~techmeme | Bookmarks (1028)

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 …

The Information: Sources: OpenAI has spoken with Reliance about a potential product and sales partnership in India; Meta also plans to work with Reliance on new AI businesses  —  OpenAI executives in recent months have spoken multiple times with their counterparts at Reliance Industries …

Jason Schreier / Bloomberg: After leadership changes and an internal studio closure, Netflix aims to refine its gaming strategy, focusing on smaller-scale games rather than big-budget ones  —  The company will focus on four areas: narrative, mainstream, party and kids  —  Hi everyone.

Steven Levy / Wired: An interview with Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone on the company's 30th anniversary, being in “building mode”, AI, acquiring AI-powered news aggregator Artifact, and more  —  Even as Yahoo turns 30, CEO Jim Lanzone says the company is still in “building mode.”

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg: As Spotify pushes its new video monetization program, sexually explicit videos have appeared on its top podcast charts, violating the company's terms of use  —  The sexually explicit videos, which Spotify doesn't allow, have shown up alongside some of the most popular podcasts on the service

Aria Bendix / NBC News: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. praises cell phone restrictions in schools, saying their electromagnetic radiation causes neurological and cellular damage  —  Kennedy pointed to evidence-based links between social media use and depression, but shared an unfounded claim that cell phones increase cancer risk.

Mike Masnick / Techdirt: Democratic senators helping Trump's strongest Senate allies repeal Section 230 could give the Trump administration unprecedented power to control online speech  —  At the exact moment when Donald Trump and his MAGA allies are actively dismantling democratic institutions and working to silence critics …

Joe Rossignol / MacRumors: Kuo: A20 chips in iPhone 18 models will be made using TSMC's 2nm process, as TSMC's trial production of 2nm chips reached yields well above the 60%-70% range  —  Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today reiterated that the A20 chip in iPhone 18 models will be manufactured with TSMC's 2nm process.

Coco Feng / South China Morning Post: Tencent unveils Hunyuan T1, a new reasoning AI model powered by its Hunyuan Turbo S AI model, and claims it rivals DeepSeek's R1 in both performance and pricing  —  Tencent Holdings has unveiled a new artificial intelligence (AI) reasoning model, Hunyuan T1, that rivals DeepSeek's R1 in both performance and pricing.

Reuters: Sources: The Bot Company, co-founded by ex-Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt to make AI-powered household robots, raised $150M at a $2B valuation, up from $550M in May 2024  —  Kyle Vogt, former CEO of self-driving car company Cruise, has raised $150 million in a new funding round led by Greenoaks …

Financial Times: Filings review: Builder.ai, which raised $450M from Microsoft and others, used an auditor with links to founder Sachin Duggal; Duggal resigned as CEO last month  —  Findings related to one of UK's best-funded tech start-ups raises alarm with corporate governance experts

Alex Reisner / The Atlantic: A look at LibGen, one of the largest online pirate libraries, with 7.5M+ books and 81M+ research papers, allegedly used by Meta and OpenAI to train AI models  —  Meta pirated millions of books to train its AI.  Search through them here.  —  When employees at meta started developing …