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April 16, 2026, 12:40 AM
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| Bryce Elder / Financial Times: |
Shoe company Allbirds, which sold last week for $39M after its valuation fell from $4B+ in 2021, says it aims to become an AI compute provider; BIRD jumps 800%+ — Ah, zeitgeist: — Allbirds is a San Francisco maker of wool trainers that was once valued at more than $4bn.
More: Allbirds, Inc., CNBC, CNN, Bloomberg, TechCrunch, Associated Press, Gizmodo, New York Times, Ars Technica, SiliconANGLE, Engadget, Constellation Research, Reuters, TechRadar, Yahoo Finance, Fast Company, TheNeuron, The Daily Wire, Implicator.ai, DatacenterDynamics, The American Bazaar, Washington Times, Benzinga, Pulse 2.0, Fortune, The Cut, crypto.news, The Shortcut, CBS News, Wall Street Journal, UPI, Barchart.com, Straight Arrow News, SFGATE, WWD, Proactive, MarketWatch, Forbes, San Francisco Chronicle, NBC News, PC Gamer, Crypto Briefing, The Verge, Wired, The Information, and Sherwood News
X: @mdudas, @packym, @mollyjongfast, @dylandittrich, @dogetoshi, @ashleymayer, @negligible_cap, @upslopecapital, @agentchud, @krishnanrohit, @dylandittrich, @shaughnessy119, @buysellsmb, @edels0n, @kakashiii111, @geiger_capital, @tracyalloway, @firstadopter, @pitdesi, @mikeisaac, @bullandbaird, @doublewidecap, @deepsailcapital, @thestalwart, @negligible_cap, and @samro
LinkedIn: Hana Kajimura, Kevin Chaplin, Teresa Mastrangelo, Ehsan Etezad, Craig Reishus, and Scott Newton
Bluesky: @nickharkaway.com, @nicholasgrossman, @seldo.com, @vincemancini, @baddestmamajama, @mims, @stevekovach, @blindeke, @ryancordell.org, @damonberes.com, @coachfinstock, @jakeweindling, @caseynewton, @ernie.tedium.co, @shiraovide, @bendwalsh, and @davidtaggart. Threads: @tomgara. Mastodon: @itamarst@hachyderm.io
| NBC News: |
A jury finds that Live Nation and Ticketmaster illegally maintained monopoly power in the ticketing market, in a case brought by state AGs after the DOJ settled — The federal government struck a settlement with Live Nation in March, requiring Ticketmaster to divest up to 13 amphitheaters …
More: New York Times, Associated Press, Bloomberg, The Verge, Ars Technica, BBC, CNN, NY State Attorney General, Pittsburgh Business Journal, Daily Mail, ABC, Billboard, Gizmodo, Engadget, Us Weekly, Nashville Banner, Los Angeles Times, Inc.com, New York Post, Silicon Valley Business …, San Francisco Chronicle, MarketWatch, Axios, Lefsetz Letter, TechCrunch, Dexerto, Sports Business Journal, Mashable, Courthouse News Service, Deseret News, Benzinga, RTÉ, Baller Alert, NPR, Big Tech on Trial, The Daily Caller, UPI, Consequence, Music Business Worldwide, Barron's Online, Mediaweek, Variety, MPR News, The Post Millennial, Digital Music News, The Wrap, TMZ.com, Cord Cutters News, The Hollywood Reporter, Rolling Stone, Business Insider, Portland Business Journal, The A.V. Club, The Hill, and Deadline
X: @johnmarknewman, @jkbustertruster, @linamkhan, @newyorkstateag, @dcattorneygen, @kenpaxtontx, @jeffjacksonnc, @agrobbonta, @econliberties, @agellison, @trungtphan, @innercitypress, @choprausa, @amyklobuchar, and @scottfriedman3
LinkedIn: Henry Hauser and Sean Bukowski
Bluesky: @dcattorneygeneral, @laurenmeidasa, @misterjayem, @mrsdeborahlynn, and @estherschindler
Forums: r/nashville, r/qualitynews, r/democrats, r/deadandcompany, r/goodnews, r/law, r/circled, r/TheEntertainmentMix, r/phish, r/gratefuldead, r/goodnews, r/MediaMergers, r/business, r/Anticonsumption, r/neoliberal, r/phish, r/EatTheRich, r/PoliticalOptimism, r/entertainment, r/NewsStarWorld, r/FolkPunk, r/canes, r/Music, r/JusticeServed, r/Destiny, r/wallstreetbets, r/popheads, and r/Coachella
| The Information: |
Sources: Apple plans to send ~200 people from its Siri team, a group internally known as a laggard, to an AI coding bootcamp — Apple is sending a portion of its Siri programmers back to coding school just two months before the company is expected to unveil a major, AI-powered revamp of the voice assistant …
More: MacRumors, PYMNTS.com, CNET, 9to5Mac, Cult of Mac, Implicator.ai, AppleInsider, and Digital Trends
| Bloomberg: |
A TTP analysis finds dozens of nudify apps in Apple and Google app stores via search, despite company policy prohibiting them; the apps earned $122M+ in revenue — Apple Inc. and Google have continued to offer mobile apps that let users make nonconsensual sexualized images of people despite … | Timmy Shen / The Block: |
X launches Cashtags, a feature that lets users view real-time financial data on stocks and crypto directly in their timelines, in the US and Canada — Quick Take — Nikita Bier, head of product at X, said the team has launched the “Cashtags” feature, which enables users to browse stock …
