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Brian McCullough
Welcome to the Tech Meme Ride home for Tuesday, March 4th, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough. Today we have our first official IPO of the AI era coming. Anthropic has a big new round. New iPads from Apple, new phones from nothing, Waymo rolls out in Austin, Texas and how the Kinect technology lives on as a tool for Ghostbusters. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. We officially have it the first IPO of the AI era. CoreWeave, which provides cloud based GPUs, has filed for an IPO on the NASDAQ under the symbol CRWV and says it generated $1.9 billion in revenue in 2024, up 737% year on year. So to be clear, this isn't an AI company in the way that OpenAI is. They basically help AI companies get the chips they need to make the AI. Quoting Business Daily, New Jersey based CoreWeave rents cloud computing power with Nvidia chips to AI developers. The company has seen a big jump in sales as companies race to train AI models. Core Weave's revenue grew more than 700% year over year to $1.9 billion in 2024, according to its IPO prospectus filing. The company posted a Net loss of $863 million for 2024. The company has not yet listed the number of shares or price it will target in the listing. Bloomberg reported last week that coreweave's IPO filing was imminent, with the company likely to seek a valuation $35 billion. CoreWeave raised private funding in November at a reported valuation of $23 billion worth, pointing out that 77% of their revenue is coming from just two customers, with 62% coming from just one of them Microsoft. But they apparently have a pipeline of over $15 billion in coming contracts. Quoting CNBC Originally known as Atlantic Crypto, the company got its start in 2017 by offering infrastructure for mining the Ethereum cryptocurrency. After digital currency prices fell, the company bought up addition processing units, or GPUs, and changed its name to Core Weave, with an increasing focus on graphics rendering and artificial intelligence. At the end of 2024, Core Weave's 32 data centers housed over 250,000 Nvidia GPUs, with a majority using the previous generation hopper architecture. According to the filing, running data centers full of GPUs requires considerable energy. Coreweave had 360 megawatts in active power and a total of 1.3 gigawatts had been contracted, the filing said. Core Weave gained popularity after OpenAI released ChatGPT in late 2022 because the company could quickly provide GPUs to businesses in need. Microsoft, whose Azure Cloud unit has supplied computing power to OpenAI, started working with CoreWeave in 2023 to meet OpenAI demand. End quote. Also in AI news, Anthropic raised a $3.5 billion Series E led by Lightspeed at a 60/2 billion dollar valuation, according to a source. Its annual revenue run rate has grown by 30% in 2025 from around $1 billion in late 2024, quoting Bloomberg the latest deal for the maker of large language models best known for its chatbot named Claude, was led by Lightspeed Venture partners, which contributed $1 billion, said Anthropic. Other investors who participated in the Series E deal include General Catalyst, Jane street and Fidelity Management and Research company, according to an Anthropic statement. Existing investors, including Menlo Ventures and Bessemer Partners also backed the company in the latest round, the company said. Anthropic, founded in 2021 by former employees of OpenAI, has positioned itself as a reliable, safety conscious firm that users can trust. The company was originally planning to raise $2 billion in the latest financing, but ended up raising more than anticipated in an oversubscribed round, people familiar with the discussions previously told Bloomberg. The new funding will fuel anthropic's competition with OpenAI, which is currently in talks for an even larger $300 billion valuation. Both deals underscore Silicon Valley investors continued enthusiasm for funneling big sums to leading AI firms, despite the recent entrants of smaller companies like China's Deep Seq, which claim to develop similar technology more cheaply. Anthropic says that it will use the capital to develop the next generation of its AI systems, expand its computing capacity and further its research efforts, including in safety related areas. The company also said it plans to accelerate its expansion in Asia and Europe. This investment fuels our development of more intelligent and capable AI systems that expand what humans can achieve while deepening our understanding of how these systems work, anthropic Chief Financial Officer Krishna Rao said in a statement. These capabilities are driving remarkable outcomes for our customers as our business and consumer usage continues to grow rapidly. The round follows additional investments from two major tech companies who had previously backed anthropic. Amazon invested $4 