creates ever more people allergic to #meat and #dairy, which reduces demand for the products of an industry that aggravates the

Great blog about EuroStack, we need to BUILD !
"We need to think about this first and foremost as an industrial project. With some public support but one where “industry” (the supply side) needs to be given the incentive to build, and the opportunity to scale and expand. We don’t need more “events” and pensive stuff about “our European values” and “democracy” around digital sovereignty. Industry should do its thing, or nothing will happen. Wake up."

European Digital Sovereignty is an Industrial Project.  Everyone Else Get Out of the Way.
It is oh-so-European that just when the imperative of getting more European assets to support our digital life is finally established (was staring at everyone in the face for some time, yes?), mult…

🚨 Historic capitulation by von der Leyen to Trump! EU must:
• Buy $750bn US gas/oil
• Invest $600bn in USA
• Finance Ukraine war alone
• 15% tariffs on EU goods vs 0% on US goods
• 50% tariffs destroy German steel/aluminum
Total: $1.35 trillion EU−USA 🤯
After Big Tech dominance (Meta, Google, Microsoft), EU loses industry too. Big Tech stays untaxed!
Not a "deal" — surrender! 😭

Este nuevo prisma sobre la #IA no lo habíamos contemplado aún: el consumo de energía es tan alto que estš afectando en una subida de precios para todos los consumidores. Y ya sabemos que la subida de la luz repercute en la subida de todos los demšs precios.
Enhorabuena a los genios.
Edito para meter enlace

A profile of London-based CloudNC, a leading provider of AI-powered CNC software that is helping US manufacturers overcome a shortage of trained operators (Jeremy Kahn/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/06/26/ai-manufacturing-parts-cnc-machines…

Can AI help America make stuff again? 
A British startup, CloudNC, is reshaping American manufacturing one precision part at a time.

"AI companies, which are depending more and more on synthetic data as they rapidly run out of material that was human-made and not polluted by AI drivel" - so, you knew there were problems, and released it to the public anyway (slow clap). And news-flash, because you released it to the public, even some of your "human-made" data is now polluted by AI drivel in the first place.

Getty Images CEO Craig Peters says Getty is spending "millions and millions" on its Stability AI lawsuit in the UK and the US, accusing it of copying 12M images (Ryan Browne/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/28/getty-ceo-

Getty Images spending millions to battle a 'world of rhetoric' in AI suit, CEO says
Getty Images is spending "millions and millions of dollars" on its legal case against Stability AI, the photo licensing company's CEO Craig Peters told CNBC.

Fact: It is my birthday.
Fact: I run a free & ad-free newsletter about keeping tech/UX design accountable, called Product Picnic.
Conclusion: legally, you have to subscribe to it. The word of the birthday boy is law!
https://productpicnic.beehiiv.com/

The Product Picnic
Writing on UX and product management to connect today's discourse with classic insights that the industry forgot.

He says that like it’s a bad thing.
https://www.theverge.com/news/674366/nick-clegg-uk-ai-artists-policy-letter

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry
Meta’s former head of global affairs Nick Clegg said asking for permission from rights owners to train models would is “implausible.”

Diesel, petrol and Tesla car sales down across Europe
Nobody wants to get their hands dirty.
https://www.electrive.com/2025/05/27/electric-cars-overtake-diesel-in-new-eu-vehicle-registrations/

Electric cars overtake diesel in new EU vehicle registrations - electrive.com
According to the industry association ACEA, new registrations of electric cars in the EU rose by 26 per cent year-on-year to just under 560,000 units in the

“I testify as a conservative and say: ‘What are you guys doing? Have you lost your mind?’” he said. “Some of these bills are attacking battery storage of all things. How dumb is that? It’s sacrificing your core conservative value principles in order to protect the oil and gas industry.”