More: BetaKit, CryptoPotato, The Defiant, iPhone in Canada, Finance Magnates, Cointelegraph, Bitcoinist.com, The Crypto Times, CoinGape, and crypto.news
X: @nikitabier, @nikitabier, and @autismcapital
| Dwarkesh Patel / Dwarkesh Podcast: |
Q&A with Jensen Huang on Nvidia's supply chain moat, competition from ASICs like Google's TPU, investing in AI labs and neoclouds, selling to China, and more — “If our next several years are a trillion dollars in scale, we have the supply chain to do it”
More: Bloomberg, Implicator.ai, Crypto Briefing, and Dwarkesh Patel on YouTube
X: @dwarkesh_sp, @theobearman, @matthewstoller, @firstadopter, @niubi, @sriramk, @yezhang1998, @dwarkesh_sp, @metacriticcap, @nathanleamerdc, @vince_chow1, @peterwildeford, @dwarkesh_sp, @briancalbrecht, @buccocapital, @sjgadler, @benbajarin, @jordanschachtel, @andrewcurran_, @twistartups, @benbajarin, and @dalperovitch. Threads: @vishvanands
| Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: |
Adobe unveils Firefly AI Assistant, which can orchestrate and execute multistep tasks across Creative Cloud apps, available in public beta in the coming weeks — Last October, Adobe previewed a new assistant under the “Project Moonlight” moniker that could do tasks for you by tapping different Adobe apps … | Jose Antonio Lanz / Decrypt: |
Anthropic rolls out identity verification that may require Claude users to provide a government-issued photo ID and live selfie to access “certain capabilities” — Anthropic quietly published identity verification requirements for Claude this week, asking certain users to hand … | Lucas Ropek / TechCrunch: |
OpenAI updates Agents SDK with native sandboxing and an in-distribution harness for deploying and testing agents on long-horizon tasks — Agentic AI is the tech industry's newest success story, and companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are racing to give enterprises the tools they need to create these automated little helpers.| Abner Li / 9to5Google: |
Google launches a Gemini Mac app, featuring a keyboard shortcut, screen sharing for better context, image generation with Nano Banana, and more — Gemini now has a native Mac app in the first expansion from Android and iOS. — This “native desktop experience” is launched via an Option + Space keyboard shortcut.
More: The Keyword, The Verge, 9to5Mac, Tech Times, TechCrunch, MacRumors, eWeek, iPhone in Canada, AppleInsider, Android Authority, CNET, Cult of Mac, TechRadar, T3, and 9to5Google
Forums: r/GeminiAI, r/google, and r/Bard
| Alexandra S. Levine / Bloomberg: |
Snap CEO Evan Spiegel says the company plans to lay off ~1,000 full-time employees, or 16% of its global workforce, to cut costs and achieve profitability — Snap Inc. is laying off roughly 1,000 full-time employees, or 16% of its global workforce, part of an effort by Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel …
More: Snap Newsroom, The Verge, The Guardian, Business Insider, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Baller Alert, SFist, Social Media Today, Mumbrella, SFGATE, Yahoo Finance, Silicon Valley Business …, UPI, MobileSyrup, Mashable, GB News, LAmag, iPhone in Canada, The American Bazaar, Allwork.Space, Los Angeles Times, Breitbart, Motley Fool, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times, BBC, Engadget, New York Post, Techstrong.ai, Wall Street Journal, Variety, and Sources
X: @buccocapital, @stocksavvyshay, @markpinc, @wallstengine, @stocksavvyshay, @anjneymidha, and @highyieldharry. LinkedIn: Krystal Yoniak. Bluesky: @carnage4life. Threads: @carnage4life. Forums: r/LosAngeles
| Sean O'Kane / TechCrunch: |
Filings: Caterpillar acquires self-driving electric tractor startup Monarch Tractor's assets, after it raised $200M+ and struggled to pivot to software services — Monarch Tractor's assets have been acquired by construction giant Caterpillar, after struggling to pivot to a software services business … | Matthias Bastian / The Decoder: |
Google rolls out Gemini 3.1 Flash TTS, a text-to-speech model with support for over 70 languages and audio tags that give developers granular speech control — The company says it's the most natural and expressive voice output it has shipped to date. The big new feature is audio tags …
More: The Keyword, Simon Willison's Weblog, SiliconANGLE, Rohan's Bytes, Chrome Unboxed, and MarkTechPost. Forums: r/Bard
| Rashi Shrivastava / Forbes: |
Former Mercor staffers describe “operational mishaps” at the $10B startup, including employee fraud, a security breach, and suspected North Korean infiltration — Founded in 2023 by 20-somethings, data labeling startup Mercor exploded to $1 billion in annualized revenue run rate in September.| Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch: |