billion in the company in November, and Alphabet's Google invested $1 billion in January. Anthropic is also helping power Amazon's new AI version of its Alexa Assistant Alexa end quote Apple has released updated 11 inch and 13 inch iPad airs with an M3 chip and unveiled a new $269 plus magic keyboard with a larger built in trackpad. Quoting the Verge the new Air is primarily a spec bump over last year's device. It has an upgraded M3 chip and of course supports Apple Intelligence. It's not Apple's most modern chip. That would be the M4, but Apple says it's twice as fast as the M1 powered air and the A14 bionic powered air. Those are older devices and Apple's comparisons not include last year's model. It comes in four colors, 11 and 13 inch models and starts at 599 for the smaller model and $799 for the larger. There's also a new Magic Keyboard attachment, $269 for the smaller model and 319 for the larger, which includes the extra row of function keys and larger trackpad you could previously only get on the Pro. End quote but wait, there's more. We now have an 11th generation iPad, the entry level device adding an A16 bionic chip and now starting at 128 gigabytes of storage for the model with options up to 256 gigabytes and 512 gigabytes for the same $349 starting price. Quoting Mac Rumors it is available in blue, pink, yellow and silver and continues to start at $349. Customers can pre order the new iPad starting today with Launch scheduled for March 12. Quoting Apple itself the A16 chip provides a jump in performance for everyday tasks and experiences in IPADOs while still providing all day battery life. Compared to the previous generation, the updated iPad with is nearly 30% faster. In fact, compared to iPad with A13, bionic users will see up to a 50% improvement in overall performance and A16 makes the updated iPad up to six times faster than the best selling Android tablet. End quote Uber has launched Waymo rides in Austin, Texas, operating within a 37 square mile area including Hyde park and downtown. Quoting the Verge the former rivals have joined forces in the hopes of accelerating the transition to autonomous vehicles, and as of today, any Austin resident with a desire to take a trip in a fully driverless robo taxi can open up their Uber app and hail away. But of course there are some limitations. Waymo only operates within a 37 square mile area in Austin, which includes Hyde park, downtown, Montopolis and other popular destinations, according to the company, so the trip will need to originate and end within that service area in order to qualify for Waymo. It also doesn't operate on highways yet, so the route will only comprise local streets. Another thing to consider Simply calling an Uber in Waymo's geofence doesn't guarantee a robotaxi will show up. Waymo spokesperson Chris Bonelli declined to share the size of the company's fleet in Austin, but acknowledged that it was small at launch, while smaller at start. The fleet will grow to hundreds of vehicles over time, benelli said. Now last they revealed these numbers in August of last year, Waymo had a fleet of about 700 vehicles to service their existing San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles areas. So may we can extrapolate several dozen vehicles for Austin? I don't know Quoting and gadget Unlike the Waymo One service offered to riders in San Francisco and Los Angeles, interested Austin riders will get a chance to ride in a Waymo just by ordering an UberX, Uber Green, Uber Comfort or Uber Comfort Electric Ride. Similar to how things are handled in Phoenix, you're not guaranteed to receive a Waymo when you do order one of those rides, but Uber says you can increase your chances of receiving one by changing your ride preferences in the app. Upfront prices remain the same whether you get a Waymo or not, though if you do enter up in a robotaxi, you won't be prompted to tip. You can use the Uber app to unlock the Waymo, open its trunk and start your ride too. End quote and quoting TechCrunch the structure of the Waymo on Uber service forecasts how each company envisions its role in the nascent autonomous vehicle industry. Under the arrangement, Waymo will be responsible for vehicle testing, roadside assistance, and certain aspects of rider support. Uber will manage the fleet services such as vehicle cleaning, maintenance, inspections, charging and depot operations through a company called Move Cars, which is rebranded to Vomo. In 2021, Uber acquired a 30% minority interest in the European company Move Cars, not to be mistaken with Move, which coincidentally is managing Waymo's AV fleet in Phoenix. Uber has partnered with 14 autonomous vehicle companies that cover ride hailing, delivery and trucking, a handful of which are operating commercially. In December, Uber launched robotaxi rides with Weride in Abu Dhabi. The company also has commercial deals with sidewalk delivery bot companies Avride, Kartaken