Ingrid Lunden
Managing Editor, Global
The Latest from Ingrid Lunden
Black Friday online buying hits a record $9.8B in the US, $70.9B globally
A rush of deep discounts and the growth of flexible payment options were the drivers behind $9.8 billion in online sales in the U.S. on Black Friday — a record figure for the day. According to A
Adobe: Thanksgiving US online sales nudge up to $5.6B; Salesforce: $31.7B spent globally
Thanksgiving Thursday, when stores in the U.S. are closed and many are spending time off work, has become the de facto start of the holiday shopping season both for those looking to bargains online, a
Emmett Shear, the ex-Twitch CEO tasked with stabilizing OpenAI, has some spicy social history
Emmett Shear, the interim CEO of OpenAI, may be out of a job by the end of the hour, day or week given how fast and unexpectedly things are moving at the world’s hottest hot mess artificial inte
DeepMind and YouTube release Lyria, a gen-AI model for music, and Dream Track to build AI tunes
Back in January, Google made some waves — soundwaves, that is — when it quietly released some research on AI-based music creation software that built tunes based on word prompts. Today, it
X says 325K posts and 375K accounts ‘actioned’ over Israel-Hamas war violations
X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, has been facing waves of criticism over how it has, under owner Elon Musk, grappled with issues of trust and safety, and specifically how well it hand
More consolidation in grocery delivery: Getir acquires FreshDirect to beef up in the US
Getir, the Turkish instant grocery delivery startup, has made an acquisition to expand its presence in the U.S. and to further its strategy as a consolidator in its category. The company has scooped u
Volante raises $66M for payments tech for banks and other legacy financial businesses
“Digital transformation” among enterprises hasn’t happened with quite the gusto that people predicted it would a few years ago. But today, a startup building fintech technology ̵
Confirmed: Palo Alto has acquired Talon Cyber Security, sources say for $625M
Palo Alto Networks has just confirmed one more major piece of security startup M&A out of Israel: It has acquired Talon Cyber Security, a specialist in building enterprise browsers for securing di
At Bletchley, Rishi Sunak confirms AI Safety Institute but delays regulations for another day
A Frontier AI taskforce established by the U.K. back in June to prepare for the AI Safety Summit held this week is on course to be a permanent fixture, as the U.K. bids to take a leadership role on AI
LinkedIn, now at 1B users, turns on OpenAI-powered reading and writing tools
It was only a couple of weeks ago that LinkedIn was having a moment as a social platform, with business types gravitating to it as a stable and safer alternative to the unpredictability of the newly n
Politicians commit to collaborate to tackle AI safety, US launches safety institute
The world is locked in a race, and competition, over dominance in AI, but today, a few of them appeared to come together to say that they would prefer to collaborate when it comes to mitigating risk.
Who’s going (and who’s not) to the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park?
Ahead of the AI Safety Summit starting tomorrow morning taking place outside of London in Bletchley Park, today, the U.K. government has confirmed more details about who is actually going to be attend
Wirepas nabs $22M to expand IoT business based on distributed, mesh technology
Wirepas, a startup out of Finland that is building out an Internet of Things business based on a novel approach — using mesh networking, rather than cellular or Wi-Fi to connect thousands of obj
Confirmed: Palo Alto Networks buys Dig Security, sources say for $400M
We reported in September that Palo Alto was getting ready to make yet more security acquisitions out of Israel, specifically of Dig Security and Talon. Today, some confirmation of one of those has arr
SkyCell raises $57M at a $600M valuation to build smart containers for pharmaceutical transport
The COVID-19 pandemic put a spotlight on how critical the development and distribution medicine can really be. Vaccines for the coronavirus typically needed to be kept at very specific temperature con
Existential risk? Regulatory capture? AI for one and all? A look at what’s going on with AI in the UK
The promise and pitfall of artificial intelligence is a hot topic these days. Some say AI will save us: It’s already on the case to fix pernicious health problems, patch up digital divides in ed
OpenAI, Google and a ‘digital anthropologist’: the UN forms a high-level board to explore AI governance
The halls of power are waking up to the potentials and pitfalls of artificial intelligence. The big question will be how much of an impact they will have on the march of progress if (and when) there a
Web Summit confirms Lisbon and Qatar events still on, ex-CEO Paddy Cosgrave has 80% ownership of business
Over the weekend, Paddy Cosgrave and Web Summit made the bombshell announcement that Cosgrave would step down from his post as CEO of the technology conference business — a move made to try to c
Amazon Pharmacy launches its first drone deliveries
Amazon’s Prime Air drone service has been slow to take off for the company, with limited operations in just two locales a whole decade after Amazon first started development of the program. Now,
Prove Identity nabs $40M at a $1B+ valuation to expand in mobile-based authentication tech
Prove Identity, the smartphone-based identity verification startup that originally made its name years ago as Payfone before rebranding in 2020, has raised $40 million. According to sources close to t