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March 18, 2026, 4:30 PM
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WeSmirchTop News
| Andy Greenberg / Wired: |
Google, iVerify, and Lookout researchers discover DarkSword, a hacking tool used by Russia-sponsored and other hackers to target iOS 18 via Ukrainian websites — A powerful iPhone-hacking technique known as DarkSword has been discovered in use by Russian hackers.
More: Google Cloud Blog, iVerify, Lookout, CyberScoop, The Record, XDA Developers, PCMag, TechCrunch, Reuters, The Verge, AppleInsider, Tom's Guide, iVerify, Cult of Mac, Lookout, Irish Independent, Neowin, Cyber Security News, BleepingComputer, iPhone in Canada, The Independent, CyberInsider, and MacDailyNews
X: @ryanaraine, @krzywix, and @onejailbreak_
LinkedIn: Justin Albrecht and Alex Pall
Bluesky: @gregotto, @agreenberg, and @couts
Forums: Hacker News, r/pwnhub, and r/cybersecurity
| Steven Levy / Wired: |
Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard, who pioneered quantum information theory, win the ACM A.M. Turing Award; the pair developed the BB84 cryptography protocol — Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard pioneered quantum information theory. Now they've been awarded the highest honor in computer science.
More: New York Times, BBC, ACM, BetaKit, UdeMNouvelles …, Quanta Magazine, The Quantum Insider, Science, The Logic, Nature, KEYT-TV, IBM, and CityNews Toronto
| Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg: |
Samsung and AMD sign a preliminary deal for Samsung to supply its next-gen HBM4 for AMD's MI455X accelerators, used in data centers, and DDR5 for AMD's Helios — Samsung Electronics Co. agreed to supply and collaborate with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. on next-generation AI memory and computing technologies.
More: AMD, Hackaday, HotHardware, Tech in Asia, Benzinga, Pulse 2.0, Android Headlines, DatacenterDynamics, SammyGuru, Neowin, SamMobile, DigiTimes, The Asia Business Daily, and Korea Joongang Daily
X: @amd, @yoolimleenews, and @samsung
| Zach Vallese / CNBC: |
Facebook launches Creator Fast Track, offering big Instagram, TikTok and YouTube creators guaranteed monthly pay and boosted reach to post on Facebook — Meta on Wednesday launched a new program aimed at luring top creators from TikTok and YouTube to Facebook, offering guaranteed pay and boosted reach.
More: Meta Newsroom, Dexerto, Barron's Online, The Next Web, TechCrunch, and Engadget
| Ben Weiss / Fortune: |
Stripe and Paradigm-backed blockchain startup Tempo launch the Machine Payments Protocol, which uses Tempo's new blockchain to handle AI agents' transactions — The fintech giant Stripe along with Tempo, a blockchain startup incubated by the payments company as well as the venture firm Paradigm …
More: Stripe, Tempo, PYMNTS.com, DL News, Decrypt, The Block, Financial Post, CoinDesk, Forbes, Crypto Briefing, crypto.news, and Bitcoin News
X: @tempo, @tempo, @jackforestell, @stripe, @tempo, @dwr, @jackforestell, @tempo, @dwr, @levie, @stablecoin, @matthuang, @cuysheffield, @dankrad, @matthuang, @jeff_weinstein, @dwr, and @patrickc
| The Information: |
Sources: Apple stops vibe coding apps from pushing updates, citing rules on running code; Replit thinks Apple may approve opening AI-generated apps in a browser — Apple has quietly prevented AI vibe coding apps such as Replit and Vibecode, which help people create games and other applications …
More: MacRumors, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, Computerworld, iPhone in Canada, The Decoder, Neowin, The Mac Observer, and MacTech.com
Forums: r/iOSProgramming and MacRumors Forums
| Bloomberg: |
Chengdu's government says Tim Cook attended Apple's 50th anniversary event in the city; Chinese state media called for Apple to fix its “monopolistic” App Store — Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook showed up at a company event in China on Wednesday after the company lowered … | Kanika Talwar / WWD: |
Meta makes its Meta Lab NYC pop-up on Fifth Avenue a permanent flagship location after signing a 10-year lease; it opened its first flagship store in LA in 2025 — The tech company has signed a decade-long lease for its Meta Lab town house on Fifth Avenue.| CoinDesk: |
Sources: Kraken has paused its IPO plans, amid the downturn in crypto markets since October, and may revisit a listing when market conditions improve — Kraken's parent company filed a draft S-1 registration statement with the SEC in November regarding the proposed initial public offering of its common stock.
