TechGround

The TechGround Top 3

The house that Mickey built: Disney+ is down about 4 million subscribers in the second quarter, which is the second time in a row that has happened. Manish did a deep dive into the earnings and found that much of that can be attributed to Disney’s Hotstar losing 8.4 million subscribers. Oh, and Disney+ and Hulu are set to combine into one app later this year, Lauren reports.
Can you see the correction?: Manish also reported on SoftBank’s Vision Fund, which lost $32 billion. He notes this comes in a year when startups valuations were cut, writing that SoftBank earlier this year had entered “defense mode.”
Riders on the storm: Peloton recalls millions of exercise bikes, citing faulty assembly, after reports of injuries. Kyle has more.

Less LSD for the LLM: Writer introduces product that could help reduce hallucinated content in its LLMs, reports Ron.
Fairly repairable headphones: Natasha L reports that Fairphone gets its audio groove on with repairable over-ear BT headphones.
Hospitals, but Amazon-ier: MediShout wants to bring Amazon-like efficiency to hospital operations, reports Paul.
Hello, this is the pre-crime division: Everseen raises over $70 million for AI tech to spot potential retail theft, reports Kyle.
That’s a pass from me, thanks: Tinder-inspired Cala dares you to swipe left on useless meetings, reports Harri.

Unlocking the M&A code: 5 factors that can make (or break) a deal

Finally, a decent “the ask” slide: Haje is back with the newest Pitch Deck Teardown: Fibery’s $5.2M Series A deck.
Don’t call it a comeback. Or, maybe, do: Higher interest rates are fostering a fintech comeback story, writes Alex.
We’re chained together; let’s work together: Jacquelyn argues that crypto needs a global view to build better regulatory models.

Come in for your close-up: Canon’s PowerShot V10 is an itty-bitty, teeny-weeny camera that sidles up to vloggers, reports Haje.
Don’t kill this Messenger: That’s because Meta is doing that for us by killing the Messenger app for Apple Watch, Aisha reports.
Welcome to Kyle’s TedTalk: Today, he discusses the ever-growing list of text-generating AI, specifically about how AI2 is developing a large language model optimized for science.
Secrets, secrets are no fun, except on Twitter: Ivan writes that Twitter’s new encrypted DMs for verified users has some security drawbacks.
Stepping on the EV pedal: Hyundai Motor has plans to invest $2.45 billion in India over the next nine years to boost its EV ecosystem. Jagmeet has more.