~techmeme | Bookmarks (1046)

Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: Revel, which builds software for controlling critical hardware like rockets, emerges from stealth with $30M in funding, including a ~$23M Series A led by Thrive  —  Revel founder Scott Morton.  —  Revel  —  Scott Morton's heart rate spiked at the same time, every time.

Ben Weiss / Fortune: Coinbase faces pump-and-dump accusations after its subsidiary Base launched a “content coin” on Zora; Coinbase clarifies that Base will never sell the tokens  —  Jesse Pollak is the creator of Base, a new blockchain from Coinbase.  —  Winni Wintermeyer for Fortune

Fortune: A profile of Bo Hines, a 29-year-old official in the Trump administration who has become the main liaison between the White House and the crypto industry  —  Since his appointment, Bo Hines has become a mini-celebrity in the crypto world—with CEOs, billionaire investors, and lobbyists vying for face time.

Manish Singh / India Dispatch: India's top IT firms, TCS, Infosys, and Wipro, are facing their steepest growth slowdown in years amid global economic uncertainty and geopolitical challenges  —  Infosys, TCS and Wipro report disappointing results as Trump tariffs and economic headwinds prompt corporate caution

The Block: Sources: BOA, principally lobbying through trade associations, is pushing US lawmakers for rules favoring banks over tech companies in stablecoin issuance  —  - Bank of America is lobbying for rules favoring banks over tech firms in stablecoin issuance.  — Circle is positioning itself …

Kentaro Shiozaki / Nikkei Asia: Garment workshops are closing across the “Shein village” in Panyu, China, after the US ended the de minimis exemption; Shein urges suppliers to shift to Vietnam  —  GUANGZHOU — Garment workshops are shuttering across a Guangzhou district dubbed “Shein Village,” …

Ryan Lawler / Axios: API-based background check provider Checkr acquires income and employment verification startup Truework, which had raised $125M+ and was last valued at ~$480M  —  Checkr, an API-based background check provider, is acquiring income and employment verification startup Truework, Checkr CEO Daniel Yanisse tells Axios exclusively.

Emma-Victoria Farr / Reuters: PE firm KKR agrees to acquire and take private Frankfurt-listed IT company Datagroup for about €450M in an all-cash deal expected to close in Q3 2025  —  U.S.-based private equity firm KKR (KKR.N) has reached a deal with Frankfurt-listed Datagroup (D6HG.DE) to buy the firm …

PYMNTS.com: HR management company Paychex acquires Paycor, which provides HR and payroll management software, for $4.1B in an all-cash deal  —  Human capital management (HCM) firm Paychex has announced its acquisition of Paycor HCM, a software company providing HCM, payroll and talent services.

Tripp Mickle / New York Times: The Trump administration's restrictions on AI chip exports by Nvidia, AMD, and Intel to China could help turn Huawei into a global chip-making powerhouse  —  New restrictions on semiconductor exports to China are scrambling sales and fueling concerns that the Chinese tech giant will become a chip-making powerhouse.

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: OpenAI says its new o3 and o4-mini AI models hallucinate more often than its previous reasoning and traditional models, and the company doesn't know why  —  OpenAI's recently launched o3 and o4-mini AI models are state-of-the-art in many respects.  However, the new models still hallucinate …

Steve Lohr / New York Times: Experts say two federal judges declaring Google a monopoly within a year signals a judicial shift toward addressing anticompetitive behavior in digital markets  —  Within a year, two federal judges declared the tech giant a monopoly in search and ad technology.  The tide may be turning for antitrust.

Vince Quill / Cointelegraph: Oregon sues Coinbase, alleging the exchange is selling unregistered securities; Coinbase CLO Paul Grewal says it's a “copycat case” of SEC's now-dropped lawsuit  —  While winning legal victories at the federal level, the crypto industry still faces regulatory hurdles at the state level in the United States.

Douglas Gillison / Reuters: A US judge temporarily halts mass firings at the US CFPB after the agency fired between 1,400 and 1,500 workers, eliminating as much as 90% of its workforce  —  A federal judge on Friday halted the mass firings carried out Thursday afternoon at the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau …

Matthew Gault / 404 Media: A Nevada judge rules that “tower dumps”, the law enforcement practice of grabbing vast troves of private personal data from cell towers, is unconstitutional  —  This article was produced in collaboration with Court Watch, an independent outlet that unearths overlooked court records.

The Verge: Nintendo says Switch 2 preorders will start in the US on April 24, with the price staying at the initially announced $450; prices of accessories will go up  —  The company delayed its original preorder date in the US. … Nintendo has announced a new date for when Switch 2 preorders will kick off in the US; April 24th.

Wall Street Journal: Sources: the EU planned to penalize Meta and Apple on April 15 but delayed the announcement, avoiding conflict with the Trump administration before trade talks  —  Officials postponed an announcement initially planned for this week  —  The European Union recently delayed penalizing Apple …

Coco Liu / Bloomberg: A look at ways AI is being used to cut carbon emissions: calculating fuel-efficient driving patterns, monitoring grid infrastructure, and more  —  Shrinking the world's carbon footprint will require poring over vast datasets to spot solutions — something computers do better and faster than humans.

IDC: China's Q1 2025 smartphone shipments grew 3.3% YoY to 71.6M units; Xiaomi led with 18.6% market share, Apple was the only foreign brand in top 5 with 13.7%  —  Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, China's smartphone market shipped 71.6 million units in 1Q25, a 3.3% year-on-year (YoY) increase.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: ChatGPT users are figuring out the location of photos using o3's image-analyzing capabilities paired with its web search functionality, raising privacy concerns  —  There's a somewhat concerning new trend going viral: people are using ChatGPT to figure out the location shown in pictures.

Stephen Nellis / Reuters: Memo: CEO Lip-Bu Tan flattens Intel's leadership team, with important semiconductor groups reporting directly to him, and names Sachin Katti as CTO and AI chief  —  Intel's (INTC.O) new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, is flattening the semiconductor giant's leadership team, with important chip groups reporting directly …

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: US consumers are flocking to Chinese shopping apps DHgate and Taobao, which let them buy direct from manufacturers, as Shein and Temu prices rise amid tariffs  —  The Chinese e-commerce marketplace app DHgate, which is now the No. 2 free iPhone app in the U.S., isn't the only one that's oddly benefiting …

The Information: Sources: Meta asked Microsoft, Amazon, and others over the past year to fund Llama training costs in exchange for incentives, as part of a “Llama Consortium”  —  Meta Platforms over the past year asked Microsoft, Amazon and others to help pay the costs of training Meta's flagship …

Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac: Apple Intelligence features, such as Writing Tools, are no longer available in Meta's iOS apps including Facebook, WhatsApp, and Threads  —  Apple Intelligence was announced with iOS 18 and has been available since last October, when Apple released iOS 18.1 to the public.