More: PYMNTS.com, Reuters, Bitcoin Magazine, Bitcoin News, Crypto Briefing, and InsuranceNewsNet
| Graham Fraser / BBC: |
The UK government withdraws a proposal to let AI companies train on copyrighted works unless creators opt out, after backlash from artists like Dua Lipa — The UK government has backtracked on its position on copyright and AI, stating it must take time to “get this right”.| Alfred Ng / Politico: |
During a Senate hearing, FBI Director Kash Patel says FBI does purchase “commercially available information” that can be used to track people's location history — The U.S. Supreme Court has required law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant for getting people's location data … | Brent Lang / Variety: |
Director Coerte Voorhees says he is using AI to feature Val Kilmer in “a significant part” in an indie film, with the cooperation of the late actor's estate — Five years prior to his death in 2025, Val Kilmer was cast as Father Fintan, a Catholic priest and Native American spiritualist, in “As Deep as the Grave.”
More: Associated Press, Rolling Stone, Us Weekly, Hollywood in Toto, Page Six, The A.V. Club, IndieWire, Forbes, Tom's Guide, Dexerto, E! Online, The Guardian, IGN, The Daily Beast, ComingSoon.net, Kotaku, World of Reel, Consequence, Gamereactor UK, Just Jared, and Screen Rant
Bluesky: @caseynewton, @radiodeadair.com, @joshsternberg.com, and @shineyezehuhh
| Mike Isaac / New York Times: |
Sources: several tech companies, including OpenAI, are encouraging the DOD behind the scenes to back away from designating Anthropic a “supply chain risk” — Tech companies have been reluctant to directly confront Trump administration officials over their contract feud with the A.I. start-up.
More: MIT Technology Review
| Paresh Dave / Wired: |
| ProPublica: |
Investigation: the US FedRAMP authorized Microsoft service GCC High to handle sensitive government data in 2024, despite years of concerns about its security — In late 2024, the federal government's cybersecurity evaluators rendered a troubling verdict on one of Microsoft's biggest cloud computing offerings.
Bluesky: @ericjgeller.com. Mastodon: @mttaggart@infosec.exchange. Forums: Hacker News, r/technology, r/propublica, r/cybersecurity, r/fednews, and Slashdot
| Madison Mills / Axios: |
Ramp data: Anthropic is capturing ~73% of all spending among companies buying AI tools for the first time, up from a 50/50 split with OpenAI in January — Anthropic is now capturing over 73% of all spending among companies buying AI tools for the first time, according to customer data from Ramp.| Upstarts Media: |
Compute startup Andromeda raised new funding from Paradigm at a $1.5B valuation, bringing Paradigm's total to $60M; it passed a $100M revenue run rate in 2025 — Once a service spun up by AI investors Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, Andromeda has now raised $60M from Paradigm to stand alone.| Financial Times: |
Sources: Microsoft is weighing legal action against Amazon and OpenAI over whether AWS can offer OpenAI Frontier without breaching OpenAI's Microsoft agreement — Rift deepens as start-up tests limits of Microsoft's exclusive rights to host its models — Microsoft is weighing legal action …
More: Tom's Hardware, The Information, Thurrott, Reuters, Windows Central, Watcher Guru, Capacity, Nairametrics, Neowin, PYMNTS.com, Proactive, and Tech in Asia
X: @jason and @matthewstoller
| Cristina Criddle / Financial Times: |
A Stanford study of 391K+ messages across nearly 5,000 chats: AI chatbots affirmed user messages in nearly 66% of replies, often validating delusional thinking — AI chatbots are reinforcing unhealthy beliefs in their users by agreeing even when users express delusional or harmful ideas …
More: Business Standard, Jared Moore on GitHub, Spirals, and arXiv.org
| Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica: |
A US judge rules Apple can remove apps “with or without cause”, a loss for Musi, a streaming app Apple removed from the App Store that played music from YouTube — Musi, a free music streaming app that had tens of millions of iPhone downloads and garnered plenty of controversy … | Chris Metinko / Axios: |
