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March 19, 2026, 2:55 PM
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Mediagazer
memeorandum
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, The Verge, Fortune, CNBC, Simon Willison's Weblog, MacStories, PYMNTS.com, iPhone in Canada, The Economic Times, DevOps.com, Reuters, Proactive, and Implicator.ai
X: @rohanpaul_ai, @gdb, @openainewsroom, @jsuarez, @trekedge, @hsvsphere, @svpino, @theahmadosman, @ivanfioravanti, @chrisalbon, @hanchunglee, @banteg, @charliermarsh, @alxfazio, @reach_vb, @fujikanaeda, @charliermarsh, @julien_c, @boristane, @sherwinwu, @jxnlco, and @himanshustwts
Bluesky: @seldo.com, @reillywood.com, @timonsku.zip, @ramon-astudillo, and @cameron.stream. Mastodon: @webology@mastodon.social
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, XDA Developers, Business Insider, The Information, TechRadar, Android Central, The Rundown AI, The Indian Express, The Register, Neowin, Digit, The Decoder, MakeUseOf, The Deep View, and The Decoder
| John Wang / @j0hnwang: |
More: Benzinga. X: @timhaldorsson, @scottastevenson, @dorizzdt, @hadley, @melkeydev, @hewarsaber, @aakashgupta, and @lexsokolin
Bluesky: @seanhodgdon.com and @seanhodgdon.com
| New York Times: |
Mark Zuckerberg's original metaverse vision is effectively over, after renaming Facebook to Meta and spending ~$80B on the endeavor, as his focus shifts to AI — Five years ago, Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed that the future of Facebook would be the metaverse.
More: 404 Media, PCMag, Barron's Online, The Daily Dot, Not the Bee, The Hans India, Digital Music News, and Digit
X: @kevinroose, @paultassi, @canteverdie, @kyliebytes, @anisha_moonka, @wdavidmarx, @willsolfiac, @malonebarry, and @abhijitwt
Bluesky: @tommysalty, @tabletopminions, @deanwampler.com, @maeve, @shadowmanos, @edzitron.com, and @daniloc.xyz
| 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: TechCrunch, The Verge, CNBC, Ars Technica, Engadget, 9to5Mac, UploadVR, Wired, Android Headlines, Gameranx, Road to VR, PC Gamer, and Bloomberg
| 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 … | Dominic Preston / The Verge: |
Google announces a new “advanced flow” for Android sideloading that requires a mandatory 24-hour cooling-off period to install apps from unverified developers — The one-time ‘advanced flow’ includes 24 hours of cooling off time. … Google has revealed the “advanced flow” … | 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.| Wall Street Journal: |
MLB makes Polymarket its official prediction markets platform, giving it exclusive data access; Polymarket will restrict contracts that pose “integrity risk” — On the cusp of opening day and under the cloud of a recent betting scandal, MLB reaches a licensing agreement with event-prediction platform
More: MLB.com, CFTC, Decrypt, Fortune, The Block, Cointelegraph, The Hill, CoinDesk, Washington Examiner, The Crypto Times, Front Office Sports, Associated Press, ESPN, Benzinga, CNBC, Bloomberg, Sports Business Journal, Blockonomi, Bitcoin News, and Fast Company
X: @polymarket, @benhorney, @joshbtucker, @mikemayer22, @tipping_pitches, @foolishbb, @joonlee, @matthewmodabber, @ntmoney, @super70ssports, @chairmanselig, @nickdevor_, @cftc, @thamosdeaf, @robtornoe, @bymattweyrich, @benhorney, @wallachlegal, @biasedslightly, @tmathsports, @sportradar, and @jaketodonnell
Bluesky: @rjcurren, @caseynewton, @timweston.com, and @josephgruber.com
| 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: Meta Newsroom, The Information, Engadget, TechCrunch, CNBC, and The Post Millennial
| 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 … | 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, Engadget, TechCrunch, South Florida Business Journal, Uber, TechEBlog, Carscoops, Axios, New York Times, The Hill, Watcher Guru, Benzinga, electrive.com, Proactive, Barron's Online, Quartz, Reuters, Blockchain.News, Forbes, Associated Press, Automotive World, Motley Fool, Electrek, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, InsideEVs, The Information, Bloomberg, The Drive, Jalopnik, Yahoo Finance, TheTruthAboutCars, EV, The Next Web, CNBC, Dow Jones Newswires, Blockonomi, CBT News, iPhone in Canada, The Independent, Business Insider, and Morningstar
X: @theaustinlyons, @joshkale, @andrewgordonmac, @pitdesi, @rjscaringe, @zacksjerryrig, @aakashgupta, @rivian, and @uber. LinkedIn: Dara Khosrowshahi. Forums: r/Rivian
| 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 … | 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: TheNeuron, eWeek, 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/neoliberal, r/singularity, and r/claudexplorers
