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March 19, 2026, 12:45 PM
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WeSmirchTop News
| Agnee Ghosh / Bloomberg: |
OpenAI agrees to acquire Astral, which makes Python tools for developers, to integrate its team into Codex, and says Codex has 2M+ users, up 3x since January — OpenAI plans to acquire Astral, a startup that makes Python tools for developers, marking the ChatGPT maker's latest investment …
More: OpenAI, Astral, PYMNTS.com, The Economic Times, CNBC, Reuters, MacStories, Proactive, Blockonomi, and Sherwood News
X: @gdb, @sherwinwu, @fujikanaeda, @trekedge, @banteg, @hanchunglee, @chrisalbon, @openainewsroom, @jsuarez, @hsvsphere, @svpino, @theahmadosman, @ivanfioravanti, @charliermarsh, @alxfazio, @reach_vb, @charliermarsh, @julien_c, @boristane, @jxnlco, and @himanshustwts
Forums: Hacker News, r/rust, and r/BetterOffline
| Rustin Banks / The Keyword: |
Google updates Stitch to let users turn natural language prompts into UI designs, introducing an “AI-native” software design canvas and a reasoning design agent — Stitch is evolving into an AI-native software design canvas that allows anyone to create, iterate and collaborate on high-fidelity UI from natural language.
More: Stitch, The Information, TechRadar, Android Central, The Register, The Rundown AI, The Indian Express, Neowin, Digit, The Deep View, The Decoder, iPhone in Canada, The Verge, The Decoder, and Benzinga
| John Wang / @j0hnwang: |
Figma's stock closed down 7.98% on March 18 after Google updated its Stitch tool for “vibe designing”; FIG is down ~80% since the company's IPO in August 2025 — Figma tanked 8% today on this news Now down 80% from IPO in Aug 2025 [image]
More: Benzinga. X: @timhaldorsson, @scottastevenson, @dorizzdt, @hadley, @melkeydev, @hewarsaber, @aakashgupta, and @lexsokolin
Bluesky: @seanhodgdon.com and @seanhodgdon.com
| Janko Roettgers / Lowpass: |
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth says Meta will keep Horizon Worlds in VR “for existing games”, a day after Meta said Quest owners will lose access from June 15 — VR Worlds will be available for “foreseeable future” — One day after announcing the wind-down of its Horizon Worlds metaverse platform …
More: The Verge, New York Times, TechCrunch, 9to5Mac, CNBC, UploadVR, PC Gamer, Road to VR, Gameranx, The Post Millennial, MobileSyrup, Mashable, TechRadar, Bloomberg, and PYMNTS.com
| Brian Danga / The Block: |
Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek says the company cut ~12% of its workforce, or ~180 roles, saying the layoffs target roles that “do not adapt” as it integrates AI — Quick Take — Crypto.com cut about 12% of its workforce, or roughly 180 roles based on a previously disclosed headcount of over 1,500 employees.| Shubham Bose: |
An analysis of a NYT article load finds 422 network requests totaling 49MB, triggering a sprawling programmatic ad auction, an example of “hostile architecture” — If active distraction of readers of your own website was an Olympic Sport, news publications would top the charts every time.
More: Daring Fireball. X: @leahlibresco and @leahlibresco
Mastodon: @shriramk@mastodon.social, @ppatel@mstdn.social, and @gedankenstuecke@scholar …
Forums: Hacker News and Lobsters
| Paresh Dave / Wired: |
Walmart plans to add its Sparky chatbot into ChatGPT and Gemini, after OpenAI's Instant Checkout conversion rates were 3x lower than those with clicking out — After OpenAI's Instant Checkout feature fell short, Walmart is instead embedding its Sparky chatbot directly into ChatGPT and Google Gemini.| Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge: |
Uber plans to invest $1.25B in Rivian through 2031, contingent on meeting autonomy milestones, starting with $300M at signing, to deploy 50K Level 4 robotaxis — The companies say they plan on deploying 10,000 autonomous Rivian R2 vehicles by 2031. … Uber and Rivian are joining forces …
More: Silicon Valley Business …, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Hill, Associated Press, The Information, Reuters, Mercury News, Benzinga, New York Times, Uber, Business Insider, Proactive, electrive.com, Watcher Guru, Barron's Online, iPhone in Canada, Quartz, Automotive World, Financial Times, Blockchain.News, Jalopnik, Forbes, The Independent, Dow Jones Newswires, The Next Web, Axios, Yahoo Finance, Motley Fool, CNBC, Wall Street Journal, Electrek, InsideEVs, The Drive, EV, Blockonomi, and CBT News
X: @aakashgupta, @joshkale, @theaustinlyons, @andrewgordonmac, @pitdesi, @rjscaringe, @zacksjerryrig, @rivian, and @uber. LinkedIn: Dara Khosrowshahi. Forums: r/Rivian
| Anthropic: |
Anthropic releases a survey of 80,508 Claude users' hopes, dreams, and fears about AI, calling it “the largest and most multilingual qualitative study ever” — Last December, tens of thousands of Claude users around the world had a conversation with our AI interviewer to share how they use AI …
More: Music Ally, eWeek, TheNeuron, and Implicator.ai
X: @jkeatn, @zeynep, @jackclarksf, @saffronhuang, @dounbug, @typewriters, @saffronhuang, @joshkale, @kimmonismus, @gailcweiner, @usgraphics, @lulumeservey, @abhishekn, @jasminewsun, @cryptopunk7213, @neerajka, @divy93t, @provisionalidea, @saffronhuang, @randalltemple, @jackclarksf, and @ahall_research