Tell New York to Stop Bailing Out the Cruel Horse Racing Industry #AnimalRights

How the video game industry, which has used AI since the 1980s, is embracing AI-enhanced gameplay, worrying some developers as major studios cut employees (Zachary Small/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/arts/video-games-artificial-intelligen…

The Unnerving Future of A.I.-Fueled Video Games
Game designers have used artificial intelligence since the 1980s. But digital characters demonstrating self-awareness is a far cry from the ghosts chasing Pac-Man.

A look at AIFF 2025, Runway's third annual AI Film Festival featuring 10 shorts, as the film and TV industry remains divided over the role of AI in its future (Samuel Axon/Ars Technica)
https://arstechnica.com/culture/2025/0

Curated realities: An AI film festival and the future of human expression
We saw 10 AI films and interviewed Runway’s CEO as well as Hollywood pros.

A look at AIFF 2025, Runway's third annual AI Film Festival featuring 10 shorts, as the film and TV industry remains divided over the role of AI in its future (Samuel Axon/Ars Technica)
https://arstechnica.com/culture/2025/0

Curated realities: An AI film festival and the future of human expression
We saw 10 AI films and interviewed Runway’s CEO as well as Hollywood pros.

Sources: Cohere has told investors it expects to generate $200M in annualized revenue by the end of 2025, up from $70M in annualized revenue as of February (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/ai-startup-cohe…

AI Startup Cohere Projects $200 Million Revenue Pace as New Funding Nears
Cohere, a Canadian artificial intelligence developer that competes with Anthropic and OpenAI, has sustained one of the richest valuations in the industry as a multiple of the relatively modest revenue it generates. Now it’s told investors that sales are picking up—enough to entice existing ...

I have no objection to newspapers criticising the executive pay of public organisations. But I think, especially as an industry that enjoys a VAT exemption, they should disclose their own executive remuneration in any story that uses the term "fat cats".

I think we need to reboot the video games industry to Pong.
#VideoGames #GamingNews

Global shipping industry takes a huge step forward towards cleaner technology and reduced air pollution with new UN policy. #climatechange #climatesolutions #climate

Massive industry forced to clean up its act after UN officials strike revolutionary deal: 'A huge step forward'
Thanks to a new International Maritime Organization policy, international cargo ships will start paying fees for excess pollution beginning in 2028.

Definitely encouraging as far as shipping emissions goes, and I appreciate that the quicklime used in the process will be produced with renewable energy - but, as I understand the normal process for making quicklime, limestone aka calcium carbonate (CaCO3) is baked at high temperatures, driving the chemical reaction CaCO3 > CaO CO2.
And what is not addressed is how to manage the CO2 from this reaction - Yes, it can (in principle) be captured, but then what do you do with it? This…

TFW you build a site with @… and web platform standards (== semantic HTML, modern CSS, a little bit of JavaScript, and a dash of ARIA) and you look at Lighthouse for the first time …
Looks like industry best practices actually work. (Sorry for using my platform to ruin anyone’s day. 🥰) 🍋

Is there an expression for the contrary of "in advance of his time"?
Trump: "They should get rid of the windmills and bring back the oil"
How is it possible to promote such retrograde ideas and not be consumed by shame? It's not even good for jobs:
"With the acquiescence of Republicans in Congress, hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investment in clean energy and electric car facilities is set to be lost, with one union calling the legislation “t…

"FBi Radio is regarded by the industry as a cornerstone of the Australian music scene." FBi Radio is also home to some of Australia's great podcasts including *All The Best*, *Back Chat*, and *Race Matters* https://www.

Surprise, surprise.
This is not an industrial strategy.
Whatever it is, it isn't fit for the coming era of energy descent and ecosystem collapse.
Lower energy costs part of government's 10-year plan for industry - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1ljnr

Lower energy costs part of government's 10-year plan for industry
Plans to slash energy bills by up to 25% for over 7,000 UK businesses will be announced alongside other plans to boost growth.