and Serve Robotics. Hey freelancers, we know what your days look like. You juggle clients, deadlines and that endless to do list. But when it comes to tax time, let's face it, the stress is real. That's why I'm here to talk about FreshBooks, the cloud accounting software designed to make the hard part easy. With FreshBooks, you'll save time and get peace of mind. Imagine having all your expenses neatly organized, your profit and loss report ready to go, and a clear picture of your business health all in just a few clicks. No more late nights drowning in paperwork or searching for lost receipts. And it's not just about taxes. FreshBooks automates your workflow year round. Snap photos of your expenses on the go, send professional invoices in seconds, and track payments seamlessly. Then, when tax time does come, everything's prepped and ready for your accountant. Heck, you can even give them custom access to your FreshBooks account for free. Working with your accountant has never been so easy, so why not give it a shot? Switching to FreshBooks is painless, even if you're coming from another accounting tool. FreshBooks makes migrating your data simple and their support team is ready if you need help. Don't wait for the stress to pile up. Head to freshbooks.com and try it free for 30 days. No credit card required. Let FreshBooks handle your taxes so you can focus on what you do best. That's freshbooks.com get started today and thank yourself tomorrow. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack sponsor. IQ Bar is the better for you. Plant protein based snacks made with brain boosting nutrients to refuel, nourish and satisfy hunger without the sugar crash. IQ Bar's plant Protein bars are packed with high quality ingredients to help keep you physically and mentally fit. IQ Bar is totally free from gluten, dairy, soy GMOs and artificial sweeteners. For a natural anytime snack, try any of their nine delicious flavors including Mint Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Sea Salt, Banana Nut, Toasted Coconut Chip, Lemon Blueberry and Peanut Butter chip. With over 20,000 5 star reviews and counting, more people than ever are starting their days on the right foot with IQ Bars, Brain and Body Boosting Bars, Hydration mixes and mushroom coffees. IQ Bar has become the morning breakfast routine for my wife and I both. So join us right now. IQ Bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20% off all IQ bar products plus get free shipping. To get your 20% off, text Techmeme to 64,000. Text Techmeme to 64,000. That's Techmeme to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply. See terms for details. Some other hardware for you today? Nothing unveiled the $379 Phone 3A and $459 3A Pro, both with 6.77-inch displays, Snapdragon 7S Gen 3 and new AI tools to help organize files shipping this month. Quoting The Verge the 3A and 3A Pro are mainly differentiated by their cameras, which you'll notice just by glancing at the two devices. The 3A Pro's prominent round camera housing includes a 3x periscope telephoto lens. The 3A offers a standard 2x zoom, but both phones include a 50 megapixel 1.8 main camera and an 8 megapixel ultra wide. The telephoto cameras on each use a 50 megapixel sensor for a lossless crop zoom, 4x for the 3A and 6x for the 3A Pro. They're big phones, each with a 6.77-inch display, and the 3A Pro feels especially chunky with the protruding camera housing. Both use Nothing's striking translucent back panel design for a bold look, which balances an awkward camera bump on the 3A Pro. When I started using the phone I felt like my fingers were constantly bumping against the housing, but I've adjusted to it after a few days and dig its pop socket esque functionality. The phones come with Snapdragon 7S Gen 3 chipsets, 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage storage which is generous for the mid range class. They ship with Android 15 and nothing is promising. Three years of OS updates and six years of security patches a decent if not the best software policy for a budget phone. They're being offered in the US through Nothing's beta program. The glyph interface and LED light strips are still present, but nothing seems to be shifting its efforts towards software features. Something called the Essential Space is a new place to save screenshots, voice memos and images. Like Google's Pixel Screenshots app, it answers the eternal question what do I do with this thing? Is your photo guide gallery cluttered with pictures of stuff you want to remember? Do you wish you had somewhere to keep all those inspiration photos for your bathroom makeover? Do you yearn for a place to put the information in an email? You keep searching your inbox for every time you need it. Then you get what the Essential Space is all about. You save stuff there. It uses AI to pull out relevant bits of information, and it helps organize what would otherwise