11:10 PM • | Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land: Google promotes Liz Reid to Head of Search and names Cheenu Venkatachary as the lead of Search quality and ranking, among other changes to its Search team |
10:50 PM • | Sean Michael Kerner / VentureBeat: Stability AI debuts Stable Video 3D, a generative AI tool built on its Stable Video Diffusion model, letting users create 3D video from a text or image prompt |
10:30 PM • | Nikkei Asia: Sources: TSMC and Intel suppliers have delayed construction of facilities in Arizona, citing surging construction costs, a labor shortage, and weak local demand |
8:35 PM • | Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge: The Connectivity Standards Alliance launches a cybersecurity standard that aims to provide a globally recognized security certification for consumer IoT devices |
8:00 PM • | Wesley Hilliard / AppleInsider: Nvidia announces a software framework built with its Omniverse Cloud APIs to let enterprise developers stream interactive 3D experiences into Apple Vision Pro |
7:20 PM • | Samuel Tolbert / Windows Central: Valve debuts Steam Families in beta, allowing a group of up to six Steam users to share their games, manage parental controls, and more |
6:55 PM • | George Hammond / Financial Times: Hippocratic AI, which is building an LLM for health care, raised a $53M Series A co-led by Premji Invest and General Catalyst at a $500M valuation |
6:35 PM • | Brian Heater / TechCrunch: Nvidia unveils Project GR00T, a general-purpose foundation model for humanoid robots, and Jetson Thor, a new computer designed specifically for humanoid robots |
6:30 PM • | Jane Lanhee Lee / Bloomberg: Nvidia launches Quantum Cloud, a service that simulates a quantum computer and allows researchers to test out their quantum computing software |
6:15 PM • | Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch: Nvidia announces NIM, a set of microservices designed to streamline the deployment of custom and pre-trained AI models into production environments |
5:45 PM • | Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: Nvidia unveils the Earth-2 platform, letting users create AI-powered climate simulations ranging from global atmospheric conditions to local weather phenomena |
5:20 PM • | Olga Kharif / Bloomberg: Crypto trading platform Bakkt names Andy Main as its CEO and president, as it faces being dropped from the NYSE for failing to maintain listing requirements |
4:40 PM • | Kif Leswing / CNBC: Nvidia announces Blackwell, a new generation of AI chips available later in 2024, starting with the GB200 superchip, which pairs two B200 GPUs with a Grace CPU |
4:00 PM • | Abhinaya Prabhu / Tech Funding News: Carlsmed, which is developing an AI-powered personalized surgery tool, raised a $52.5M Series C co-led by B Capital and US Venture Partners |
3:55 PM • | NVIDIA on YouTube: A recording of the Nvidia GTC 2024 keynote at the SAP Center in San Jose, California |
3:35 PM • | Lex Fridman: Q&A with Sam Altman on the OpenAI board saga, Ilya Sutskever, Elon Musk's lawsuit, Sora, Q*, GPT-5, raising $7T, Google and Gemini, AGI, aliens, and more |
2:40 PM • | John Herrman / New York Magazine: X's pivot to video mirrors past social media trends, but its reliance on user-generated videos from TikTok and other platforms may not ensure long-term success |
2:25 PM • | Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: Telegram CEO Pavel Durov says, on his channel, that the company raised $330M through bond sales last week, and that the offering was oversubscribed |
1:45 PM • | The Verge: Microsoft is holding a Windows and Surface AI event on May 20; sources: the event will include the consumer versions of Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 |
1:40 PM • | Reuters: After hearing oral arguments, SCOTUS appeared wary of curbing US government contacts with social media platforms to remove posts deemed misinformation |
1:15 PM • | Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media: Searches for “As of my last knowledge update”, a phrase used by ChatGPT, return 115 results on Google Scholar, suggesting the use of AI-generated text in papers |
