While ya’ll get excited about Meta’s new Glasses: “One mother said her Instagram account was set to private, but the posts were automatically cross-posting to Threads where they were visible.” www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Today’s defection to Reform is Danny Kruger, that former Tory MP who is a bastion of anti-establishmentarianism! “Education: University of Oxford (2000), University of Oxford, The University of Edinburgh, Eton College”

Anthropic are doing something very smart: Employing their own team to test how their technology might be misused. This is in a huge contrast to many large tech companies that simply hope they can get away with never being regulated - and so don't bother with ... fortune.com/2025/09/04/a...

Today’s Big Story: Mistral is on fire • There’s been lots of speculation about Mistral’s upcoming fund-raise. Today it's been confirmed that it’s raised a €1.7B Series C round ($1.99 billion) led by ASML. Most of the major tech news outlets have the story, except for TechCrunch. (I wonder why?!).

[Breaking] There’s been lots of speculation about Mistral’s upcoming fund-raise, much of it wrong. Today it's been confirmed that it’s raised a €1.7B Series C round ($1.99 billion) led by ASML. Reuters reported that ASML 1.3 billion euros of that amount. www.linkedin.com/posts/mikebu...

You probably have never heard of him, but he’s one of Europe’s most influential billionaires: Daniel Křetínský, a Czech businessman who built his fortune on coal – all the while receiving hundreds of millions of euros for green subsidies. In this episode, our journalists unpick his vast empire.

It’s not going to be the total end of human moderation. The AI will simply flag to human moderators the content it can’t make a decision about. But yes, overall this is a good development.

The former president of the European Commission still holds office at his old headquarters, where he regularly receives prominent guests. According to the Kazakh government, he also offered help as go-between. Jean-Claude Juncker himself denies this, claiming that he is “immune” to influence.

Completely missed in this story is that Northern Data is one of Europe’s very few sovereign cloud data centre players. That it could be sold to a US company should ring alarm bells amongst those interested in European resilience. siliconcanals.com/rumble-propo...

Good time to do a UK/European version of the Internet Archive before it all gets deleted by the Whitehouse.

Any European startups need this data? It’s about to go up in smoke.

The revenge of the working classes? 🤣🤷‍♂️

Startups are working out how to attach LLMs to Excel. This is significant because analysts have to do repetitive, mechanical work in financial modelling, which LLMs could do almost instantaneously. www.linkedin.com/posts/mikebu...

Wealth of five richest men doubles since 2020 as five billion people made poorer in "decade of division," says Oxfam www.oxfam.org/en/press-rel...

[Breaking] Hot AI startup Lovable claims to have just crossed $100M ARR in 8 months. It also released an update which it claims will reduce error rates by 91%, in the shape of a new improved Lovable Agent. substack.com/@mikebutcher...

The UK’s @Channel4 @C4Dispatches has finally done a proper documentary on Trump. www.channel4.com/programmes/t...

Breaking: The Browser Wars Begun, They Have. OpenAI’s Web browser will include a chat interface, and include agents. It is now ON with Google (because Chrome). Capturing data on users' is (Hey, Meta!) once again the name of the game. www.reuters.com/business/med...

Tell me your company has no Brits without telling me

Mental health crisis incoming: PEOPLE ARE LOSING LOVED ONES TO AI-FUELED SPIRITUAL FANTASIES Self-styled prophets are claiming they have “awakened” chatbots and accessed the secrets of the universe through ChatGPT www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

Any startups here in Farringdon?

The first American academics fleeing Donald Trump's America for France have arrived. Aix-Marseille University last week introduced eight U.S.-based researchers. It aims to woo researchers who have experienced or fear funding cuts under Trump. www.politico.eu/article/meet...

Anyone around in Shoreditch for a pint? (Twitter was useful for stuff like this in the old days. Not at all any more). - And besides I’ve already left.

Granola talks swayy.app?placeid=4366

Yesterday’s huge tech news that the tech media totally ignored: www.linkedin.com/pulse/huge-t...

