Author: arthursheikin@gmail.com

[ad_1] This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Eric Fung, 37, the CEO of Colega AI in Tokyo. It’s been edited for length and clarity.I was ready for a fresh start, so last year, I moved to Tokyo.California wasn’t what it used to be: the cost of living was insane, and the Bay Area magic had dimmed. I wanted a reset. I had visited Tokyo as a tourist and loved its safety, cleanliness, and energy.I also noticed something important. Japan is home to more than 3 million small businesses, including restaurants, bars, cafés, and retailers. Unlike the US,…

[ad_1] California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed SB 53, a first-in-the-nation bill that sets new transparency requirements on large AI companies. SB 53, which passed the state legislature two weeks ago, requires large AI labs – including OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Google DeepMind – to be transparent about safety protocols. It also ensures whistleblower protections for employees at those companies.   In addition, SB 53 creates a mechanism for AI companies and the public to report potential critical safety incidents to California’s Office of Emergency Services. Companies also have to report incidents related to crimes committed without human oversight, such as cyberattacks, and deceptive behavior by a model that isn’t required under the EU AI Act.  …

[ad_1] Alphabet is the final major tech company to pay President Donald Trump after it barred him from a social media platform following the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.On Monday, Alphabet, which owns YouTube, announced that it would pay $24.5 million to settle a case brought by Trump following his post-riot ban. Of that amount, $22 million will go to Trump. The remaining $2.5 million will go to co-plaintiffs, including the American Conservative Union, Andrew Baggiani, Austen Fletcher, Maryse Veronica Jean-Louis, Frank Valentine, Kelly Victory, and Naomi Wolf.Six days after the Capitol riot, YouTube announced that it would suspend Trump’s…

[ad_1] Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson will soon no longer have to answer to Wall Street, but he may not be off the hook.The video-game company he has led since 2013 announced on Monday that it will go private in a $55 billion all-cash deal backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, as well as the investment firms Silver Lake and Affinity Partners. It is the largest leveraged buyout in history, and shareholders will get a premium of around 25% on Thursday’s closing share price, the parties involved said in a joint statement. Wilson, who assumed the additional title of…

[ad_1] When deciding what vehicle to buy, it’s not uncommon for consumers to ask their auto lender what they can reasonably afford. But while helping members with that question, the folks at Navy Federal Credit Union made a surprising discovery: The car’s price alone wasn’t enough to provide the best answer.”We’re always looking for ways to help our members make smart, informed financial decisions, especially with big-ticket items like vehicles,” said Kevin Wince, vice president of consumer lending servicing, projects and risk at Navy Federal Credit Union. “Car ownership isn’t just about the sticker price. It’s insurance, gas, repairs, and…

[ad_1] DeepSeek has gone viral. Chinese AI lab DeepSeek broke into the mainstream consciousness this week after its chatbot app rose to the top of the Apple App Store charts (and Google Play, as well). DeepSeek’s AI models, which were trained using compute-efficient techniques, have led Wall Street analysts — and technologists — to question whether the U.S. can maintain its lead in the AI race and whether the demand for AI chips will sustain. But where did DeepSeek come from, and how did it rise to international fame so quickly? DeepSeek’s trader origins DeepSeek is backed by High-Flyer Capital Management, a Chinese quantitative hedge…

[ad_1] Job seekers in all fields can expect to soon be doing a lot more initial screening interviews. While that may sound like positive news, it doesn’t mean that there will suddenly be more open positions. Instead, recruiters, often bogged down with determining which applicants are qualified for the next round, will outsource the routine screening tasks — like checking backgrounds, salary needs, and availability — to (you guessed it) AI. Alex, a startup building an AI recruiter, says it’s already helping companies conduct video interviews and phone screens. Aaron Wang (pictured center, bottom row), who co-founded Alex about 18…

[ad_1] Researchers at DeepSeek on Monday released a new experimental model called V3.2-exp, designed to have dramatically lower inference costs when used in long-context operations. DeepSeek announced the model with a post on Hugging Face, also posting a linked academic paper on GitHub. The most important feature of the new model is called DeepSeek Sparse Attention, an intricate system described in detail in the diagram below. In essence, the system uses a module called a “lightning indexer” to prioritize specific excerpts from the context window. After that, a separate system called a “fine-grained token selection system” chooses specific tokens from…

[ad_1] Charlie Javice is going to prison for the better part of a decade.On Monday, a Manhattan federal judge sentenced Javice to seven years in prison for using wildly exaggerated data to fool JPMorgan Chase into paying $175 million for her startup — far more than the 18 months her lawyers asked for.Javice’s prison sentence will be followed by 3 years of supervised release, resulting in a total 10-year sentence. The judge ordered her to report to prison 60 days after she exhausts her appeals to higher courts.The former fintech wunderkind — who once graced Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list…

[ad_1] Ben Dell, an activist investor known for his work in oil and gas, is betting that carbon credits should be more than an abstract concept. His company, Chestnut Carbon, is working with brands like Microsoft and Mercedes Formula 1 to offset emissions in ways buyers can both see and measure.Dell is best known as the cofounder of private equity firm Kimmeridge Energy Management Co., which specializes in oil and gas. At Chestnut, Dell said his mission is to turn carbon credits into tangible items. The company buys unused farmland and pastures, replants land with native hardwoods, and sells the…