12:45 PM • | Cecilia Kang / New York Times: In partnerships with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta, the US DHS rolls out pilot programs to test AI tech to help combat drug and human trafficking crimes, and more |
12:25 PM • | Austin Weinstein / Bloomberg: The US SEC fines Delphia and Global Predictions a combined $400K for making “false and misleading statements” about their use of AI |
12:15 PM • | Mia Sato / The Verge: TikTok launches Creator Rewards, a creator monetization program that has payouts based on “search value”, originality, play duration, and audience engagement |
11:50 AM • | Dave Lee / Bloomberg: An Apple-Google deal around AI could solve short-term headaches for both, giving Apple a compelling AI story for investors and Google access to affluent users |
11:15 AM • | Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: App analytics company Sensor Tower acquires Data.ai for an undisclosed amount; Crunchbase says Data.ai had raised $157M+ while Sensor Tower has raised just $46M |
11:00 AM • | Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information: Some GPT Store developers express disappointment by the lack of users and OpenAI not offering user analytics; OpenAI does not yet let developers charge money |
10:45 AM • | Nilay Patel / The Verge: Q&A with Figma CEO Dylan Field on the failed Adobe deal, competing with Adobe, Figma's new Multi-edit tool, building tools, AI, AGI, Dev Mode, the web, and more |
10:35 AM • | Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat: Google Research details VLOGGER, an AI model that can generate lifelike videos of people speaking, gesturing, and moving, from a single photo and an audio clip |
10:15 AM • | Saritha Rai / Bloomberg: A profile of Mumbai-based Yotta Data Services, which plans to have ~20K Nvidia H100 chips by June 2024 to offer Indian companies compute to build AI services |
10:00 AM • | Clare Duffy / CNN: YouTube now requires creators to label their realistic-looking videos made using AI, via an upload checklist; clearly unrealistic videos will not need a label |
9:30 AM • | Danny Park / The Block: Figure Markets, a crypto trading platform developed by Figure Technologies, raised a $60M Series A led by Jump Crypto, Pantera Capital, and Lightspeed Faction |
8:25 AM • | Sean Lyngaas / CNN: The US says Poland, Ireland, Finland, Germany, Japan, and South Korea joined the US-led anti-spyware pact; Five Eyes and six countries signed the pledge in 2023 |
7:45 AM • | Paul Tassi / Forbes: Respawn and EA postpone the North American Finals of Apex Legends, after an unknown hacker gave pro players hacks like aimbots and wallhacks during the event |
7:20 AM • | Foo Yun Chee / Reuters: At an EU DMA hearing, an Apple lawyer fended off criticism over DMA compliance; Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, ByteDance, and Microsoft will now have similar hearings |
6:50 AM • | Paresh Dave / Wired: Reviewing Reddit's IPO filings: signs of stalling user growth, struggles to grow overseas, a dependence on Google, wooing brands, a new Class C stock, and more |
6:30 AM • | Abner Li / 9to5Google: Google quietly refreshes its Fitbit branding from “Fitbit by Google” to “Google Fitbit” and updates the watermark font to match Google Pixel and Google Nest |
6:00 AM • | Sarah E. Needleman / Wall Street Journal: A profile of Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman, who blends the personal and professional as CEO and plans to test a tepid IPO market for the unprofitable company |
5:40 AM • | Financial Times: Filings: in December 2023, Reddit canceled CEO Steve Huffman's pay incentives tied to hitting a $25B valuation, signaling reduced hopes for a blockbuster IPO |
5:20 AM • | Allison Johnson / The Verge: Qualcomm unveils the Snapdragon 8S Gen 3, aiming to bring most 8 Gen 3 features, including on-device AI models, to mid-range smartphones in the “coming months” |
4:15 AM • | Ashley Capoot / CNBC: Behind the rise of AI ambient clinical documentation tools, which let doctors record and automatically turn conversations with patients into clinical notes |
2:20 AM • | Olga Kharif / Bloomberg: A look at the proliferation of gimmicky online crypto-certification programs, as the lack of a well recognized professional crypto accreditation leaves a vacuum |