A group called “Looking For Growth” which seems to want to be part of the tech community keeps flirting with Brexiter Dominic Cummings and Right Wing groups.

The Iranian Parliament is considering closing the Strait of Hormuz due to Israel's attacks. Some 24% of the world's oil passes through it. A disruption would see a surge in oil prices, potentially impacting tech stocks negatively.

An announcement: After 18 years, TechCrunch and I have parted ways. www.linkedin.com/posts/mikebu...

New early stage fund launches out of Sweden: Karaokeclub. From the founders of the Mashup conference in Malmo. www.karaokeclub.io

Uber One is a *joke*.

Wondering when under-25s are going to start joining or forming unions to collectively organise against being shut out of the economy by AI? www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/o...

Is $6.5bn a new record for an acquihire? io had 55 staff and not much else. Can’t think of any more expensive ones offhand. (Also not related but serious “some personal news” vibes from that photo)

OpenAI is acquiring ”io”, the hardware startup cooked up by Jony Ive & Sam Altman, for $6.5Bn, all equity. Ive’s firm, LoveFrom, will now lead all design at OpenAI. Is Ive is building the Anti-Apple? An AI device with no real privacy? techcrunch.com/2025/05/21/j...

London-based AI-powered notetaking tool Granola is a word of mouth hit partly because - as well as using it for meetings - it’s becoming a personal note taker, used throughout the day, accelerating usage. techcrunch.com/2025/05/14/a...

One of my favourite songs. youtu.be/1tVJnP3gCmM?...

BREAKING: Nvidia & Saudi Arabia are to partner on AI and cloud computing infrastructure. Clearly timed to coincide with Trump’s visit. www.reuters.com/world/middle...

Another, better, "Project Europe" contender: Conception X, a non-profit, has launched a handpicked angel syndicate of leading UK scientists and engineers to back PhD founders or “venture scientists” with early-stage capital. tech.eu/2025/05/13/c...

Trump as the Pope is pure Vladislav Surkov: He deployed irony, spectacle, and performance in political life. The result was a postmodern spectacle, where sincerity and cynicism blurred, making resistance harder because people weren’t sure what was real.

Who is the most famous female tech entrepreneur in the UK/Europe?

Today’s the day to Stop Reform getting into your council. Vote tactically. Put your postcode in here StopReformUK.vote Take a friend and double your vote. Pass this message on.

If I was interested, or cared, about money, I wouldn’t have become a journalist. Mark my words.

The BBC News app is a joke.

How do I get verified here?

This is a real tear jerker, and well timed given RFK’s ridiculous statements. An italian man with an autistic son started a restaurant in Italy employing ONLY autistic young people. It’s given them new lives, and it’s a huge success! www.instagram.com/reel/DIncBF8...

People are using ChatGPT’s image recognition to figure out the location shown in pictures. That means someone could screenshot say, a person’s Instagram Story, and work out where they are. And it’s highly accurate. Huge safety issue. techcrunch.com/2025/04/17/t...

U.S. and Chinese TikTok influencers are pointing to Chinese e-commerce apps like DHGate and Taobao as a way to buy directly from Chinese manufacturers, forgoing the luxury brand markup. The apps are thus exploding… techcrunch.com/2025/04/17/c...

Last year a very wealthy man, in a room I was in, declared Europe to be over: “Invest in the US, do business in Asia, and *holiday* in Europe!” he loudly declared. Today, investors are fleeing the US, and investing in Europe and Asia. I can’t think why… www.ft.com/content/daa2...

OpenAI is working on its own X-like social network, and it wil be focused on ChatGPT’s image generation, with a social feed. Let’s hope it’s not yet another disinformation network… www.theverge.com/openai/64813...

I've answered consulting client questions dozens of times over the years to the effect of "should I force my users traveling to China to take burner devices to safeguard our IP?" It's amazing that in just a few short months, the US is on par with China for many countries' espionage concerns.

Processing data, mainly for AI, will require almost as much energy by the end of this decade as Japan uses today, but only about half of the demand is likely to be met from renewable sources, according to a report from the International Energy Agency www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

A few people made billions.