Annual DC Privacy Forum: Convening Top Voices in Governance in the Digital Age
https://fpf.org/blog/annual-dc-privacy-forum-convening-top-voices-in-governance-in-the-digital-age/
@…

Call center agents in Australia, Canada, Greece, and the US say they've been repeatedly mistaken for AI, as the industry rapidly integrates AI alongside humans (Morgan Meaker/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

£100Bn or £20?
How much would water nationalisation cost initially?
If the companies are allowed to go bankrupt then the latter.
Of course then there will be more costs of investing properly in decent water infrastructure, water conservation and waste reduction and management.
But the public are being asked to pay for that, and profits and bonuses now.
Labour’s arguments on #WaterNationalisation

Labour’s arguments on water nationalisation reveal their total economic incompetence
This exchange took place in The Commons yesterday as Clive Lewis MP asked Steve Reed MP, the Environment Secretary, about nationalisation of the water industry: Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab) I am afraid that the report feels like a missed opportunity for the Government to show the public whose side they are on....

China's tech giants are ramping up M&A and investment deals as the government shifts its stance to support the tech industry, particularly in areas like AI (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

I wonder how this can be leveraged in our #VFX industry.
Can you position a company as the guys who’ll fix stuff that another team messed up because they thought they can do an effects shot with Midjourney but then ended up with nothing to show once the director wanted a simple revision like turning that object a tiny bit more or making the cool explosion more „swooosh“ instead of „wooosh“?

I hadn't really expected seeing a punch card reader and an older Pentium based PC from DEC, but here we are, at the #embroidery museum in Lustenau.
Vorarlberg had been famous for its textile industry.
Now it only has a few machines left running.

"Rachel Reeves Promised Oil Industry ‘Quid Pro Quo’ Over Windfall Tax in Private Meeting"
#UK #UnitedKigdom #Climate

Rachel Reeves Promised Oil Industry ‘Quid Pro Quo’ Over Windfall Tax in Private Meeting
Chancellor Rachel Reeves told a fossil fuel giant that the industry would receive a “quid pro quo” in return for higher taxes on its windfall profits, DeSmog can reveal. In a meeting with the Norwegian state energy company Equinor on 27 August last year, Reeves suggested that the government’s carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) […]

A Review of Personalisation in Human-Robot Collaboration and Future Perspectives Towards Industry 5.0
James Fant-Male, Roel Pieters
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.20447

A Review of Personalisation in Human-Robot Collaboration and Future Perspectives Towards Industry 5.0
The shift in research focus from Industry 4.0 to Industry 5.0 (I5.0) promises a human-centric workplace, with social and well-being values at the centre of technological implementation. Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) is a core aspect of I5.0 development, with an increase in adaptive and personalised interactions and behaviours. This review investigates recent advancements towards personalised HRC, where user-centric adaption is key. There is a growing trend for adaptable HRC research, however …

The fate of Jimmy Kimmel's ABC show, whose contract ends in 2026, will reveal if Colbert's cancelation was a one-off or a fundamental shift in late-night TV (CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/26/cbs-canceling-colbert-raises-late-night-questions…

CBS canceling Colbert begs the question: Are more late night shows next?
The cost of producing late night programs has risen as the media industry has been upended by streaming and shifting consumer habits.

heise meets … Die Einführung der E-Rechnung ist nicht so schlimm
Bei der Einführung der E-Rechnung wurde die Chance verpasst, einen verbindlichen Standard festzulegen. Cross Industry Invoice (CII) wäre eine gute Wahl gewesen.

I'm heading to London for Games Transformed: Smash the Fash event.
I'll be on a panel titled "What Can the Left Learn From Struggles in the Games Industry?" & speaking on our @gwuireland.bsky.social union organising with game workers in Ireland.
It's this weekend! Tickets here: https://www.

Laws prohibiting murder are stifling innovation in the hitman industry.