Forums: Hacker News, r/singularity, and r/claudexplorers
| Margi Murphy / Bloomberg: |
CISA warns US companies to follow Microsoft's recommendations for fortifying Intune, a tool that manages staff access, after a cyberattack on Stryker last week — The US government is warning businesses to secure their corporate accounts within a popular Microsoft Corp. management tool …
More: CISA, The Register, The Record, TechCrunch, Healthcare Brew, Help Net Security, BleepingComputer, Silicon UK, The Cyber Express, Cyber Daily, Reuters, and TWiT.tv. Mastodon: @campuscodi@mastodon.social
| Natalie Lung / Bloomberg: |
DoorDash launches Tasks, a new app that pays delivery couriers in some markets to submit video clips and complete other tasks for training AI models — DoorDash Inc. is paying delivery couriers in some markets to submit video clips and complete other digital tasks to help improve artificial intelligence …
More: TechCrunch
| Wall Street Journal: |
AppMagic: Apple's revenue from GenAI apps grew from ~$35M in January 2025 to a high of $101M in August 2025, with 75% coming from ChatGPT and only ~5% from Grok — Apple AAPL -1.69%decrease; red down pointing triangle is on pace to surpass $1 billion in artificial-intelligence revenue this year …
More: Benzinga, Digit, The Decoder, Livemint, The Information, iPhone in Canada, The Mac Observer, Sherwood News, 9to5Mac, and MacTech.com. X: @wsjtech
| Dara Kerr / The Guardian: |
Google co-founder Sergey Brin raises his total contribution to $45M for the Building a Better California Super PAC, which opposes a proposed 5% billionaire tax — Sergey Brin gives $25m on top of $20m he's already given to Super Pac trying to block state's proposed 5% wealth tax
Forums: r/DemocraticSocialism, r/politics, r/siliconvalley, and r/California
| Connie Loizos / TechCrunch: |
Alphabet's X spins out Anori, which seeks to streamline building approvals through a unified platform for developers and city regulators, with $26M in funding — For more than a decade, Alphabet's X moonshot factory has been quietly trying to fix one of the world's most stubborn industries.| Jess Weatherbed / The Verge: |
Adobe launches Firefly Custom Models in public beta, letting users train AI image generators on their own assets; the custom models are private by default — Firefly custom models analyze your assets to preserve character designs and emulate illustration and photography styles.
More: The Adobe Blog, Thurrott, 9to5Mac, PetaPixel, The AI Economy, and Creative Bloq
| Jyoti Mann / The Information: |
Meta confirms a critical security incident after an internal rogue AI agent's actions led to exposing sensitive data to employees who didn't have authorization — A rogue AI agent recently triggered a major security alert at Meta Platforms, by taking action without approval that led …
More: TechCrunch, International Business Times, Engadget, DigiTimes, Unite.AI, Fortune, and The Decoder
Bluesky: @captaindisillusion, @mikesager.net, and @caseynewton. Threads: @jpkmensah. Forums: r/theprimeagen
| Rachel Metz / Bloomberg: |
Cursor launches Composer 2, an AI agent trained solely on coding-related data to perform autonomous, lengthy coding tasks, to compete with Anthropic and OpenAI — Cursor, a leading artificial intelligence startup for coding, is set to release a more efficient AI model for software development …
More: The New Stack, Sherwood News, and The Deep View
| Stephen Foley / Financial Times: |
PwC US Senior Partner Paul Griggs says partners who resist AI have no place at the firm, and PwC plans to convert some services into AI-powered automated tools — Consultancy begins overhaul of pricing and services in face of technology undercutting its business| Kate O'Keeffe / Bloomberg: |
Sources: TP-Link told US federal agencies probing its China ties that CEO Jeffrey Chao applied for US permanent residency under the $1M Trump Gold Card program — The Chinese founder of the massive router maker facing national security probes by the Trump administration has applied … | Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg: |
Meta plans to reduce its reliance on third-party vendors for content moderation, in favor of AI tools that it says are better at spotting scams and other tasks — Meta Platforms Inc. will soon cut back on its use of third-party vendors to help with content moderation, relying instead …
More: CNBC, Meta Newsroom, and The Post Millennial
| Bloomberg: |
Alibaba reports Q3 revenue up 2% YoY ~$41.3B, vs. ~$42B est., and net income down 67% YoY to ~$2.4B, as it seeks to monetize AI to help offset e-commerce losses — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. declared a target of reaching $100 billion of cloud and AI-related business revenue in five years … | Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge: |
Waymo says its fleet hit 170M+ miles as of December 2025, and its Waymo Driver system was involved in 92% fewer serious-injury crashes than human drivers — Waymo says its robotaxis are involved in 92 percent fewer crashes causing serious injuries or worse than human drivers.| Oma Seddiq / Bloomberg Law: |