be left floating around your phone somewhere. Using the Essential Key to add things to the Essential Space took a little adjustment. It's right where I'm used to the power button sitting, so I kept pressing it unintentionally a single Google press will capture a screenshot, and a double tap opens the app so you can browse through your collections. This feels backwards for reasons I can't quite explain, but I've mostly gotten used to it. Nitpicking aside, I think nothing is onto something. I added screenshots of travel information for an upcoming flight that are otherwise spread across emails and apps. The essential space keeps it in one tidy spot and is good at pulling key timing and dates from the screengrabs. It'll even make a little to do list for you. It didn't quite get everything right about my connecting flight, but I think that's because the date wasn't visible in both screenshots. The software seems to do a decent job when it has complete information to work with. End quote. Finally today, remember the Xbox Kinect? Briefly, around the year 2010 or so, it seemed to be the hot new technology. Then it drifted a bit and was actually discontinued in 2017. Well, the Guardian points out that the Kinect technology has lived on actually finding applications beyond gaming, including interactive art, pornography and ghost hunting. The Kinect's technology was soon eclipsed by freely available open source sensors and more advanced motion sensing devices. But since Microsoft ceased manufacture of the Kinect line in 2017, the little camera has enjoyed a spirited and not entirely untroubled afterlife. It has watched over the Korean demilitarized zone and worked on topography and patient alignment in CT scanners. Reports have emerged of it being used in airport baggage hauls as a security camera in Newark Liberty International Airport's Terminal C. United Airlines declined to comment on this, and even to Gamify training for the US Military. It's been attached to drones, rescue bots, and even found a brief application in pornography. I'm not sure anyone had a firm vision of what interactive sex involving the Kinect would be, says Kyle Machlus, founder of Buttplug IO and another member of the OpenConnect team. The camera was deployed mostly as an over complex controller for 3D sex games, fulfilling most of a futurist marketing role than anything the actual consumer uses, Michaelis says. In that role, it was successful. It attracted a flurry of attention and threats from Microsoft to somehow ban porn involving Kinect. It was an interesting experiment, but it turned out that the addition of a novelty device was not a turn on for many porn users. Besides, as Mecalis says, when the camera malfunctions, it looks pretty horrible. Unreliability is of less concern for ghost hunters, who thrive on the ambiguity of aging technology and who have rebranded the Kinect as the SLS Structured Light Sensor Camera. They deploy its body tracking to find figures the naked eye cannot see. Ghost hunters are thrilled by the Kinect's habit of seeing bodies that aren't really there, believing that these skeletal stick figures are representations of disembodied spirits. The paranormal investigation industry doesn't care much about false positives so long as those false positives can be perceived as paranormal, which is just as well, says John Wood, a freelance science performer who has a show devoted to examining ghost hunting technology. It's quite normal for ghost hunters to be filming themselves in the dark with infrared cameras and torches. You're bathing the scene with IR light while using a sensor that measures a specific pattern of infrared dots, he says. Given that Kinect is designed specifically to recognize the human body in any data it receives, it would be stranger if the Kinect didn't pick up anomalous figures. In this context, there's a certain poetry in the Kinect living on among those searching for proof of life after death. In the right hands, the camera is still going strong. Theo Watson points me in the direction of Kinected Worlds, an exhibit that has run in the New York hall of Science since 2015. Of the many Kinect devices that power the installations, only two had to be replaced in the decade since it opened, and one of those was only a few weeks ago. Watson started stockpiling the device when Microsoft ceased production. Half the projects on the website wouldn't exist without the Kinect, he says. If we had this camera for another decade, we would still not run out of things to do with it. End quote. Hey, I haven't mentioned this in a while, but why not Follow me on the Socials I'm Ryan MCC on Twitter and threads, But I'm Ryan Mc, not CC BrianMc on Blue Sky. Come for my snarky thoughts about tech that sometimes don't pop up on this show. Talk to you tomorrow.
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AT&T Business
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