Definitely encouraging as far as shipping emissions goes, and I appreciate that the quicklime used in the process will be produced with renewable energy - but, as I understand the normal process for making quicklime, limestone aka calcium carbonate (CaCO3) is baked at high temperatures, driving the chemical reaction CaCO3 > CaO CO2.
And what is not addressed is how to manage the CO2 from this reaction - Yes, it can (in principle) be captured, but then what do you do with it? This…

Interesting interview re #AI:
https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/technology/how-openai-earl…

How OpenAI’s development changed AI’s course
New book: Early decisions had big consequences.

"The water industry: a return to public ownership should still be on the table" 👍
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/21/the-guardian-view-on-the-water-industry-a-return-to-pub…

Why are there so few women in the tech industry? If you think you know the answer, read the report #linkTuesday

At TrustCon 2025, trust and safety professionals expressed anxiety over the industry's retreat, but no leaders condemned platforms' rollback of safety policies (Casey Newton/Platformer)
https://www.platformer.news/trustcon-trust-safety-leadership-decline-20…

Is anyone left to defend trust and safety?
It’s under assault this year from users, politicians, and their own executives — but the industry has responded with silence

Senate Passes Stablecoin Bill In Major Win For Crypto Industry - Slashdot
https://slashdot.org/story/25/06/18/0036236/senate-passes-stablecoin-bill-in-major-win-for-crypto-industry

Now the unidentified secret police (the Miller-Noem - the "Millnos"?) are threatening to arrest people who ask them who they are...
"Ice’s ‘inhumane’ arrest of well-known vineyard manager shakes Oregon wine industry"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-new…

Berlin-based Buena, which is building AI-powered software to automate property management tasks, raised $58M, including a Series A led by GV (Cate Lawrence/Tech.eu)
https://tech.eu/2025/07/23/gv-and-20vc

GV and 20VC back Buena’s vision to reinvent property management through AI-powered rollups
Berlin proptech Buena has raised a total of $58 million in funding, including a Series A funding round led by GV, with participation from 20VC, Stride, and Capnamic.  Property management is incredibly fragmented, with over 30,000 firms in Germany employing an average of just five people each… Meanwhile, the industry is notorious for talent shortage and record-low customer NPS scores, with 96.3 per cent of German property managers.  Buena is changing the industry in two ways: first, by bui…

Interesting interview re #AI:
https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/technology/how-openai-earl…

How OpenAI’s development changed AI’s course
New book: Early decisions had big consequences.

"Caught between a fossil fuel past and a green future, China’s coal miners chart an uncertain path"
#China #FossilFuels

Online platforms offering astrological advice are thriving in India, with the leading app Astrotalk claiming about 84% of its 70M users are under the age of 35 (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-0…

Star Charts and Stock Tips: Venture Capital Bets on Financial Astrology
An age-old belief in astrology has snowballed into a $7 billion industry as a younger generation seeks celestial guidance.

The music industry is developing tools to detect AI-generated music across the music pipeline, with a focus on licensing and control rather than takedowns (Jack Buehrer/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-int

The music industry is building the tech to hunt down AI songs
With no way to stop the onslaught of AI music, the industry is taking a different approach: figuring out how to make money off of it.

How many others are reading regurgitated SCP fiction, and accepting it as ai-gnostic revelation?
https://futurism.com/openai-investor-chatgpt-mental-health

An OpenAI Investor Appears to Be Having a ChatGPT-Induced Mental Health Crisis
Bedrock co-founder Geoff Lewis has posted increasingly troubling content on social media, drawing concern from friends in the industry.

Court upholds Everglades restoration efforts, rejecting sugar industry challenge. Victory for environmental conservation in the Everglades! #climatechange #climatesolutions #climate
…

Court Rejects Sugar Industry Challenge to Everglades Restoration
A critical legal battle initiated by sugar companies against the Army Corps of Engineers reached its conclusion in March, with the 11th Circuit Court issuing a unanimous ruling in favor of the...