Beautiful.ai, which makes AI tools to design presentation slides, raised $45M in non-dilutive financing from GC's Customer Value Fund and says it is profitable — Beautiful.ai, a presentation software startup, has taken a $45 million non-dilutive financing from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund … | Jasmine Sun / The Atlantic: |
How AI's post-training process suppresses the creativity and whimsicality seen in earlier models, like GPT-2, leading to poor writing from many top AI models — In a certain, strange way, generative AI peaked with OpenAI's GPT-2 seven years ago. Little known to anyone outside of tech circles … | Simon Sharwood / The Register: |
The Linux Foundation says Anthropic, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI gave $12.5M in grants to help FOSS maintainers handle AI-generated security findings — Half a dozen Big Tech players have together delivered $12.5 million in grants towards a project that aims to help maintainers …
More: Developer Tech News, Help Net Security, Pulse 2.0, Neowin, The Keyword, Alpha Omega, SecurityWeek, and Phoronix
X: @linuxfoundation, @openssf, and @anthropicai
LinkedIn: Bob Callaway and Evan Kotsovinos
| Stuart Condie / Wall Street Journal: |
Advanced Navigation, which makes AI-assisted hardware to let ships and aircraft navigate even when GPS is jammed, raised a $110M Series C at a $1B+ valuation — Advanced Navigation builds artificial intelligence-assisted hardware that provides accurate location data| Dina Bass / Bloomberg: |
Xbow, which uses AI to probe apps for security vulnerabilities, raised $120M led by DFJ Growth and Northzone at a $1B+ valuation, and reports 100+ clients — Xbow, a startup that builds AI software to probe applications for security vulnerabilities, has raised a new round of funding that values …
More: Unite.AI, Business Wire, Pulse 2.0, and FinSMEs
| Bloomberg: |
Tencent reports Q4 revenue up 13% YoY to ~$28.3B, vs. ~$28.2B est., its fifth quarter of double-digit growth, driven by gaming and ads, as it bets on agentic AI — Tencent Holdings Ltd. plans to at least double investments in AI to more than 36 billion yuan ($5.2 billion) in 2026 … | Eduardo Baptista / Reuters: |
A mystery 1T-parameter AI model called Hunter Alpha, which appeared on OpenRouter on March 11, sparks speculation that DeepSeek is quietly testing its V4 model — A powerful artificial intelligence model that appeared anonymously on a developer platform last week has sparked speculation … | Financial Times: |
Deezer reports a net income of €9M in 2025, its first profit since its 2007 founding, while revenue fell 1.4% YoY to €534M — Industry under threat from fraudsters uploading and repeatedly playing tracks created by AI to extract royalties
More: Billboard and Deezer Newsroom
| Natalie Breymeyer / Axios: |
Paraform, which connects tech companies with specialized recruiters, raised a $40M Series B led by Scale VP — Paraform, a platform that connects tech companies with specialized recruiters, raised a $40 million Series B, CEO John Kim tells Axios exclusively.
More: Paraform
| Thomas Brewster / Forbes: |
Israeli startup Tenzai says its AI hacking agent beat 99% of 125K participants at six competitions, using tailored OpenAI and Anthropic models and costing $5K — An Israeli startup let its AI loose in advanced cyber games. It did better than 125,000 humans.
More: Tenzai Research
| Yueqi Yang / The Information: |
Sources: Coinbase and Zerohash are among the companies vying to issue Cloudflare's stablecoin, set to launch this year to support payments for the “agentic web” — Crypto exchange Coinbase is moving fast to build the infrastructure that allows AI agents to make payments … Sponsor Posts
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Zoho:
Accessibility in Zoho People: Our commitment to an inclusive HR experience — According to a recent statistic, nearly 1.3 billion people live with a disability. In 2024, the employment rate for working-age people …
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IDrive:
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