1:37 AM • | Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple and Google are in active talks to use Gemini to power some new iPhone features in 2024; Apple also held talks with OpenAI to use its models |
12:05 AM • | Brian Hiatt / Rolling Stone: Inside generative AI music startup Suno, whose model can compose songs, including human vocals, using a text prompt, as Suno aims to “democratize” music making |
11:30 PM • | Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch: Gumroad, an e-commerce company for creators, updates its rules to more strictly limit NSFW content, citing policies of payment processors like Stripe and PayPal |
10:00 PM • | New York Times: The TikTok divestment bill's progress slows down in the Senate, as Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has not decided whether to bring the bill to the floor |
9:45 PM • | Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: Game developer Scopely says Monopoly Go! crossed $2B in revenue in February 2024, just 10 months after launching and three months after hitting $1B in revenue |
8:50 PM • | Andrew Hayward / Decrypt: Starbucks is ending Odyssey, which launched in December 2022 in closed beta offering NFT-based rewards minted on the Polygon blockchain, on March 31, 2024 |
7:43 PM • | Bloomberg: Sources: HashiCorp, which helps companies manage their cloud infrastructure, has been considering options including a sale; HCP jumps 11%+ after hours |
7:35 PM • | Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg: Sources: Social Capital fired two of its partners after they tried to raise ~$2M from outside the firm for AI chipmaker Groq, which rankled Chamath Palihapitiya |
7:30 PM • | Tom Henderson / Insider Gaming: Leaked PS5 Pro docs mention rendering 45% faster than the PS5, 2x to 3x the ray tracing performance, and more; sources say it's set for a holiday 2024 release |
6:20 PM • | Tom Warren / The Verge: Microsoft is again injecting pop-ups into Chrome on Windows in a bid to get users to switch to Bing, after previously pausing them citing “unintended behavior” |
5:10 PM • | Alex Koller / CNBC: Layoffs.fyi: 50,000+ workers have been laid off from over 200 tech companies since the start of 2024; some recently laid-off employees recall their experiences |
4:25 PM • | Dan Primack / Axios: Reddit says FTC launched an inquiry into Reddit's licensing of user data to AI companies; an ex-FTC official says other companies also got such “hold letters” |
3:55 PM • | Manish Singh / TechCrunch: After criticism, India's Ministry of Electronics and IT revises its AI advisory to drop plans to require government approval before new AI models are launched |
3:50 PM • | Elena Schneider / Politico: Some Democrats warn that a ban of TikTok, used by nearly two-thirds of Americans under 30, could imperil Biden's reelection by depressing young voter turnout |
3:30 PM • | CNN: SCOTUS rules that public officials may block people on social media in certain circumstances, tossing aside challenges against Michigan and California officials |
3:15 PM • | Bob Van Voris / Bloomberg: Filing: prosecutors ask a judge to sentence SBF to up to 50 years in prison when he is sentenced on March 28; SBF's lawyers had suggested five to six years |
2:30 PM • | Business Insider: Sources: BeReal is weighing raising a Series C or being acquired, as what is left of its $90M in funding is set to run out this year and DAUs stagnate at 25M |
2:10 PM • | Steven Levy / Wired: Michael Seibel steps down as YC's managing director, says he did not feel disappointed when he was not tapped as CEO but would have accepted the job if offered |
1:20 PM • | Mike Masnick / Techdirt: Banning TikTok is a performative, unconstitutional, authoritarian move that won't stop China from spreading propaganda or getting Americans' data |
1:10 PM • | Lauren Feiner / The Verge: A look at Murthy v. Missouri, a case SCOTUS will hear Monday, which may upend how government communicates with social media platforms on topics like misinfo |
12:40 PM • | Emma Roth / The Verge: Uber and Lyft threaten to leave Minneapolis on May 1, after the city passed an ordinance to guarantee drivers a minimum rate of $1.40/mile and $0.5/minute |
