| |
| Here's a look at today's tech briefing: - Canva rivals Adobe with Affinity acquisition.
- Judge dismisses X lawsuit against hate speech nonprofit.
- Microsoft appoints new Windows and Surface chief.
- Alibaba cancels IPO plan for logistics unit Cainiao.
Beth
p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | Design platform Canva has acquired Serif's Affinity, adding the latter's creative design software to its portfolio. The deal positions Canva as a greater rival to Adobe as it gains tools similar to Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. More: - The acquisition, Canva's largest to date, is reportedly valued at several hundred million British pounds.
- Canva will expand its suite with the addition of Affinity's Photo, Designer, and Publisher software that caters to photographers, video editors, and creators.
- While Affinity's apps will remain separate from Canva's platform, the company plans to slowly incorporate features over time.
- As part of the deal, Affinity's 90 staff members will become part of Canva.
Zoom out: - Affinity, popular among Mac users, differs from Adobe as it offers a one-time purchase model without subscriptions.
- The deal will allow Canva to offer creative design apps to its 170 million monthly users.
|     | |
| 2 | | A U.S. court judge has dismissed X Corp's lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a group that studies hate speech online. In his ruling on Monday, federal Judge Charles Breyer said X's goal was "about punishing" CCDH for its speech that criticized X, formerly Twitter. More: - Elon Musk's X sued the CCDH last summer, shortly after the non-profit published research suggesting X is "toxic" and has allowed racist and homophobic posts.
- One of its reports claims X failed to take action against 99% of hate tweets from its paid subscribers and has even algorithmically boosted toxic tweets.
- In its lawsuit, X claimed the CCDH led a "scare campaign" that drove away advertisers and led to a loss of tens of millions of dollars in revenue.
- The platform also accused CCDH of violating X's terms by illegally scraping data to produce inaccurate reports.
Ruling: - In his decision, Breyer said X failed to "adequately allege loss."
- X's "evident" motive for suing was to penalize CCDH for its critical publications, possibly to "dissuade others" from criticizing X in the future, he wrote.
- X said it plans to appeal the ruling.
| | | |
| A message from our sponsor, Top Class Actions. |  | | Visa and Mastercard $5B settlement: alerting all business owners Business owners who took Visa or Mastercard credit or debit cards any time from Jan. 1, 2004, to Jan. 25, 2019, can now apply to see if they are entitled to a portion of a $5.6 billion payout. Claim Now | |
|
| 3 | | Microsoft has appointed veteran Pavan Davuluri to lead a new division combining its Windows experiences and Surface hardware teams. Davuluri has been head of the Surface team after last year's departure of longtime executive Panos Panay, who left for Amazon. More: - After Panay's exit, Microsoft split up the Windows and Surface groups, appointing Davuluri to oversee Surface and Mikhail Parakhin to lead a team focused on Windows and web experiences.
- Parakhin is now exploring new roles within the company, leaving Davuluri to oversee both Windows and Surface.
- Davuluri, a consumer vice president, will report directly to Rajesh Jha, Microsoft's head of experiences and devices.
- During his 23 years at the company, Davuluri helped develop customized Surface processors in collaboration with Qualcomm and AMD.
Zoom out: - According to Jha, the changes will allow Microsoft "to take a holistic approach to building silicon, systems, experiences, and devices that span Windows client and cloud for this AI era."
- Last week, Microsoft hired former DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman to lead a new AI team focused on its consumer AI products.
- Parakhin was set to report to Suleyman, but will now report to Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott while searching for a new role.
| | | |
| 4 | | Alibaba has canceled its planned initial public offering of its logistics arm Cainiao. Instead, the Chinese e-commerce will offer to buy back the remaining shares of Cainiao it doesn't already own. More: - Cainiao, launched in 2013, offers warehousing, fulfillment, last-mile delivery, and reverse logistics services to Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall customers.
- Alibaba said it called off Cainiao's IPO in Hong Kong to support the company to "execute a long-term strategic expansion of its global logistics network".
- The company currently owns 63.7% of Cainiao and plans to acquire the remaining 36.3% for up to $3.75B.
- Alibaba has offered minority Cainiao shareholders $0.62 per share to sell all their outstanding shares.
Zoom out: - The news marks a setback in Alibaba's ongoing restructuring plan to split into six different business units, most of which were set to receive outside funding and pursue IPOs.
- In November, Alibaba abandoned plans to spin off its cloud computing business, shortly after appointing Eddie Wu as its new CEO.
| | | |
| |
|
| 5 | | More Americans are using OpenAI's ChatGPT, with 23% of adults saying they've used the chatbot in a Pew Research Center survey, up from 18% in July 2023. More people are turning to ChatGPT for work assistance, with its workplace usage among employed Americans jumping from 8% in March 2023 to 20% in February 2024. 
What the numbers show: According to Pew's survey, 43% of people under age 30 have used ChatGPT, up 10% from last summer. Meanwhile, only 6% of people over 65 have tried the chatbot. Those with postgraduate or advanced degrees are also more likely to use it, with 37% having done so, up 8 percentage points since July. That group surpasses those with just a bachelor's degree (29%), some college experience (23%), or a high school diploma or less (12%). The bigger picture: Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has dominated the AI chat market, beating out competitors like Google's Gemini in web traffic. However, its user base remains primarily younger, with less than a quarter of all Americans having tried it. Recent data from February also shows a decline in ChatGPT's popularity, with web traffic decreasing in five of the previous eight months, down 11% from its peak in May 2023. | | | |
| 6 | | Google is expanding its AI-assisted search to a small subset of U.S. users as it moves toward a more widespread public rollout. The AI search feature, called Search Generative Experience (SGE), was previously only available to people who signed up to test it in Google Search Labs. More: - The AI-generated responses, marked as "experimental," are highlighted in a green box at the top of search results.
- SGE launched to testers last May, using Google's AI to deliver responses to questions in natural language on the main search interface.
- Now, select U.S. users will get SGE responses on specific topics, even without signing up.
- Google said it's testing AI-assisted results on "complex" queries or those that draw from information across multiple web pages.
- The company wants to gather more feedback and test the public's reaction.
| | | |
| 7 | | QUICK HITS - Pattern released a 30-page insights report for beauty brands selling on Amazon.*
- Apple announced that its 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will take place online from June 10-14. The event will include the latest iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS upgrades.
- Tesla is now requiring a demonstration of its Full Self-Driving technology for North American customers before delivering a vehicle.
- Liz Reid, a 20-year Google veteran who previously led the company's AI search initiative, has been promoted to head of search.
- Microsoft is bringing more Copilot AI capabilities to Teams, allowing users to see spoken transcripts and written chats in one view and use AI to rewrite chat messages.
- Ready to get your AWS cloud spend under control? Learn how to effectively audit and reduce AWS costs today *
*This is a sponsored post. | | | |
| Upcoming Events | | MAR
27 | | Buy-ology: How Today's Consumers Buy Online w/Mike Felix of Act-On | | | | | | * This is a sponsored event | | | |
 | AI and technology writer | | Beth is a contributing editor and writer of Inside's AI and Tech newsletters. She has written for publications including USA Today, the Arizona Business Gazette, and The Arizona Republic, where she received recognition with a Pulitzer Prize nomination and a First Amendment Award for collaborative reporting on state pension cost increases. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@yahoo.com. | | This newsletter was edited by Beth Duckett | |
| |
 | Top Class Actions has helped law firms across the country successfully find plaintiffs for class action lawsuits & mass torts since 2008. | |
|
 | Conveyor: Instant answers to security questionnaires with market-leading AI. Don’t settle for <90% accuracy. | |
|
| |