US Senator Marsha Blackburn releases a draft of the TRUMP AMERICA AI Act, a federal framework to replace state AI laws, incorporating KOSA and the NO FAKES Act — The Senate has released a draft national framework to replace state laws on artificial intelligence and promote the technology's development … | Reuters: |
Letters: industry groups pushed back after India proposed in January that Apple, Google, and others consider pre-installing biometric ID app Aadhaar on phones — India's government privately proposed in January that firms like Apple, Samsung and Google consider pre-installing … | Kati Pohjanpalo / Bloomberg: |
The UN-backed World Happiness Report says passively consuming algorithmic social media hurts teens' mental health and heavy use disproportionately affects girls — Passively consuming algorithmic social media hurts teens' mental health, according to the World Happiness Report for 2026 …
More: Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Scientific American, Digital Content Next, The World Happiness Report, The World Happiness Report, The Indian Express, The World Happiness Report, Deutsche Welle, The World Happiness Report, The World Happiness Report, DutchNews.nl, Reuters, ox.ac.uk, Forbes, The Independent, Wallpaper*, CNN, Dow Jones Newswires, and The Japan Times
| South China Morning Post: |
Baidu joins Alibaba in raising its prices for its AI computing power-related services by ~5% to 30% and its parallel file storage system by 30% from April 18 — The Chinese firms' price increases are ‘a reasonable response to evolving market conditions’, says IDC China analyst Cui Tingting
More: DatacenterDynamics, Tech in Asia, PYMNTS.com, The Register, Benzinga, and Dow Jones Newswires
| Lily Mae Lazarus / Fortune: |
Deeptune, which builds high-fidelity reinforcement learning environments that simulate professional workflows for AI agents, raised a $43M Series A led by a16z — AI startup Deeptune has raised a $43 million Series A to build what it calls “training gyms” for AI agents, Fortune has learned exclusively.
More: The Decoder and Andreessen Horowitz
| Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica: |
Cloudflare says it has appealed Italy's €14.2M fine for refusing to block access to pirate websites on its 1.1.1.1 DNS service, calling the amount “staggering” — Cloudflare said it has appealed a fine issued by Italy over the company's refusal to block access to websites on its 1.1.1.1 DNS service.
More: Cloudflare, Plagiarism Today, TorrentFreak, Reclaim The Net, and CyberInsider
Mastodon: @SuffolkLITLab@esq.social and @pierostrada@sociale.network
Forums: r/europe, Slashdot, and Ars OpenForum
| Ryan Felton / Wall Street Journal: |
The US NHTSA escalates its investigation into Tesla's FSD to an “engineering analysis”, which could result in a recall campaign or other enforcement action — The probe covers about 3.2 million Tesla vehicles — Federal safety regulators are sharpening their focus …
More: CNBC, The Verge, Washington Examiner, The Hill, Investor's Business Daily, TechCrunch, Reuters, Automotive World, Bloomberg Law, The Independent, TESLARATI, Electrek, and EV. Bluesky: @peark.es
| Ben Geman / Axios: |
Claros, which aims to cut data center energy losses by using voltage regulators that provide power directly to servers' main processors, raised a $30M seed — Claros, a startup with tech that minimizes energy waste at data centers, closed a $30 million seed round co-led by General Catalyst and Red Cell Partners.Sponsor Posts
ElevenLabs:
ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs — You know us for voice. Now meet ElevenAgents — featuring Expressive Mode, our most human-sounding AI voice technology in 70+ languages with ultra-low latency. Hear it for yourself.
ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs — You know us for voice. Now meet ElevenAgents — featuring Expressive Mode, our most human-sounding AI voice technology in 70+ languages with ultra-low latency. Hear it for yourself.
Intel:
5G's most deployed platform — Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN. That's the power of Intel Inside®
5G's most deployed platform — Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN. That's the power of Intel Inside®
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 …
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 …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.Featured Podcasts
The Social Radars:
Paul Graham, Founder, Y Combinator
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
Subscribe to The Social Radars.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Star Catcher's Andrew Rush: Harnessing The Sun To Build The First Energy Grid In Space
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
Why Countries Go to War
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Great Chat:
Are startup HR teams okay?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'The Pogue Feature', With David Pogue
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Everybody Goes Home: How technology is helping prevent wildfires from spreading
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.
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