We in Game Workers Unite Ireland stand in solidarity with Animation Workers of Ireland, and the international trade union coalition happening to organise against the threat of AI in the animation industry, and we support their call to acton.
Join them Thursday 12 June at 14:00 at the Pâquier in Annecy!!
#Animation

Q&A with Stability AI CEO Prem Akkaraju on taking over from Emad Mostaque, his movie background, data and copyright, working with creative industries, and more (Melissa Heikkilä/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/fc4cb659-bf01-4f68-a828-40ff98c24e51

AI ‘a great opportunity for artists’ says head of Stable Diffusion owner
The boss of StablityAI insists film industry fears about the impact of the popular image-generating model are misplaced

It was unavoidable that this week I'd end up writing about Apple's latest blunder. But in the context of Figma's Sites bullshit and Shopify recasting designers as "artists" it's even worse than one OS making a stupid decision.
The mission of #UXdesign is being changed: orienting away from making useful products that work for everyone, and towards branding.
…

Apple's Liquid Glass is a grim portent for UX
Industry leaders like Apple and Shopify are redefining design excellence from making products usable to solely luxury branding.

Workers at Google, TikTok, Adobe, Dropbox, CrowdStrike, and other tech firms recount how managers used AI to justify firing them, speed up their work, and more (Brian Merchant/Blood in the Machine)
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/how-ai-is-killing-jo…

AI Killed My Job: Tech workers
Tech workers at TikTok, Google, and across the industry share stories about how AI is changing, ruining, or replacing their jobs.

Protest the Weapons Industry Gala night of the year
5:00pm Thursday July 10
National Convention Centre
27 Constitution Ave, Canberra
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/protest-weapons-industry-gala-night-year

Protest the Weapons Industry Gala night of the year
War and genocide are good for business. That’s what the Defence Industry Awards 2025 are celebrating: war, death, destruction —and how best to profit from them. Join us to protest genocide and the war profiteers. And let’s tell the Albanese government to end two-way arms trade with Israel, dump AUKUS, impose full sanctions and close US bases in Australia. The Australian government and defence industries MUST • STOP ARMING ISRAEL • Stop the two-way arms trade with Israel • FULL sanct…

California lawmakers approve Gov. Gavin Newsom's plan to increase funding for the state's film and TV tax incentive program from $330M to $750M per year (Gene Maddaus/Variety)
https://variety.com/2025/film/news/california-750-million-fi…

California Lawmakers Agree on $750 Million for Film and TV Credit
California legislative leaders have accepted Gov. Gavin Newsom's proposal to more than double the film and TV credit, in a win for the industry.

"Exposing Reform’s Oil Ties Significantly Reduces Party Support, New Research Finds"
#UK #UnitedKingdom #FossilFuels

Exposing Reform’s Oil Ties Significantly Reduces Party Support, New Research Finds
Reform UK’s oil industry interests are a major turn-off for voters, new research reveals. The think tank Persuasion UK tested five anti-Reform messages on 6,000 adults. According to the research, “by far the most impactful” message that dented support for Nigel Farage’s party was exposing its corporate, fossil fuel donors.  Five demographically-identical groups were shown […]

This feels like it supports my “government should mandate open and standardised APIs, not develop mono-apps” instinct, especially considering “agentic” AI use.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/may/21/uk-wide-parki…

We built a regulatory system for a reason - our history is replete with pipeline breaks resulting in leaks and explosions (natural gas, for example), oil well leaks and fires, chemical plant releases, exposure of workers to hazardous conditions. We have seen over and over again how industry's cost cutting ends up killing and injuring people. Yet the #GOP is bound and determined to gut the policies …

New Zealand-based Halter, which provides smart collars and geofencing software for the dairy industry, raised a $100M Series D led by Bond at a $1B valuation (Kritika Lamba/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific

Palantir signs a deal with The Nuclear Company under which the startup will pay Palantir $100M over five years to develop AI software for the nuclear industry (Miquela Thornton/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

The music industry is developing tools to detect AI-generated music across the music pipeline, with a focus on licensing and control rather than takedowns (Jack Buehrer/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-int

The music industry is building the tech to hunt down AI songs
With no way to stop the onslaught of AI music, the industry is taking a different approach: figuring out how to make money off of it.

