Techmeme: A look at BlackPlanet, a social network for African Americans that went live in 1999, had ~15M users in 2008, and arguably laid the foundation for Black Twitter (Hannah Giorgis/The Atlantic)

Top News

Global smartphone shipments grew 7.8% YoY to 289.4M in Q1 2024; iPhone fell 9.6% YoY, more than all top brands, Xiaomi grew 33.8% YoY, and Samsung retook first — Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker , global smartphone shipments increased 7.8% year over year to 289.4 million units in the first quarter of 2024 (1Q24).

Financial Times:

The US awards Samsung up to $6.4B in CHIPS Act funding and says the company plans to make 2nm chips at its Taylor, Texas plant by 2026, two years ahead of TSMC — South Korean group set to outdo rival TSMC with cutting-edge 2nm chip production in US by 2026 as part of $40bn investment

Bloomberg:

OpenAI opens a Tokyo office, releases a Japanese language GPT-4 model, and taps former President of AWS Japan Tadao Nagasaki to woo enterprises in the country — OpenAI named the former president of Amazon Web Services's Japan arm to spearhead its push to woo enterprise clients in the world's fourth-largest economy.

More: OpenAI, TechCrunch, The Information, Silicon Republic, Financial Express, Maginative, Agence France-Presse, Cybernews.com, The Verge, CNBC, MSPoweruser, and Reuters

X: @openai, @allgarbled, @borismpower, and @dyett

Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:

An interview with Framework CEO Nirav Patel on ongoing firmware and software issues with its repairable laptops, the planned fixes, Intel and AMD, and more — New features, security updates, and Linux support are all on a long to-do list. — Since Framework showed off its first prototypes …

Forums: Hacker News, r/hardware, and Ars OpenForum

Nilay Patel / The Verge:

Q&A with Dropbox CEO Drew Houston on adding AI tools, evolving beyond file syncing, rejecting Steve Jobs' buyout offer, online storage, remote working, and more — Leaders can't ‘keep mashing the go back to 2019 button.’ — Today, I'm talking with Dropbox CEO Drew Houston.

Alex Koller / CNBC:

Adobe releases Acrobat AI Assistant to summarize documents and answer questions about them for $4.99/month, an “early access” rate, and a mobile version in beta — Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen speaks during an interview with CNBC on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Feb. 20, 2024.

More: Inc.com, PCMag, and Adobe

Stephen Nellis / Reuters:

Adobe says it is in the early stages of developing a way to let Premiere Pro users tap AI models from OpenAI, Runway, and Pika Labs to generate and use video

More: AppleInsider, ZDNet, The Verge, Engadget, Adobe Press Releases, TechRadar, WinBuzzer, and Tom's Guide

Bloomberg:

As Microsoft begins its most ambitious security overhaul in two decades, critics question if Microsoft has sufficient incentive to make deep and lasting changes — Company has embarked on biggest security reboot in two decades, but critics question whether it has wherewithal to complete the job.

More: Wired and Dark Reading

X: @kimzetter and @ericgeller

Meta:

Meta plans to temporarily shut down Threads in Turkey from April 29 to comply with an interim order prohibiting data sharing between Threads and Instagram — To comply with an interim order of the Rekabet Kurumu/Turkish Competition Authority (TCA), we will shut down Threads in Türkiye from Monday 29 April.

More: TechCrunch, Neowin, The Verge, Bloomberg, MSPoweruser, Balkan Insight, Turkish Minute, Reuters, and Daily Sabah

Tony Romm / Washington Post:

AT&T, Charter, Comcast, and Verizon quietly lobby to weaken a $42.5B program to improve US internet access, aiming to block new rules on poor customers' bills — As Washington readies the largest burst of broadband funding in U.S. history, AT&T, Verizon and their allies are lobbying hard against lower prices for consumers

More: Houston Chronicle. Mastodon: @jeffjarvis@mastodon.social. X: @tonyromm, @tonyromm, and @tonyromm. Forums: Slashdot

David Pan / Bloomberg:

Bitcoin's next halving, set for around April 20, will cut miners' validating transactions to 450 from 900 now, costing the industry ~$10B in annual revenue — - Cryptocurrency's update will slash new supply in late April — Competition for favorable electric rates growing from AI firms

More: The Block, The Crypto Times, Cointelegraph, Cryptonews, Coinspeaker, crypto.news, CoinGape, and New York Post

Echo Wang / Reuters:

Source: cloud data management startup Rubrik plans to sell 23M shares priced between $28 and $31 each, raising up to $713M and reaching a $5.4B valuation — Cybersecurity software firm Rubrik, which counts Microsoft (MSFT.O) among its prominent investors, is aiming to raise as much as $713 million …

More: Enterprise Technology Research, Blocks and Files, and Bloomberg

Alexandra Sternlicht / Fortune:

Sources detail how China-based ByteDance and US TikTok operations remain intertwined, with some US staff effectively reporting to ByteDance, data sharing, more — In January, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew faced an intense grilling by skeptical U.S. lawmakers about his company's ties to Beijing and its alleged risk to national security.

More: South China Morning Post

Sponsor Posts

Google:

Try Gemini 3 Pro — Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life

Shopify:

Shopify's new AI commerce stack — Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI and tech.

Zoho:

Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control — Picture this: It's Monday morning. You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Uncapped with Jack Altman:

Saam Motamedi from Greylock Partners

Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.

Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.

Invest Like the Best:

Henry Ellenbogen - Man Versus Machine

The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

Grit:

How Evan Spiegel Is Building the Future of Computing

Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.

Subscribe to Grit.

Acquired:

10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis)

Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.

Subscribe to Acquired.

Lenny's Podcast:

Why humans are AI's biggest bottleneck (and what's coming in 2026) | Alexander Embiricos (OpenAI Codex Product Lead)

Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:35 AM ET, April 15, 2024.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.