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Much as he would have liked to significantly increase supplies, Biosca-Reig said he couldn't justify investing millions of euros in new production lines unless he was paid more for the generic drug to cover sharply rising costs. European generic drugmakers say the tender system and regulated prices have fuelled a race to the bottom, and European firms are being undercut by suppliers from Asia. BRUSSELS, WE HAVE A PROBLEMThe European Medicines Agency (EMA) and European Union lawmakers acknowledge there is a problem. Half the generic medicines sold in Spain are priced below 1.60 euros per box or bottle, the country's generics manufacturing association said. But companies with smaller market shares, such as Israel's Teva (TEVA.TA), which has 5% of the region's amoxicillin market according to Medicines for Europe, are constrained.

☆ An entrepreneur who has used Shopify since it was in beta shares how he built an app to solve the biggest problem he faced on the platform while scaling to $1 million in sales
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Madeline Stone | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Thomas Bertrand built a Shopify app after years of selling on the e-commerce platform. He launched his Shopify store, Bento&co, where he sells bento boxes and related accessories, in 2008. But he also created an app on Shopify's App Store that was directly inspired by his years as a merchant. Shopify's app store is home to more than 7,000 apps to help merchants with tasks like store design, product sourcing, SEO, marketing, and shipping. Shopify's merchants made $46.2 billion in sales on the platform in the third quarter of 2022 alone.

☆ Check out the 10-page pitch deck a new adtech startup used to raise $8 million to help influencers and film studios power product placement with AI
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Ryan Joe | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The new adtech company Rembrand uses AI to digitally place products in videos. Product placement is a fast-growing part of the marketing landscape, with spend estimated at $26.2 billion in 2022. The first is through an ad network for product placement in influencer videos. Advertisers will run a product placement campaign and Rembrand's technology will place that product in influencer videos across its network. The $8 million Rembrand raised will provide it with about two years of runway, Tawakol said.

☆ Google CEO issues rallying cry in internal memo: All hands on deck to test ChatGPT competitor Bard
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Jennifer Elias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google Inc. speaks during an event in New Delhi on December 19, 2022. Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees Monday the company is going to need all hands on deck to test Bard, its new ChatGPT rival. He also said Google will soon be enlisting help from partners to test an application programming interface, or API, that would let others access the same underlying technology. Pichai's note to employees also said search boss Prabhakar Raghavan will be "sharing progress" at an event in Paris later this week. Microsoft is reportedly planning to launch a version of its own search engine, Bing, that will use ChatGPT to answer users' search queries.

☆ Tech CEOs screwed up, and it's time to hold them accountable
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Matt Weinberger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

I'm Matt Weinberger, deputy editor of Insider's tech analysis team, filling in for Diamond Naga Siu. Is it time for CEOs to start losing their jobs? Ed Zitron argues for Insider that the thousands of tech workers who lost their jobs in recent months are actually just taking the fall for the real problem in Silicon Valley — CEOs who aren't up to the task of leadership. He praised the CEOs of Apple and Intel for recently taking pay cuts as their companies hit tougher times. Late Friday afternoon, a federal jury officially ruled that the Tesla CEO's infamous "funding secured" tweet didn't harm shareholders, making him not liable for damages.

☆ Elon Musk says bots making 'good content' will be exempt from Twitter's plan to charge for API access
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-05 | by ( Stephanie Stacey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Twitter plans to charge developers to access the API used to make third-party services and bots. Elon Musk has tweeted it would offer a free, write-only API for bots "providing good content." Saying he was "responding to feedback," Musk tweeted late Saturday: "Twitter will enable a light, write-only API for bots providing good content that is free." Musk said then that the free access had previously been "abused badly" by "bot scammers & opinion manipulators." "Just ~$100/month for API access with ID verification will clean things up greatly," he tweeted.

☆ Elon Musk proposes a monthly $100 charge for developers who want to access Twitter's API, saying it would clean up 'bad' bots
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Kate Duffy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk proposed charging $100 a month for access to Twitter's API. He said the $100 fee along with ID verification for Twitter's API would clean up "bad" bots. It was easy for 100,000 bots "to do bad things" when there was no cost or verification process in place for API access, he said. "Just ~$100/month for API access with ID verification will clean things up greatly," Musk added. Developers can use Twitter's API to create third-party services, such as Tweetbot and Twitterrific.

☆ Sam Altman's big problem? ChatGPT needs to get 'woke' if he wants cash from corporate America
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

ChatGPT, like other AI tools, suffers from a bias problem that could impede corporate adoption. OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, admitted on Wednesday that ChatGPT has "shortcomings around bias", though he didn't go into detail. Unfortunately for OpenAI, ChatGPT has already had several cases of bias emerge. "You don't have to think very hard to realize there's an enormous quantity of toxic content of absolutely every variety imaginable that's present in that training data." Though OpenAI has found success so far, Wooldridge could see a scenario where the firm is pushed by customers to reveal its training data.

☆ Twitter API: Why users are upset about the platform's latest change
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Aj Willingham | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

While the concept of an “API restriction” may not sound dramatic, this latest change has users once again worried about Twitter’s future. Many of Twitter’s users are not happy about the change, as they say it will fundamentally alter the platform’s culture. Some people have used Twitter’s API to provide accessibility options to content, like alt text or image descriptions. How could restricting API access change Twitter? Some users are concerned about what the API access changes will mean for their work.

☆ Twitter will start charging developers for API access as Elon Musk seeks to improve monetization
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The microblogging site, which was taken over by Elon Musk last October, said that from Feb. 9 it would "no longer support free access to the Twitter API." Third-party services using the Twitter API will have to use its basic paid tier instead, the company said. APIs are software tools used by third-party developers to access data from applications and use it to make new services. The Twitter API is also used by the newsgathering service Dataminr to alert journalists to information that emerges on Twitter in real time. Under his rein, Twitter laid off roughly half of its global workforce and incorporated the verification badge into its paid Twitter Blue subscription product.

☆ We asked ChatGPT to write a listicle in the style of BuzzFeed. It's obvious why BuzzFeed is going to start using OpenAI tech.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( Huileng Tan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

BuzzFeed is reportedly set to use ChatGPT creator OpenAI's technology in content creation. BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Perett told staff it would use tech to boost its quizzes and personalize some other content, per the WSJ. We asked ChatGPT generated a listicle in the style of BuzzFeed. A BuzzFeed spokesperson clarified to Insider the outlet will be not be using the wildly popular ChatGPT platform, but OpenAI's publicly available API. We put ChatGPT to the test by asking the platform to write a listicle based on "10 things that are better in other countries compared to the US" in BuzzFeed style.

☆ BuzzFeed soars on reports of Meta deal, plans to use OpenAI
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Jan 26 (Reuters) - Shares of BuzzFeed Inc (BZFD.O) jumped on Thursday on reports of a deal with Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) and plans to use artificial intelligence to personalize and enhance the digital media firm's online quizzes and content. Buzzfeed, in an emailed response to Reuters, said "we are not using ChatGPT - we are using OpenAI's publicly available API (application programming interface)." Earlier in the day, the stock had jumped 50% on a separate report by the Journal that said Meta was paying BuzzFeed millions of dollars to bring more creators to Facebook and Instagram. Indicating interest from retail traders, BuzzFeed shares were among the top three orders on Fidelity's platform on Thursday. Its third-quarter net loss had widened to $27 million from $3.6 million a year ago.

☆ Oil slips as U.S. inventory rise offsets China hopes
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Alex Lawler | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The price of crude has rallied this year on the ending of China's COVID controls and hopes that the rise in U.S. interest rates will soon taper off. Still, some analysts said the speed of China's actual demand rebound looks uncertain. "Whether or not oil prices can resume their march higher will depend on how quickly China's crude demand bounces back this quarter," said Stephen Brennock of oil broker PVM. An OPEC+ panel is likely to endorse the group's current policy at a Feb. 1 meeting, five OPEC+ sources said on Tuesday. OPEC+ in October decided to trim output by 2 million barrels per day from November through 2023 on a weaker economic outlook.

☆ Oil falls $2/barrel on economic jitters, U.S. crude stock build
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Arathy Somasekhar | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The U.S. economy "still could roll over and some energy traders are still sceptical on how quickly China's crude demand will bounce back this quarter," OANDA analyst Edward Moya said in a note. Euro zone business activity made a surprise return to modest growth in January, S&P Global's flash Composite Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) showed. Crude oil prices in physical markets have started the year with a rally on increased buying from China after the relaxation of pandemic controls and on trader concern that sanctions on Russia could tighten supply. U.S. oilfield services firm Halliburton Co (HAL.N) said its shale oil-well fracking equipment remains fully booked with oil prices driving increased drilling. Investors have also piled back into petroleum futures and options at the fastest rate for more than two years as concerns over a global business cycle downturn eased.

☆ Oil dips $2 on global economic concerns
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Arathy Somasekhar | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

SummarySummary Companies U.S. business activity contracts in JanU.S. crude stocks likely to rise - pollOPEC+ panel unlikely to tweak oil policy at Feb. 1 meetingComing up: API inventory data at 2130 GMTHOUSTON, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Crude oil prices slipped on Tuesday on concerns about a global economic slowdown and an expected build in U.S. oil inventories. Euro zone business activity made a surprise return to modest growth in January, S&P Global's flash Composite Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) showed. Yet British private sector economic activity fell at its fastest rate in two years. U.S. oilfield services firm Halliburton Co (HAL.N) said its shale oil-well fracking equipment remains fully booked with oil prices driving increased drilling. Investors have also piled back into petroleum futures and options at the fastest rate for more than two years as concerns over a global business cycle downturn eased.

☆ Oil dips $1 on global economic concerns
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Arathy Somasekhar | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

SummarySummary Companies U.S. business activity contracts in JanU.S. crude stocks likely to rise - pollOPEC+ panel unlikely to tweak oil policy at Feb. 1 meetingComing up: API inventory data at 2130 GMTHOUSTON, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Crude oil prices dipped on Tuesday on concerns about a global economic slowdown and expected build in U.S. oil inventories. Euro zone business activity made a surprise return to modest growth in January, S&P Global's flash Composite Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) showed. Crude oil prices in physical markets have started the year with a rally on increased buying from China after the relaxation of pandemic controls and on trader concern that sanctions on Russia could tighten supply. U.S. oilfield services firm Halliburton Co (HAL.N) said its shale oil-well fracking equipment remains fully booked with oil prices driving increased drilling. Investors have also piled back into petroleum futures and options at the fastest rate for more than two years as concerns over a global business cycle downturn have eased.

☆ Companies Tap Tech Behind ChatGPT to Make Customer-Service Chatbots Smarter
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Katie Deighton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +7 min

Businesses hope the artificial-intelligence technology behind ChatGPT can turn ordinary chatbots into impressive fonts of information, potentially transforming customer service. But customer-experience executives said overreliance on such AI models could lead to companies dishing out incorrect information to customers online without knowing they are doing so. Some executives hope the technology that drives ChatGPT might also improve customer-service chatbots. But companies should exercise care when dealing with the new AI, Mr. Truog said. Nice is also working on building OpenAI’s language models into chatbots, Mr. Willcutts said, adding that the company plans to run more tests and fine-tune more models before selling its own take on ChatGPT to clients.

☆ HR startup Deel striving to be more than a well-funded flash in the pan as it confirms $12 billion valuation and touts five-fold jump in annual revenue
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

HR startup Deel, which lets employers hire remotely, has raised capital at a $12 billion valuation. The funding round more than doubles the company's previous $5.5 billion valuation. The founder of HR startup Deel has insisted the company is more than just a "well-funded flash in the pan" as he confirmed a long-mooted funding round that more than doubled its valuation to $12 billion. Deel also automates payroll, benefits, compliance, and other HR functions through an API to help companies scale remote teams. The company previously raised $425 million at a $5.5 billion valuation in a round led by Coatue in October 2021.

☆ College professors are considering creative ways to stop students from using AI to cheat
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-21 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Some professors say students are using new tech to pass off AI-generated content as their own. Some professors say students are using OpenAI's buzzy chatbot, ChatGPT, to pass off AI-generated content as their own. The issue has led to professors considering creative ways to stamp out the use of AI in colleges. Blue books and oral exams"I'm perplexed about how to handle AI going forward," Aumann told Insider. Bartel agreed that students could get away with using AI very easily.

☆ Oil down 1% on another surprise build in U.S. crude stocks
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Sonali Paul | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MELBOURNE, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Oil prices fell on Thursday after industry data showed a large unexpected increase in U.S. crude stocks for a second week, heightening concerns of a drop in fuel demand. Adding to the pall, data from the American Petroleum Institute showed U.S. crude oil inventories rose by about 7.6 million barrels in the week ended Jan. 13, according to market sources. Nine analysts polled by Reuters had estimated on average that crude inventories fell by about 600,000 barrels. The big build marks the second consecutive week of large inventory increases. On a bullish note, however, distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by about 1.8 million barrels against analysts' expectations for a 120,000-barrel increase.

Brent <LCOc1> futures fell 94 cents, or 1.1%, to settle at $84.98 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell 70 cents, or 0.9%, to settle at 79.48. Markets at first reacted positively to U.S. data, which showed retail sales and manufacturing production declined more than forecast in December, on hopes the Fed would now ease up on interest rate hikes. Supporting oil prices early in the session, China reported economic data that beat forecasts after the country started rolling back its zero-COVID policy in early December. Rystad said the losses were at about 500,000 barrels per day and that India and China remain key buyers of Russian crude.

Summary China's reopening set to drive record 2023 oil demand -IEAChinese oil demand to rebound in 2023 -OPECRecord U.S. shale oil output seen in Feb -EIAAPI reports due at 4.30 p.m. ET (2130 GMT)LONDON, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Oil prices rose on Wednesday to their highest since early December on optimism that the lifting of China's strict COVID-19 curbs will lead to a fuel demand recovery in the world's top oil importer. China's economic growth slowed sharply to 3% in 2022, missing the official target of "around 5.5%" and marking its second-worst performance since 1976. Analysts polled by Reuters see 2023 growth rebounding to 4.9%. But OPEC kept its 2023 global demand growth forecast unchanged.

Brent futures rose 72 cents, or 0.8%, to $86.64 a barrel by 11:46 a.m. EST (1646 GMT), while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose 94 cents, or 1.2%, to $81.12. But the data still beat analysts' forecasts after China started rolling back its zero-COVID policy in early December. The lifting of COVID-19 restrictions in China is set to boost global oil demand to a record high this year, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), while price cap sanctions on Russia could dent supply. A report showing U.S. retail sales fell more than expected in December provided some counterintuitive support for oil prices. A weaker dollar can boost demand for oil, as dollar-denominated commodities become cheaper for holders of other currencies.

☆ Column: Europe's gas price plunge churns up global coal markets
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Gavin Maguire | Thomson Reuters | Gavin Maguire Is The Global Energy Transition Columnist. He Was Previously Asia Commodities | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

However, thanks to a recent plunge in European natural gas prices - down 60% since December 1 on mild winter temperatures, filled storage tanks and diminished industrial use - European coal prices and demand have slumped so far in 2023. WIDE SPREADThe divergent tones of Europe's and Asia's coal markets are captured by the record-wide price spread between them. This week, that spread surpassed $200 a tonne as Asia-focused Newcastle coal prices held firm around $370 a tonne while European coal prices slumped to $165. Over the near term, such actions will likely narrow the arbitrage window by applying pressure to Asia's coal prices. Those high stocks have in turn been a major driver behind the gas price falls seen since December.

☆ Frustrated Tweetbot and Twitterrific users say they're prepared to quit Twitter after access was revoked
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Kate Duffy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Tweetbot and Twitterrific users say they're angry that Twitter cut access to third-party apps. All users Insider spoke to said they were considering leaving Twitter. Insider spoke to various users of the third-party apps, who were unimpressed about the suspension. Twitter is 'clunky'Meanwhile, users on Twitterrific were also impacted by Twitter's suspension of third-party apps. Paul Wilke, who said he's used Twitterrific for around ten years, said he was disappointed about the news.

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