We built a regulatory system for a reason - our history is replete with pipeline breaks resulting in leaks and explosions (natural gas, for example), oil well leaks and fires, chemical plant releases, exposure of workers to hazardous conditions. We have seen over and over again how industry's cost cutting ends up killing and injuring people. Yet the #GOP is bound and determined to gut the policies …

How AI is reshaping the perfume industry, as fragrance tech startup Osmo promises 48-hour sample turnarounds and incumbents like DSM-Firmenich embrace the tech (Arabelle Sicardi/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/691050/perfume-ai

How AI infiltrated perfume
Some say it’s innovation. Others call it erasure.

AMC Theatres, facing financial pressure, reverses course and joins its rivals in adding regular ads to its pre-movie lineup, in a worrying trend for studios (Pamela McClintock/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/m

Get Ready for More Commercials in Movie Theaters
Industry leader AMC Theatres is reversing course and joining its rivals on July 1 in adding regular ads to its pre-movie lineup in a worrisome trend for studios.

AMD and Stability AI launch the industry's first Stable Diffusion 3.0 Medium AI model optimized for AMD's XDNA 2 NPUs, designed to run locally on Ryzen laptops (Anton Shilov/Tom's Hardware)

AMD unveils industry-first Stable Diffusion 3.0 Medium AI model generator tailored for XDNA 2 NPUs — designed to run locally on Ryzen AI laptops
An offline image generator for XDNA 2 NPUs.

"In Ohio, oil and gas industry is steering new carbon capture bill"
#US #USA #America #FossilFuels

In Ohio, oil and gas industry is steering new carbon capture bill
Newly obtained public records show that the industry has worked hard to ensure the legislation prioritizes their interests over climate change concerns.

Joe Budden Network CEO Ian Schwartzman says the podcast network is on pace to generate $20M in 2025, after Joe Budden accidentally showed his Patreon earnings (Jessica Testa/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/business/media/joe-budden-podca…

How Does Podcast Star Joe Budden Make $20 Million a Year?
Joe Budden, a former rapper who now oversees a robust podcast network, gave a rare look into the finances of the industry.

"Sports industry giants back new tools supporting emissions data collection and climate target setting"
#Sports #Climate #ClimateChange

The Linux Foundation unveils the Agent2Agent project, with founding members including Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft; Google donated the protocol spec and SDK (Google Developers Blog)
https://developers.googleblog.com/en/google-cloud-donates-a2…

Google Cloud donates A2A to Linux Foundation- Google Developers Blog
Explore how Google, Amazon, and Cisco form the Agent2Agent Foundation under the Linux Foundation to drive AI innovation via interoperability as an industry standard.

ServiceNow reports Q2 revenue up 22.5% YoY to $3.22B, vs. $3.12B est., and net income up 47% YoY to $385M, fueled by AI growth; NOW jumps 7% after hours (Samantha Subin/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/23/servicenow-now-q2-earnings-2025.html

ServiceNow lifts guidance on AI growth
"Every business process in every industry is being refactored for agentic AI," said ServiceNow chair and CEO Bill McDermott in a release.

"2025: A landmark year for solar energy"
#SolarPower #Energy #Renewables

2025: A landmark year for solar energy
The IEA-PVPS 2025 Snapshot of Global PV Markets reveals a pivotal moment for solar power: global PV capacity surpassed 2.2 TW, with more than 600 GW installed in 2024 alone. As module prices fell due to oversupply, installation volumes continued to grow, highlighting both the strength and volatility of the global PV industry.

Goldman Sachs and BNY partner to let institutional investors purchase tokenized money market funds, with ownership recorded on Goldman's blockchain platform (Hugh Son/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/23/goldman-sachs-bny-money-market-fund-digital…

Goldman Sachs and BNY join forces to transform $7.1 trillion money market industry with digital tokens
Clients of BNY will be able to invest in money market funds whose ownership will be recorded on Goldman's blockchain platform.