12:05 PM • | Maxwell Zeff / Gizmodo: Lawyers warn that the bill to ban TikTok unless it's sold gives POTUS unchecked power to ban any app or website the President deems a “national security threat” |
11:45 AM • | Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: Walmart starts selling Macs directly for the first time, partnering with Apple to sell the M1 MacBook Air for $699 a week after Apple stopped selling the laptop |
11:30 AM • | Bloomberg: Sources: Binance tightened the requirements for listing new tokens, including extending partial coin supply lockups from up to six months to at least a year |
11:11 AM • | Financial Times: Sources: TikTok's US revenue hit a record $16B in 2023 while ByteDance saw revenue grow ~40% YoY to $120B in 2023 and recorded a $28B net profit |
10:50 AM • | Ailbhe Rea / Bloomberg: Sources: X declined requests by the UK's Labour party to take down a deepfake audio clip of leader Keir Starmer, raising concerns ahead of the general election |
10:00 AM • | Jonathan Stempel / Reuters: Apple reaches a $490M settlement to resolve a class-action lawsuit that alleged Tim Cook defrauded shareholders in 2019 by hiding falling iPhone demand in China |
9:15 AM • | Manish Singh / TechCrunch: The Competition Commission of India orders an antitrust investigation into Google for charging app developers an “unfair” Play Store service fee of 10% to 30% |
8:10 AM • | Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: In an open letter to Nick Clegg, 36 MEPs urge Meta to scrap its “pay or okay” choice for EU users and to “align your business with the principles of the GDPR” |
6:40 AM • | Bloomberg: Vodafone sells its Italian business to Switzerland's Swisscom for €8B in cash and plans a ~€4B stock buyback; Swisscom will merge Vodafone Italia with Fastweb |
6:15 AM • | Ryan Weeks / Bloomberg: Binance CEO Richard Teng, who has been in the role for only four months, quietly spun out Binance Labs, the company's $10B venture capital arm, earlier in 2024 |
5:45 AM • | Bloomberg: Sources: China quietly asked EV makers like BYD and Geely to sharply increase their purchases from local auto chipmakers, to reduce reliance on Western imports |
4:40 AM • | Wired: A deep dive into Reddit's history and the power of its 60K+ unpaid moderators, based on interviews with 60+ current and former mods, employees, and contractors |
2:00 AM • | David Wethe / Bloomberg: Oil companies are increasingly using AI and remote operations to drill faster, suggest better ways to frack, and predict when active well pumps will fail |
12:55 AM • | Melissa Rohman / New York Times: How Facebook Marketplace keeps Gen Z thrift-shoppers coming back to Facebook, which they see not as a place to socialize but as a place to score some deals |
12:15 AM • | Annie Palmer / CNBC: How Amazon refund fraud gangs organized like businesses exploit the retailer's lenient refund policies and promote their schemes on Reddit, TikTok, and Telegram |
11:45 PM • | Dan Goodin / Ars Technica: Researchers detail how a side channel can be used to read encrypted responses from AI assistants, except Google's Gemini; OpenAI and Cloudflare made mitigations |
11:30 PM • | Danny Nelson / CoinDesk: El Salvador moved 5,689.68 BTC, “a big chunk” or ~$400M worth, into a cold wallet this week; public trackers had estimated El Salvador had less than 3,000 BTC |
11:15 PM • | The Economic Times: Bethesda, Maryland-based HiLabs, whose AI-powered tools provide clean data for health care organizations, raised a $39M Series B led by Eight Roads and Denali |
10:50 PM • | New York Times: Taiwan is building its own satellite internet network, as China's threats, Ukraine war, and Elon Musk's total control over Starlink make Taiwan's leaders wary |
9:55 PM • | Bloomberg: Sources: the US plans to award over $6B to Samsung to help the company expand beyond its $17B chip fab in Taylor, Texas, under the 2022 Chips and Science Act |
8:55 PM • | Robert Barrie / Pharmaceutical Technology: Zephyr AI, which uses AI to generate insights into improving patient care and research in oncology and cardiometabolic diseases, raised a $111M Series A |
