Bits and Bytes

Amazon & Anthropic

Amazon is in talks for its second multi-billion dollar investment in artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, the Information reported on Thursday, citing a person familiar with the matter.

The cloud services giant announced an investment of $4 billion in the OpenAI rival in September last year, saying its customers would gain early access to Anthropic’s technology. Amazon has asked Anthropic, which uses Amazon’s cloud services to train its AI model, to use a large number of servers powered by chips developed by the cloud computing major, the report said.

Self-driving car check
A California state agency said on Thursday it is mandating enhanced data reporting requirements for autonomous vehicles including reports for incidents where self-driving cars get stuck.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is requiring companies to file detailed trip-level incident reports that cover both collision and non-collision incidents, including citations and stoppage events. In June, GM self-driving unit Cruise agreed to pay the maximum $112,500 penalty to the CPUC for failing to promptly provide complete information to the commission about a serious crash involving one of its robotaxis last year.

Sensor, games high
Sony’s profit rose 69% in July-September from a year earlier on the back of strong sales of its image sensors, games, music and network services, the Japanese electronics and entertainment company said on Friday.

Quarterly profit was 338.5 billion yen ($2.2 billion), up from 200 billion yen in the year-earlier period, while consolidated quarterly sales edged up 3% year-on-year to 2.9 trillion yen ($19 billion).

Tokyo-based Sony’s latest quarterly results were boosted by healthy demand around the world for image sensors used in mobile products. Sales also held up in its video games division. Demand remained strong for PS5 game software, Sony said.