A look at the video podcasting surge; study: ~75% of podcast consumers play video episodes and ~30% play video episodes minimized or in background mode (Joseph Bernstein/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/20/style/p

Popular Podcasts Like Joe Rogan and Theo Von Are All Video Now. Who Is Watching?
An audio-only medium spawned a giant industry that is now largely focused on video.

CareerBuilder Monster, which once dominated the online recruitment industry, files for Chapter 11 and agrees to sell its job board operations to JobGet (Jonathan Stempel/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/c…

Nextdoor unveils a redesign and a partnership with 3,500 local news providers across the US, the UK, and Canada that will contribute material to the app (David Bauder/Associated Press)
https://apnews.com/article/nextdoor-social-media-news-ai-c7e12d6…

Nextdoor is partnering with local news providers
The neighborhood social site Nextdoor is hoping for a revival by turning to local news providers. As part of a redesign of the social media site, Nextdoor is partnering with more than 3,500 local news outlets to use their material. Publishers are hoping more people seeing their work will help an industry that has suffered for more than two decades. Nextdoor wants more of its users, who they call “neighbors,” to view the site as essential and visit more often. Nextdoor also is beefing up its…

Fox acquires Caliente TV, a Mexican sports broadcasting platform, and appoints longtime industry exec Carlos Martinez to oversee its broadcast strategy in LatAm (Melissa Repko/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/19/fox-acquires-sports-bro…

Fox acquires sports broadcasting platform Caliente TV
The media company is bulking up its sports offerings to better compete with other streaming services.

Sources: the Trump admin is pressuring South Korea, Brazil, the EU, and others to drop plans for new taxes on US tech firms as a part of broader trade talks (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-trade-talks-tech-industry-e1061e53

VideoAmp names Peter Liguori as its CEO; he has been leading the company as executive chairman since 2023 (Dade Hayes/Deadline)
https://deadline.com/2025/07/media-vet-peter-liguori-appointed-ceo-of-videoamp-ad-tech-1236460453/

Media Vet Peter Liguori Appointed CEO Of VideoAmp After Leading The Ad Tech Firm As Executive Chairman
Media industry veteran Peter Liguori has been named CEO of ad tech firm VideoAmp after running the ad tech firm as executive chairman since 2023.

A look at the video podcasting surge; study: ~75% of podcast consumers play video episodes and ~30% play video episodes minimized or in background mode (Joseph Bernstein/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/20/style/p

Popular Podcasts Like Joe Rogan and Theo Von Are All Video Now. Who Is Watching?
An audio-only medium spawned a giant industry that is now largely focused on video.

A look at the media company Breaking and Entering, whose "60 Seconds of Advertising News" videos have become vital morning viewing for ad industry executives (Megan Graham/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.

Sources: lobbyists for Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta back a campaign for a 10-year US state AI regulation ban, a move dividing the AI industry and the GOP (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/52ae52f1-531e-462f-898f-e9f86b3b1869

Big Tech pushes for 10-year ban on US states regulating AI
Call by Amazon, Google and Microsoft lobbyists for a ‘moratorium’ has split industry and the Republican party

A look at the lack of consensus in the tech industry on what AGI is, whether LLMs are the best path to it, and what AGI might look like if or when it arrives (Melissa Heikkilä/Financial Times)

Why Big Tech cannot agree on artificial general intelligence
It has been tipped as the next big breakthrough out of Silicon Valley, but is it a scientific goal — or a marketing buzzword?

The US Senate passes the Genius Act, which establishes a regulatory framework for stablecoins; the bill now heads to the House (MacKenzie Sigalos/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/17/genius-stablecoin-bill-crypto.html

Senate passes GENIUS stablecoin bill, giving crypto industry first major legislative win
This is the first legislative victory for the digital asset industry, which put around $250 million in the 2024 election cycle.