| 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.| 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, Moneycontrol, Thurrott, 9to5Mac, The AI Economy, PetaPixel, and Creative Bloq. LinkedIn: Allison Blais
| Marissa Newman / Bloomberg: |
Oasis Security, which specializes in securing non-human identities, such as AI bots and automated work tools, raised $120M, bringing its total funding to $190M — Oasis Security, a cybersecurity startup that helps companies manage access to their systems from non-human accounts … | Mizy Clifton / Politico: |
Ofcom fines 4chan £520K for OSA violations, including £450K for not complying with age check requirements, and gives it until April 2 to implement age assurance — 4chan has until 2 April to implement age assurance, carry out a “suitable and sufficient” illegal harms risk assessment …
More: Ofcom, BBC, Help Net Security, Dexerto, The Independent, and Engadget
Forums: Hacker News and r/technology
| 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/google, r/DemocraticSocialism, r/politics, r/siliconvalley, and r/California
| 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, The Currency, The Decoder, Digit, and Livemint
| Thomas Brewster / Forbes: |
Privacy-focused MVNO Cape raised a $100M Series C at a $900M valuation, and says its revenue grew from $4.5M in 2024 to $37M in 2025 — Cape cofounder and CEO John Doyle is seeing rapid revenue growth for his cell network, which deletes call logs and doesn't collect social security numbers like AT&T and Verizon do.
More: FinSMEs
| Maxwell Zeff / Wired: |
Google moved some staffers working on Project Mariner, its AI agent that can navigate Chrome and complete tasks on a user's behalf, to higher-priority projects — As Silicon Valley obsesses over a new wave of AI coding agents, Google and other AI labs are shifting their bets.
Bluesky: @caseynewton
| 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| 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.| 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 and Daring Fireball
X: @leahlibresco and @leahlibresco
Bluesky: @mitchsaid and @maggie-lee
Mastodon: @js@podcastindex.social, @shriramk@mastodon.social, @assaf@mas.to, @ppatel@mstdn.social, and @gedankenstuecke@scholar …
Forums: Hacker News and Lobsters
| 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 …
More: South China Morning Post
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 with disabilities was just 38%, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
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 with disabilities was just 38%, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.Sponsor Post
| 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 …
More: Engadget, Roll Call, Music Ally, Senator Marsha Blackburn, Axios, and The Tennessean
| 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.
Newest
Maxwell Zeff / Wired:
Google moved some staffers working on Project Mariner, its AI agent that can navigate Chrome and complete tasks on a user's behalf, to higher-priority projectsFind
20 minutes ago
Marissa Newman / Bloomberg:
Oasis Security, which specializes in securing non-human identities, such as AI bots and automated work tools, raised $120M, bringing its total funding to $190MFind
65 minutes ago
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Google announces a new “advanced flow” for Android sideloading that requires a mandatory 24-hour cooling-off period to install apps from unverified developersFind
70 minutes ago
Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
Privacy-focused MVNO Cape raised a $100M Series C at a $900M valuation, and says its revenue grew from $4.5M in 2024 to $37M in 2025Find
1½ hours ago
New York Times:
Mark Zuckerberg's original metaverse vision is effectively over, after renaming Facebook to Meta and spending ~$80B on the endeavor, as his focus shifts to AIFind
1½ hours ago
Cursor:
Cursor says Composer 2 is “frontier-level at coding” and is priced at $0.50/1M input tokens and $2.50/1M output tokens, with a faster variant costing 3x moreFind
2 hours ago
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 programFind
2½ hours ago
From Mediagazer
Katie Kilkenny / The Hollywood Reporter:David Shepardson / Reuters:
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| Ryan Felton / Wall Street Journal: |
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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
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More: The Verge, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Engadget, Comparitech, Techstrong.ai, Tech Times, Unite.AI, Fortune, The Decoder, and DigiTimes
Bluesky: @captaindisillusion, @mikesager.net, and @caseynewton. Threads: @jpkmensah. Forums: r/theprimeagen