8:30 PM • | Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security: An investigation into Onerep.com, which helps people remove their personal data from people-search sites, suggests its CEO founded dozens of people-search sites |
6:45 PM • | Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica: The FCC raises its broadband speed benchmark to 100Mbps for downloads and 20Mbps for uploads, from the previous standard of 25Mbps and 3Mbps set in January 2015 |
6:20 PM • | Taylor Lorenz / Washington Post: Small-business owners and activists who rely on TikTok say the US House measure forcing a sale or ban would damage their livelihoods and harm their communities |
5:35 PM • | Augusta Saraiva / Bloomberg: At the UN, the US pushes for global AI regulations, with a draft resolution calling for “effective safeguards”; the push contrasts with a lack of US regulations |
4:31 PM • | Jordan Novet / CNBC: Adobe reports Q1 revenue up 11% YoY to $5.18B, vs. $5.14B est., Digital Media revenue up 12% YoY to $3.82B, and Q2 revenue guidance below est.; ADBE drops 10%+ |
4:15 PM • | Emma Roth / The Verge: Spotify emails the European Commission to say Apple is holding up an iPhone app update that adds pricing information and links to its subscription options |
4:10 PM • | Abner Li / 9to5Google: Google schedules I/O 2024 for May 14, where details on Android 15 and Android XR, AI announcements, and more are expected; the date was hidden behind a puzzle |
3:55 PM • | Todd Spangler / Variety: Pornhub blocks access to users in Texas, after a federal appeals court upheld a Texas law last week requiring porn sites to institute age-verification measures |
3:35 PM • | Ron Miller / TechCrunch: WarpStream, which is building a cloud-native data streaming service based on the Apache Kafka protocol, raised $20M led by Greylock and Amplify |
3:30 PM • | Sara Fischer / Axios: Snapchat is testing Infinite Retention Mode, which lets users save DMs indefinitely, bringing it closer to a pure-play messaging app like iMessage or WhatsApp |
3:15 PM • | Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple acquired DarwinAI, which makes tech for inspecting components during manufacturing and focuses on making AI systems smaller and faster |
2:45 PM • | Tom Warren / The Verge: Microsoft launches Copilot Pro worldwide with a one-month free trial; Pro subscribers can use the AI assistant in Office web apps without a Microsoft 365 sub |
2:35 PM • | Kimberly Chin / Axios: Netherlands-based TheyDo, which helps companies map customer journeys, raised a $34M Series B led by Blossom Capital, bringing its total funding to about $50M |
1:05 PM • | Saritha Rai / Bloomberg: Massachusetts-based Pi Health, which uses AI to automate tasks in cancer treatment trials, raised a $30M+ Series A co-led by AlleyCorp and Obvious Ventures |
12:25 PM • | Bloomberg: Damage to the West Africa Cable System, MainOne, and ACE sea cables disrupts internet services across Africa; the cause of the faults has not been determined |
12:20 PM • | Sheena Vasani / The Verge: Google adds real-time URL protection to Chrome's Safe Browsing Standard on desktop and iOS, claiming to guard users' privacy; Android will get the feature soon |
12:05 PM • | Aisha Malik / TechCrunch: Reddit launches free-form ads, an ad format that looks similar to posts made by users, but with a “Promoted” label, to help advertisers get maximum engagement |
11:45 AM • | Bloomberg: India grants a consumer payments license to Paytm, which has until now operated under a license connected to its beleaguered affiliate, Paytm Payments Bank |
11:30 AM • | Paul Alcorn / Tom's Hardware: Intel launches the $689 Core i9-14900KS Special Edition processor, with clock speeds up to 6.2GHz on two cores to become the company's fastest mainstream chip |
10:55 AM • | Craig Trudell / Bloomberg: X removes a graphic video shared by Elon Musk purporting to show cannibalism in Haiti, for violating its rules; there's no evidence the video was shot in Haiti |
10:45 AM • | Assaf Gilead / Globes Online: US cybersecurity company Zscaler acquires Israel-based cybersecurity startup Avalor for $350M; Avalor was founded in 2022 and has raised just $30M to date |
10:30 AM • | PYMNTS.com: Deliveroo reports adjusted EBITDA of £85M in 2023, its first-ever profit and up from a loss of £45M in 2022, after launching Deliveroo Shopping in November 2023 |