Objection, which aims to use AI and experts to evaluate claims in news stories, debuts with funding from Peter Thiel, Balaji Srinivasan; evaluations cost $2,000 — After helping lead the lawsuit that bankrupted media firm Gawker, Aron D'Souza says he saw something broken in the American media system …
More: TechCrunch. X: @rmac18, @freddy_brewster, @rmac18, @alexrkonrad, @thestalwart, @katienotopoulos, @sigallagher, @tysonbrody, @objectionupdate, and @alexrkonrad
Bluesky: @tinyklaus.com, @jamesrball.com, @0kultra, @wowbaggert, @parkermolloy.com, @rowyourbot, and @foiaball.com
| David McCabe / New York Times: |
WPP, Dentsu, and Publicis settle with the FTC over claims they colluded on misinformation policies that denied ad revenue to conservative publishers — WPP, Dentsu and Publicis settled claims they colluded on policies to combat misinformation, denying ad revenue to publishers on the right.| Jo Constantz / Bloomberg: |
Companies that hire young “AI natives” have found that AI tools can be both helpful and debilitating to workers, in some cases requiring more careful oversight — The promises and perils of the ChatGPT generation. — As soon as he got a company email address for his summer internship …
Bluesky: @drsmith
| Gené Teare / Crunchbase News: |
European VC funding in Q1 2026 rose nearly 30% YoY to $17.6B, AI claimed over 50% of all European funding for the quarter, and deal volume dropped 40% YoY — European venture funding reached $17.6 billion in Q1 2026, Crunchbase data shows. That's up nearly 30% year over year and marks the second consecutive quarter of growth.
Mastodon: @startups@social.vivaldi.net
| Iris Deng / South China Morning Post: |
Amazon launches its first smart warehouse in Shenzhen, aiming to cut local merchant storage costs by up to 45% as competition with Shein and Temu intensifies — Amazon expands China push with smart warehouse model, aiming to retain sellers amid rising competition from Temu and Shein| Max Filby / The Columbus Dispatch: |
Ohio's gambling regulator proposes to fine Kalshi $5M for unlicensed sports gambling, after a federal judge ruled that Kalshi's sports bets constitute gambling — The Ohio Casino Control Commission has fined online prediction market Kalshi millions of dollars for illegal operation in the state.
More: Bitcoin News, theohiopressnetwork.com, Business Insider, Toledo Blade, Sports Betting Dime, and Benzinga
X: @wallachlegal and @daveyostoh
| Steven Vaughan-Nichols / ZDNET: |
Cal.com, which provides scheduling software, is moving its core open-source codebase to a closed repository, citing the dangers of AI hacking its open code — ZDNET's key takeaways — Cal is reluctantly moving away from open source for security. — This move isn't about Mythos, but risks from modern AI tools.
More: The New Stack and Implicator.ai
X: @pumfleet, @migueldeicaza, @mjackson, @film_girl, @johnonolan, @steipete, @xlr8harder, @simonw, and @mitsuhiko
Forums: r/technology and Slashdot
| Jason Parham / Wired: |
X users complain that the latest crackdown on bots purged secret accounts they had used for years to watch and curate their favorite porn — The platform's large-scale crackdown on automated accounts is also impacting people who've spent years curating niche porn on secret X accounts.| Molly Taft / Wired: |
The US Energy Information Administration plans to implement a mandatory nationwide survey of data centers focused on their energy use — In a letter obtained by WIRED, the Energy Information Administration tells two senators that it plans to develop a mandatory assessment of data centers' energy use.| Chris Metinko / Axios: |
NY-based Auctor, which uses AI to curate resource plans and process flows to help companies adopt new software, raised $20M in a combined seed and Series A — Auctor, a startup helping companies adopt new software, raised $20 million in a combined seed and Series A, CEO William Sun tells Axios Pro first.
More: Unite.AI, Sequoia Capital, The Next Web, and Forbes
X: @auctor_ai, @hankcouture, @julienbek, @mtthewblckburn, @auctor_ai, and @sarahyuui
| Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg: |
The European Commission issues a supplementary statement of objections threatening Meta with an interim ban on WhatsApp policies that allegedly block AI rivals — Meta Platforms Inc. has been threatened with an interim European Union ban on policies that allegedly block rival AI firms … Sponsor Posts
ElevenLabs:
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Q1 Updates from Bigin: MCP support, AI-powered lead enrichment, Add-in for Outlook and more! — Hello! And welcome to another round of quarterly updates from the world of Bigin, the easy, affordable …
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