💊 The founder of Telegram arrested, Nvidia’s surreal position, and Brazil vs. X

Also, OpenAI secures $100 billion, Microsoft kills the Control Panel, and the PS5 Pro is near

Welcome to Tech Pills, the weekly newsletter about technology, innovation and startups. My name is Jose, and you can follow me on LinkedIn. Let’s begin!

👮 Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, arrested in France. His detention follows an investigation into the platform's alleged failure to moderate content and cooperate with authorities. Reports suggest he may face charges linked to drug trafficking and child exploitation due to Telegram's content moderation issues. Durov claims Telegram follows EU laws and disputes allegations of platform responsibility for user actions. We don’t know the context of the situation (i.e., how many times Europe officially requested to Telegram to harden its moderation), but arresting the founder of a platform with hundreds of thousands of users because of their actions seems disproportionate.

• The situation sparks discussions on free speech in Europe, with the Russian embassy seeking clarification from French officials.

• Weirdly enough, Pavel Durov was exiled in Dubai because the Russian government seized his first business.

• His intention for Telegram is to remain neutral and provide a censorship-free communication alternative.

❓ Nvidia announces a record revenue of $30.04 billion in its Q2 2024 earnings report, but its stock value drops by 8.4%. The reason for this contradictory situation is that analysts’ revenue expectations were higher. Also, the company is struggling to make enough chips to cope with the massive demand. In fact, they have waiting lists of months for certain products.

On top of that, they are starting to feel pressure from the competition developing similar chips. The CEO, Jensen Huang, discussed about this in Bloomberg, he is very optimistic about the company influence in the market and confident about ramping up the production. If you are interested, you can watch the interview here:

🚨 Brazil's Supreme Court threatens to ban X in the country if it fails to appoint a legal representative in the country within 24 hours. This ultimatum follows X's announcement to cease operations in Brazil, impacting its 20 million users. The situation between the country and the social media company escalates, as the court demands compliance to avoid further action, including potential arrests of X's representatives.

👩‍⚖️ There’s more about legal issues, the Malaysian government plans to regulate social media platforms with over eight million users by January 2025. Big Tech companies, including major names like Meta and Amazon, warns this initiative lacks transparency and could hinder innovation and burden businesses. The regulation aims to tackle cybercrime, including online fraud and cyberbullying. The result could significantly affect Malaysia's growing digital economy and its position in Southeast Asia's digital landscape. If this proposal finally moves forward, social media companies should be worried about a potential domino effect within Asia.

🤖 Speaking of regulations and Big Tech, OpenAI, Adobe, and Microsoft surprisingly support a California bill that requires watermarks on AI-generated content. To be completely fair, they initially opposed, but they changed their stance after a few amendments. The legislation, named AB 3211, requires AI companies to label photos, videos, and audio clips clearly. The intention is to improve transparency, and the tech giants seem to be on board.

🔎 Also regarding IA, Meta shuts down an augmented reality studio to focus resources on artificial intelligence. The studio, which worked on creating digital filters for Facebook and Instagram, will cease operations in January 2025. The company had significant financial losses in the augmented and virtual reality sectors over the last few years. They seem to be back on track now, and Zuckerberg confirms that AI will dominate the company’s efforts from now on. I wonder in what position does that leave the Meta Quest VR headset.

Image: Meta

🚕 Lyft will follow Uber, and launches a driver verification pilot program. They will start in nine cities, confirming riders' legal identities through third-party databases. Verified riders display a badge on their profiles. If any discrepancies arise, riders must provide official identification. Additionally, the company is also working on new features for improving women's safety and pet-friendly rides.

🍏 Apple announces a software update allowing EU iPhone users to delete built-in apps like Messages, Photos, and even the App Store itself. This change comes after, one more time, EU regulations aimed at increasing competition and user choice. The update will include a centralized settings menu for managing defaults, enabling users to replace Apple apps with alternatives. This is another significant step towards “opening” iOS, and creates a new world of possibilities for developers to fill the gaps left by the potential deleted default apps.

Innovation & Startups

💰 OpenAI is very close to securing a new funding round with a valuation exceeding $100 billion. This round surpasses OpenAI's last valuation of $86 billion, marking a significant milestone in AI startup funding. The company seeks fresh capital to enhance its computing capacity and cover operating costs, with reports indicating it may face a $5 billion loss this year. OpenAI's annual revenue is estimated around $3.4 billion, emphasizing the need for additional financial backing.

Credit: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

🎛️ Microsoft will phase out the Control Panel in Windows. This feature was added 39 years ago, and will be replaced by the Settings feature. Since 2020, Microsoft redirected Windows users to Settings to perform some actions. Very soon, they won’t need to redirect users anymore. This transition marks the end of an era for many longtime PC users, like myself, who associate the Control Panel with performing certain tasks. It’s going to be awkward when typing “Control Panel” in the search box and nothing shows up.

🎧 Meta and Spotify are collaborating to enhance music sharing on Instagram. They are testing a feature to allow users to share their Spotify music through Instagram. This functionality is still in development and the details remain unclear, but it could be used to automate song postings. Both companies already worked together in the past. In fact, Instagram released a feature for sharing 30-second song clips. However, making progress on this area is quite hard due to copyright issues.

🎮 Some rumors confirm that the PS5 Pro could be revealed very soon. According to this information, there are game developers putting projects on hold because of the imminent announcement. Sony hasn’t confirmed anything yet, but the timeline matches with when the PS4 Pro was presented.

Meme of the Week