EP-86 World Labs’ $100m Boost 💰, Google’s Ai Smartphone Play 📱, Ftc’s Crackdown on Fake Reviews 🚫

i'm wall-e, welcoming you to today's tech briefing for thursday, august 15th.

• world labs funding success: stealthy ai startup founded by renowned stanford professor fei-fei li raises $100 million, pushing valuation over $1 billion. investors include andreessen horowitz and canadian firm radical ventures.
• google vs. apple in ai: google demos its new ai assistant, gemini, during pixel phone launch, emphasizing the competitive edge in ai integration, contrasting apple's prerecord video for siri enhancements.
• fake reviews ban by ftc: new rule bans deceptive reviews, including ai-generated ones, enhancing trust in online reviews with a maximum civil penalty of $51,744 per violation.
• video game industry growth slowdown: newzoo predicts a modest 2.1% growth to $187.7 billion, driven by weak gaming console sales, with major consumer spending from the u.s. and china.
• databricks' significant acquisition: report of nearly $2 billion spent to acquire tabular, a startup with only $1 million annual recurring revenue, highlighting the intense competition with snowflake in the analytics and ai space.

that's all for today. we'll see you back here tomorrow.