In a paper, AI researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and others recommend further research into chain-of-thought monitorability for AI safety (Maxwell Zeff/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/15/research-leaders-urge-tech-i…

Research leaders urge tech industry to monitor AI's 'thoughts' | TechCrunch
Research leaders from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind are urging tech companies and research groups to monitor AI's "thoughts."

The Midas Project and Tech Oversight Project release The OpenAI Files, a 50 page analysis of OpenAI's governance, leadership, and organizational culture (Hayden Field/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/openai/688783/the

The ‘OpenAI Files’ will help you understand how Sam Altman’s company works
Two tech industry watchdog organizations released a research report called the OpenAI Files that covers OpenAI’s corporate structure, its restructuring to a for-profit organization, CEO Sam Altman’s portfolio of investment companies, and more.

Sources: Meta's talks with Scale AI started in mid-April, with Zuckerberg floating a $5B investment in early May, which Alexandr Wang later countered with $20B (Cory Weinberg/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/meta-agreed-pay…

Meta Agreed to Pay up for Scale AI but Then Wanted More for Its Money
The negotiations started as just one billionaire tech founder talking to another. Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg approached Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang in mid-April about a potentially industry-shaking deal. Zuckerberg wanted Wang to join Meta and was willing to pay billions of dollars to ...

A look at embedded and immersion chip-cooling tech; industry sources indicate Nvidia is mulling 6,000W to 9,000W TDP for its next-gen GPUs, up from ~1,200W now (Anton Shilov/Tom's Hardware)
https://www.

Researchers find Llama 3.1 recalls large parts of popular copyrighted books, possibly weakening AI industry claims that such memorization is fringe behavior (Timothy B. Lee/Understanding AI)
https://www.understandingai.org/p/metas-llama-31-can-recall-42-perc…

Meta's Llama 3.1 can recall 42 percent of the first Harry Potter book
New research could have big implications for copyright lawsuits against generative AI.

On stablecoins, JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon says, "We're going to be involved in both JPMorgan deposit coin and stablecoins to understand it, to be good at it" (Hugh Son/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/15/jamie-dimon-jpmorgan-chase-stablecoins.htm…

Jamie Dimon says JPMorgan Chase will get involved in stablecoins as fintech threat looms
JPMorgan Chase is a juggernaut in the global payments industry, helping move nearly $10 trillion daily, so it makes sense that they would explore stablecoins.

President Trump signs the GENIUS Act, and says the first federal bill to regulate stablecoins will "secure the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency" (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

The data industry is consolidating, with Databricks' $1B Neon purchase, Salesforce's $8B Informatica deal, and more, fueled by the need for quality data for AI (Rebecca Szkutak/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/07/ai-i

AI is forcing the data industry to consolidate — but that's not the whole story | TechCrunch
While AI may be the catalyst behind the recent wave of data company M&A, the market was ripe for consolidation.

AI is already transforming Hollywood, as studios and production companies experiment with AI tools and labor groups warn of job losses and other consequences (Steven Zeitchik/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digi…

Filipino workers in Taiwan's chip industry report struggling with overwork and discrimination, citing overnight shifts of up to 16 hours and abusive treatment (Rest of World)
https://restofworld.org/2025/filipino-workers-taiwan-chip-industry/

Workers describe abusive treatment in Taiwan’s semiconductor factories
A record number of people are leaving the Philippines to work in Taiwanese factories, where they face long shifts, low pay, and unequal treatment.

Parspec, whose AI-powered workflow tool automates procurement processes in the construction supply chain, raised a $20M Series A led by Threshold Ventures (Mary Ann Azevedo/Crunchbase News)
https://news.crunchbase.com/ai/construction-supply-chain-startup-parspec/

Exclusive: AI-Powered Construction Procurement Startup Lands $20M Series A 
Parspec, a startup using artificial intelligence to improve efficiency in the construction industry supply chain to help sales agents and wholesale distributors “efficiently bid and supply” construction products, has raised $20 million in a Series A funding, the company told Crunchbase News exclusively.