Techmeme
April 8, 2025, 11:03 PM

Top News

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says that President Trump believes the US has the resources and workforce to build iPhones in the US  —  Trump's massive 104% tariffs on China are set to go into effect at midnight tonight, a move that will have a major impact on Apple and its supply chain.
Elisabeth Buchwald / CNN:
The White House says that tariffs on China are set to rise to 104% at 12:01am ET on April 9 after China missed Trump's deadline to remove its reciprocal tariffs  —  President Donald Trump is set to impose an astounding 104% in levies across all Chinese imports on Wednesday …
Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge:
Razer pauses direct sales of its upcoming Blade 16 and other laptops in the US as new tariffs loom, leaving only skins and accessories available for purchase  —  With tariffs set to kick in tonight, Razer's new Blade 16 and other laptops are no longer available to purchase directly.
Reuters:
Ben Weiss / Fortune:
Internal memo: the US DOJ disbands the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Unit, established by Biden in 2021, as the agency is “not a digital assets regulator”  —  The U.S. Department of Justice notified staff on Monday evening that the agency was disbanding a unit dedicated to crypto-related investigations.
Kylie Robison / The Verge:
LMArena says it is updating its leaderboard policies after a Llama 4 Maverick version, which Meta said in fine print is not public, secured the number two spot  —  With Llama 4, Meta fudged benchmarks to appear as though its new AI model is better than the competition.
The Information:
Source: Instagram is working on an iPad app, and Adam Mosseri told staff to be willing to assume more “risk” to take advantage of a TikTok US ban or disruption  —  Meta Platforms has put the turmoil around TikTok to good use.  Amid a barrage of headlines about the White House's efforts …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google says Gemini Advanced subscribers can now use Deep Research with Gemini 2.5 Pro Experimental, vs. Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental at March launch  —  Gemini Advanced subscribers can now perform Deep Research with Google's most intelligent 2.5 Pro (experimental) model.
Reuters:
Sources: US officials say DOGE is using AI to surveil at least one federal agency's communications for anti-Trump talk; a source says DOGE is also using Signal  —  Trump administration officials have told some U.S. government employees that Elon Musk's DOGE team of technologists …
Bloomberg:
Sources: hackers accessed 150K+ emails from ~103 bank regulators from May 2023 to early 2025 at the US Treasury's OCC, which on February 26 disclosed a breach  —  - Attackers lurked within OCC email accounts since 2023  — Chinese state hackers previously targeted Treasury files
Bradly Shankar / MobileSyrup:
Nintendo says Switch 2 pre-orders in Canada “will not start on April 9, 2025 in order to align with the timing of pre-orders to be determined in the US”  —  The pre-orders were originally set to go live on April 9  —  Nintendo has confirmed that pre-orders for the Nintendo Switch 2 …
Darryn Bonthuys / GameSpot:
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Meta rolls out Teen Accounts to Facebook and Messenger, automatically enrolling users and adding built-in protections, in the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada  —  Meta is introducing Teen Accounts to Facebook and Messenger.  The feature, which automatically enrolls young users …
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Amazon launches Nova Sonic, which can generate natural-sounding speech and that it claims is “the most cost-efficient” AI voice model on the market, via Bedrock  —  On Tuesday, Amazon debuted a new generative AI model, Nova Sonic, capable of natively processing voice and generating natural-sounding speech.
The Verge:
A look at the rise of “Frankenstein” laptops in India, made by salvaging parts from multiple brands and sold to students, gig workers, and small businesses  —  In a dimly lit, cluttered workshop in Delhi's Nehru Place, the air hums with the sound of whirring drills and the crackle of soldering irons.
Cecilia Kang / New York Times:
Tech CEOs who spent big on Trump's inauguration have yet to see the investment pay off; Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft are down 22% since January 20  —  With inauguration donations and Mar-a-Lago visits, leaders of the biggest tech companies sought favor with the president …

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More News

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority:
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Umar Shakir / The Verge:
Eliza Strickland / IEEE Spectrum:
More: The Decoder, Stanford HAI, and Wired
Bluesky: @erikbryn and @smcgrath.phd
LinkedIn: Xiaopeng Li and Jon AdamsForums: r/technews
Rebecca Szkutak / TechCrunch: