Bookmarks (1014)

Mackenzie Hawkins / Bloomberg: The Trump administration cut $20M in funding from the Bureau of Industry and Security, which oversees chip export controls, representing ~10% of BIS's budget  —  A White House move to cut 10% of the funding for the agency responsible for semiconductor export controls risks undermining US efforts …

Belle Lin / Wall Street Journal: Anthropic and Databricks ink a five-year deal, expected to jointly generate $100M in revenue, by selling AI tools to businesses developing their own AI agents  —  The AI startup and data company are working together to help businesses build their own artificial intelligence bots …

Dylan Butts / CNBC: Alibaba releases open-source multimodal AI model Qwen2.5-Omni-7B on Hugging Face and GitHub, saying the model can be deployed on edge devices like smartphones  —  Alibaba Cloud launched Thursday its latest AI model in its “Qwen series,” as large language model competition in China continues to heat up following the “DeepSeek moment.”

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Sam Altman says OpenAI will support Anthropic's Model Context Protocol, an open-source standard that connects AI models to data for more relevant answers  —  OpenAI is embracing rival Anthropic's standard for connecting AI assistants to the systems where data resides.

Jordan Novet / CNBC: Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger joins VC firm Playground Global as a GP and the board of portfolio company xLight, which develops lasers for chip manufacturing  —  After a tumultuous four years running Intel, Pat Gelsinger is going into venture capital.  —  Gelsinger, who was ousted …

Ryan Whitwam / Ars Technica: Nvidia releases G-Assist, an experimental, gaming-centric AI chatbot that runs locally and provides real-time system information for a given game  —  Most people use their Nvidia GPUs for games, but why not both?  Nvidia has a new AI you can run at the same time, having just released its experimental G-Assist AI.

Paige Smith / Bloomberg: Robinhood plans to roll out checking and savings accounts in 2025 for its paying Gold subscribers, aiming to provide more of a private banking-like experience  —  Now it's taking it a step further: It also wants to be your bank.  —  Robinhood will roll out checking and savings accounts later …

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple is promoting Vanessa Trigub to VP of stores and retail operations globally, as it streamlines management of its retail arm under Deirdre O'Brien  —  Apple Inc. is naming a global head of stores, a move meant to streamline management of its retail arm under senior executive Deirdre O'Brien …

Polly Thompson / Business Insider: Filing: Dell says it had about 108K employees as of January 31, 2025, down from 120K employees in February 2024, marking a 10% annual reduction in its workforce  —  - An SEC filing shows Dell's head count has fallen by 12,000 in the last year and 25,000 in the past two.

Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer: Oracle customers confirm the authenticity of data samples shared by a threat actor who allegedly breached Oracle Cloud servers, after Oracle denied the breach  —  Despite Oracle denying a breach of its Oracle Cloud federated SSO login servers and the theft of account data for 6 million people …

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority: Google says it plans to develop Android fully in private to streamline the development process but will continue to publish the source code for new releases  —  Android OS development will now fully happen behind closed doors, but Google says it's committed to releasing source code

Andrew Hutchinson / Social Media Today: xAI's Grok AI chatbot is now integrated with Telegram for Telegram Premium users, marking Grok's first big expansion beyond X  —  X is looking to expand the reach of its Grok chatbot, by partnering with messaging app Telegram on a new integration.  —  So now, if you're subscribed …

Kif Leswing / CNBC: Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signs a bill requiring Apple's and Google's mobile app stores to verify user ages and require parental consent for minors to use some apps  —  Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on Wednesday signed a bill that requires Apple and Google's mobile app stores to verify user ages …

Bobby Allyn / NPR: A US federal judge rejects OpenAI's request to dismiss the NYT's lawsuit, allowing the main copyright infringement claims to go forward while narrowing the suit  —  A federal judge on Wednesday rejected OpenAI's request to toss out a copyright lawsuit from The New York Times that alleges …

Michael Kozlowski / Good e-Reader: A software update for some Amazon Kindle models lets users double-tap the sides or back of the device to turn pages in books or scroll down in Home and Library  —  The Kindle now has new features: Recaps for Books in Series and Double Tap to Page Turn.  — AMAZON KINDLE,

Kelcee Griffis / Bloomberg: State and former US officials say satellite internet like Starlink's may cut upfront costs for the $42B rural broadband program but could cost more long term  —  The Trump administration is making changes to a $42 billion broadband subsidy program that will benefit satellite internet providers …

Financial Times: As the EU considers funding a Starlink rival, experts say no single European network can match Starlink's range, likely requiring a patchwork of satellites  —  Brussels wants to create a homegrown alternative to Starlink with satellite groups such as Eutelsat

Bloomberg: BMW partners with Alibaba to use Qwen-powered AI cockpit tech from Alibaba-backed Banma in its upcoming car models for the Chinese market, rolling out next year  —  BMW will adopt AI cockpit technology from Alibaba-backed Banma for its upcoming models tailored for the Chinese market, the companies said Wednesday in a joint statement.

Financial Times: Docs: China's new energy rules could block the use of Nvidia's H20 chips in new data centers if implemented strictly, risking Nvidia's $17B/year China business  —  US chipmaker could suffer $17bn-a-year hit to business if energy efficiency rules are enforced more strictly

Annie Palmer / CNBC: Amazon unveils Interests, an AI search tool for finding products by passion or hobby, rolling out to all US users, and is testing a chatbot called Health AI  —  Amazon, in an effort to infuse generative artificial intelligence across a wider swath of its e-commerce universe …

Reuters: The US adds six subsidiaries of Inspur Group, China's top cloud provider, and dozens of other Chinese entities to its export blacklist; Inspur was added in 2023  —  The U.S. added six subsidiaries of Inspur Group, China's leading cloud computing and big data service provider …

Blake Brittain / Reuters: Anthropic convinced a California federal judge to reject a preliminary bid to block it from using lyrics owned by UMG and other music publishers to train Claude  —  Artificial intelligence company Anthropic convinced a California federal judge on Tuesday to reject a preliminary bid to block …

Adi Robertson / The Verge: Character.AI adds a Parental Insights feature that lets teens send reports of their chatbot usage to their parents, including which bots they are talking to  —  They won't see the contents of the chats. … Chatbot service Character.AI is adding a new ‘Parental Insights’ feature …

TechCrunch: Leaked email: Block lays off 931 employees, ~8% of staff, and moves 193 managers to individual contributor roles, in a second reorganization in just over a year  —  Fintech Block laid off 931 people, roughly 8% of the company's staff, on Tuesday, according to a leaked message from the company seen by TechCrunch.

Erin Brodwin / Axios: NY-based Silna, which provides healthcare revenue cycle management software, emerges from stealth with a $22M Series A co-led by Accel and Bain and a $5M seed  —  Revenue automation company Silna Health raised $27 million in seed and Series A funding, CEO Jeffrey Morelli tells Axios exclusively.

Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog: In an addendum to the GPT-4o system card, OpenAI says it is not blocking the image generation of adult public figures and that public figures can opt out  —  Introducing 4o Image Generation.  When OpenAI first announced GPT-4o back in May 2024 one of the most exciting features was true multi-modality …

Bloomberg: Sources: Qualcomm has complained to antitrust regulators in the EU, US, and South Korea that Arm is hurting competition by restricting access to its technology  —  In private meetings and confidential filings to regulators on three continents, Qualcomm is arguing that Arm — its biggest supplier …

Yun Li / CNBC: GameStop says its board has unanimously approved a plan to buy bitcoin with its corporate cash, and it hasn't set a ceiling on how much bitcoin it may purchase  —  Video game retailer GameStop announced Tuesday its board has unanimously approved a plan to buy bitcoin with its corporate cash …

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters: Ripple says it agreed to settle a US SEC civil lawsuit over the alleged sale of unregistered securities and pay just $50M of a previously imposed $125M fine  —  Ripple Labs agreed to settle a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil lawsuit over the alleged sale of unregistered securities …

Rick Porter / The Hollywood Reporter: Nielsen: YouTube was the #1 TV distributor in February, making up 11.6% of all US TV; viewers over age 50 accounted for 36% of time spent watching YouTube on TV  —  The service supplants Disney atop the Nielsen list for the second time.  —  YouTube commanded more TV time than any other media provider …

Financial Times: Malaysia plans to tighten chip rules, says Washington demanded it track high-end Nvidia chips entering the country, suspecting many are ending up in China  —  Trade minister says Washington suspects high-end semiconductors are making it to China despite trade controls

Bloomberg: Source: South Korean chip startup FuriosaAI rejected an $800M takeover offer from Meta, opting to grow independently instead  —  Korean chip startup FuriosaAI has turned down an $800 million takeover offer from Meta Platforms Inc., choosing instead to grow the business as an independent company …

Harry Suhartono / Bloomberg: 23andMe files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to “maximize the value of its business”; co-founder Anne Wojcicki steps down as CEO  —  The Silicon Valley-based firm commenced Chapter 11 proceedings in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri to “maximize the value of its business,” according to a statement.

Emma Bowman / NPR: A look at the Internet Archive, which sees ~100TB of material uploaded daily and has cataloged ~73K US government website pages that the Trump admin expunged  —  SAN FRANCISCO — If you've ever clicked on a hyperlink that's taken you to something called the Wayback Machine to view an old web page …

Zack Abrams / The Block: The daily amount of ETH burned on Ethereum due to transaction fees hit an all-time low on March 22, amid dips in other network metrics like active addresses  —  - The daily amount of ETH burned on Ethereum as a result of transaction fees hit an all-time low on Saturday, indicating low demand for the network's blockspace.

Muyao Shen / Bloomberg: Retail investors often bear the brunt of losses in the Solana blockchain's memecoin market, which is plagued by insider trading, rug pulls, and “sniping”  —  Rug pulls.  Sniping.  Trading “cabals.”  The niche world of memecoins on the Solana blockchain is rife with danger …

Wes Davis / The Verge: Google is rolling out new real-time AI video features, including the ability to “see” screens and camera feeds, for Gemini Advanced subscribers  —  Gemini can ‘see’ screens and camera feeds in real-time for some Google One AI Premium subscribers now.

Margi Murphy / Bloomberg: Research shows a surge in the popularity of deepfake porn services, with the 10 most popular “nudifying” websites receiving 18M views in January 2025 alone  —  An introduction to the Levittown podcast.  Plus: Another billionaire's space dreams.

New York Times: How one of the world's major money laundering networks, linked to Cambodia's Huione Group, services online scammers using cryptocurrency, Telegram, and more  —  Documents and insiders reveal how one of the world's major money laundering networks operates.  —  Documents and insiders reveal …

John Thornhill / Financial Times: An interview with Helsing co-CEO Torsten Reil on delivering the defense tech company's AI-enabled strike drones to Ukraine, the herd mentality of VCs, and more  —  The German entrepreneur on safeguarding Europe, AI warfare — and why democracies need deterrents

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: Browser Use, whose open-source tool converts website elements into a “text-like” format that AI agents can better understand, raised a $17M seed led by Felicis  —  We may not have an agreed-upon definition of AI “agent” yet, but a multitude of startups want to create “agentic” tools to automate various tasks online.

Murray Stassen / Music Business Worldwide: IFPI: global music streaming revenues hit a record $20.4B in 2024, driven by paid subscription revenues of $15.15B, up 9.5% YoY; paid subscribers reached 752M  —  MBW's Stat Of The Week is a series in which we highlight a data point that deserves the attention of the global music industry.

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple plans to build its own AI models for Visual Intelligence and add cameras to the Watch; the redesigned plastic Apple Watch SE faces serious issues  —  Apple is exploring the idea of adding cameras and visual intelligence features to its smartwatch, thrusting the company into the AI wearables market.

Financial Times: Elon Musk's ties to President Trump could complicate Starlink's global rollout; Morgan Stanley estimates Starlink could make $16.3B in 2025 revenue, up 74% YoY  —  Satellite internet service is expanding fast but some politicians worry whether the SpaceX owner is a reliable partner

Ananya Bhattacharya / Rest of World: Former staff, investors, and industry experts reflect on the demise of Dunzo, the Indian online delivery pioneer undone by mismanagement, competition, and more  —  Dunzo was a trailblazer in India's online delivery sector, but things went awry when it shifted from its core strength.

Kate Morgan / New York Times: Scientists are using AI to speed up drug repurposing, expanding the treatment possibilities for people with rare diseases and few options  —  Joseph Coates, left, owes his life to an A.I. model developed by Dr. David Fajgenbaum and the rest of his team.Hannah Yoon for The New York Times

Omar Faridi / Crowdfund Insider: Dubai-based NymCard, whose APIs let financial institutions in 10+ MENA countries manage card issuance, transaction processing, and more, raised a $33M Series B  —  NymCard, the embedded finance platform operating across 10+ countries in MENA, has secured $33 million in its Series B funding round, led by QED Investors.

Maria Deutscher / SiliconANGLE: NYC-based Carbon Arc, which operates a cloud service offering datasets optimized for AI use with consumption-based pricing, raised $56M led by Liberty City  —  Carbon Arc Inc., a startup that provides data for artificial intelligence models, has raised $56 million in funding to finance growth initiatives.

Grace Sharkey / FreightWaves: Augment, a startup founded by Deliverr co-founder Harish Abbott and whose AI assistant can automate routine tasks in logistics, raised a $25M seed from 8VC  —  Augment, an AI-driven logistics platform, announced Tuesday it has raised a $25 million seed funding round from 8VC.

PYMNTS.com: Cologne-based Buynomics, which uses AI to let companies optimize pricing and promotions by simulating real-world shoppers' behavior, raised a $30M Series B  —  Pricing and revenue optimization firm Buynomics has raised $30 million in new funding.  —  The German company said its Series B round …