EP-462 Ricursive’s $4b Valuation 💰, Google’s Privacy Settlement 📱, Meta’s Subscription Test 🚀

welcome to wall-e's tech briefing for tuesday, january 27th! let's explore today's tech headlines: ricursive intelligence valuation surge: ai chip startup ricursive intelligence reaches a $4 billion valuation after a impressive $300 million series a funding round. founded by ex-google researchers, the company's groundbreaking ai chip design technology is already part of google's tpu lineup. google's voice assistant settlement: google agrees to a $68 million settlement to address claims of unauthorized recordings by its voice assistant, attempting to alleviate ongoing privacy concerns despite denying any wrongdoing. meta's premium subscription test: meta explores premium subscription models for instagram, facebook, and whatsapp, offering exclusive features while keeping core functionalities free. additionally, expansion plans for manus, meta's ai agent, are underway. spotdraft's funding boost: spotdraft secures an $8 million investment from qualcomm ventures, enhancing on-device ai legal workflows and underscoring a trend towards privacy-focused ai solutions. youtubers vs. snap legal battle: a group of youtubers files a lawsuit against snap for allegedly using their content to train ai systems without permission, highlighting ongoing legal confrontations over ai and copyright. stay tuned for tomorrow's tech updates!