10:15 AM • | Joel Khalili / Wired: A UK High Court judge rules that Australian computer scientist Craig Wright is not Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, saying the “evidence is overwhelming” |
9:35 AM • | Chainalysis: In 2023, crypto investors achieved total gains of $37.6B, up from a $127.1B loss in 2022 but down from the $159.7B in gains during the 2021 bull run |
9:15 AM • | Eleanor Olcott / Financial Times: After the House vote, Chinese officials say the US has shown “robber's logic” toward TikTok, and Washington must “stop unfairly suppressing foreign companies” |
9:05 AM • | Nathan Ingraham / Engadget: Proton releases its mail app for macOS and Windows out of beta, available as part of its $4/month Mail Plus or $10/month Unlimited tier, and a Linux app in beta |
8:50 AM • | Rashi Shrivastava / Forbes: Unstructured, which helps companies prepare messy data for AI training, raised a $40M Series B led by Menlo Ventures at a $230M valuation |
8:15 AM • | Reuters: Sources: in 2019, Donald Trump authorized the CIA to launch a clandestine campaign on Chinese social media to turn China's public against its government |
7:45 AM • | Arjun Kharpal / CNBC: The EU opens a DSA investigation into Alibaba's AliExpress over illegal content concerns, ad and product recommendations, and more, the third DSA investigation |
7:07 AM • | Jeff Horwitz / Wall Street Journal: Meta plans to shut down CrowdTangle in August 2024 and replace it with Meta Content Library, available to academic and nonprofit researchers, not news outlets |
6:30 AM • | Spencer Soper / Bloomberg: Amazon says “a tiny fraction” of sellers paid for ads for products users couldn't buy and pledges a fix; Amazon offered a $15K refund to a seller seeking $300K |
6:10 AM • | Taylor Lorenz / Washington Post: A TikTok-funded study on SMBs using TikTok in the US suggests that TikTok drove $14.7B in SMB revenue, added $24.2B to US GDP, and supported 224K+ jobs in 2023 |
5:55 AM • | Bloomberg: Memo: TikTok is “disappointed” that the US House passed the TikTok divestment bill, and reiterates its plans to lobby the Senate not to pass the legislation |
5:35 AM • | Kosaku Narioka / Wall Street Journal: Foxconn reports Q4 revenue down 5.7% YoY to ~$59B, as cloud and networking demand falls, net profit up 33% YoY to $1.69B, and expects flat 2024 consumer demand |
5:00 AM • | Russ Crupnick / MusicWatch: US paid music subscribers hit a record 109M in 2023, or 136M if SiriusXM and Amazon Prime Music are included; seven of every 10 US millennials pay to subscribe |
3:55 AM • | Damilare Dosunmu / Rest of World: A look at Visa's and Mastercard's efforts to stay relevant in Africa, including by funding local startups, as users switch to digital wallets and QR codes |
2:35 AM • | Jonathan Haidt / The Atlantic: A look at the costs of a smartphone-based childhood, as Gen Z struggles with poor mental health and lags behind previous generations on many important metrics |
2:20 AM • | Blake Brittain / Reuters: Filing: Microsoft agrees to settle a patent lawsuit by Caltech, which settled lawsuits with Apple and Broadcom over some of the same Wi-Fi patents in 2023 |
2:10 AM • | Wall Street Journal: The fate of TSMC plants in Japan and the US highlights two different approaches toward high-tech investment; TSMC says the two projects should not be compared |
1:45 AM • | The Information: ByteDance investors, reassessing what the company's value would be without TikTok, estimate that TikTok lost several billion dollars in 2023 on revenue of ~$20B |
1:30 AM • | Trishla Ostwal / Adweek: Media executives and experts say Google's SGE could cut organic search traffic to publishers by 20% to 60%; Google says “it's premature to estimate” the impact |
12:40 AM • | Chris Kornelis / New York Times: Gerald M. Levin, the former Time Warner CEO who oversaw the AOL merger, widely considered the worst corporate merger in US history, died on March 13 at age 84 |
12:00 AM • | Hugo Barra / Hugo's Blog: A deep dive into Vision Pro by Meta's ex-VP of VR: the audacity of Apple's hardware decisions, a dull software story, how Meta can respond, and more |