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Zhiye Liu / Tom's Hardware: Qualcomm unveils the Snapdragon G3 Gen 3, G2 Gen 2, and G1 Gen 2 for gaming handhelds, saying the G3 Gen 3 offers a CPU 30% faster than the previous generation — Snapdragon G3 Gen 3, Snapdragon G2 Gen 2, and Snapdragon G1 Gen 2 enter the ring. — Qualcomm expanded its Snapdragon G series …
Andrew Liszewski / The Verge: Snap updates Spectacles AR glasses to add GPS support for Lenses, improved hand tracking, an AR keyboard, and more — The augmented reality smart glasses can now point you in the right direction. … Lenses — what Snap calls the Spectacles' various AR effects …
Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat: Mistral debuts Mistral Small 3.1, a 24B-parameter multimodal and multilingual open-source model it says outperforms Gemma 3 and GPT-4o-mini and runs on 32GB RAM — French artificial-intelligence startup Mistral AI unveiled a new open-source model today that the company says outperforms similar offerings …
Lauren Thomas / Wall Street Journal: Sources: Alphabet is in advanced talks to acquire cybersecurity startup Wiz for ~$30B; Alphabet was close to a $23B deal for Wiz last summer before talks ended — A deal worth some $30 billion could come together soon, after talks fizzled last summer — Google parent Alphabet …
The Information: Source: Liam Fedus, VP of research in charge of post-training at OpenAI, is leaving the company to found a startup focused on using AI to discover new materials — Liam Fedus, vice president of research in charge of post-training at OpenAI, is leaving the company, a company spokesperson confirmed.
Mike Pastore / Search Engine Land: Adobe: traffic from AI sources to US retail sites in February rose 1,200% from July 2024; 39% of US consumers used generative AI for shopping, 53% plan to do so — Traffic from generative AI surged to U.S. retail sites over the holiday season and that trend has continued into 2025, according to new Adobe data.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Users report that Gemini 2.0 Flash is very good at removing watermarks from images; many models allow this but some, like Claude 3.7 Sonnet and GPT-4o, do not — Users on social media have discovered a controversial use case for Google's new Gemini AI model: removing watermarks from images …
Daryna Antoniuk / The Record: Telegram's Pavel Durov has left France, reportedly after a judge authorized him to leave the country for “several weeks”; the investigation is ongoing — The Russian-born founder and owner of the messaging app Telegram said he returned to Dubai after spending several months …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Amazon devices chief Panos Panay aims to unveil the first products he has overseen in the fall, talks of new premium devices, hints at wearables like AR glasses — The introduction of tonier hardware, which will coexist with lower- and mid-priced products, is a bid to give consumers more choice …
Jason Koebler / 404 Media: AI slop, shared by thousands of prolific accounts, is brute forcing virality, and platforms like Meta embrace it; some AI videos get 350M+ views — Consider, for a moment, that this AI-generated video of a bizarre creature turning into a spider, turning into a nightmare giraffe inside of a busy mall has been viewed 362 million times.
Natalie Lung / Bloomberg: Bumble rolls out new ID verification in the US, the UK, Australia, France, India, and six other markets, as founder Whitney Wolfe Herd returns as its CEO — Bumble Inc. is adding ID verification to its dating app alongside other new features, an attempt to court safety-conscious younger users …
Jay Peters / The Verge: Roblox open sources Cube 3D, the first version of its foundational AI model for generating 3D objects, using licensed and public datasets and its own data — The model, Cube 3D, creates 3D models from a text prompt. … Roblox is launching and open-sourcing Cube 3D, the first version …
Paige Smith / Bloomberg: Robinhood partners with Kalshi to launch a prediction markets hub in the US for retail traders, starting with bets on the federal funds rate and March Madness — Prediction markets have grown in popularity among investors, spurred on by the surge of wagers ahead of the November US presidential race …
Sean Michael Kerner / VentureBeat: Zoom unveils AI Companion updates to add agentic AI features, including calendar management, meeting tools, and document creation, rolling out by July 2025 — Zoom became a household name during the pandemic as remote work became the norm nearly overnight.
Max A. Cherney / Reuters: Sources: Intel's new CEO Lip-Bu Tan has considered restructuring Intel's AI approach and cutting staff to address a slow and bloated middle management layer — Intel's incoming CEO Lip-Bu Tan has considered significant changes to its chip manufacturing methods and artificial intelligence strategies ahead …
Qianer Liu / The Information: Sources: Google plans to partner with Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek on its next-gen TPUs, set for 2026, but will still work with Broadcom — Google plans to work with a new firm to help design and produce some of its artificial intelligence chips: MediaTek.
Jay Peters / The Verge: Discord launches a Social SDK to let developers offer friends lists, cross-platform messaging, voice, and more, with console and mobile support “coming soon” — An easier way to connect with Discord friends. … Discord is launching a way for developers to directly integrate …
Hugh Son / CNBC: Walmart's OnePay says Klarna will replace Affirm to offer buy-now-pay-later to US shoppers later in 2025, and OnePay can buy a Klarna stake; AFRM drops 10%+ — Swedish fintech firm Klarna will be the exclusive provider of buy now, pay later loans for Walmart, taking a coveted partnership away from rival Affirm, CNBC has learned.
New York Times: HR service Rippling sues rival Deel, accusing it of hiring a mole in its Dublin office to comb through trade secrets, discovered via a “honeypot” Slack channel — A lawsuit by Rippling accuses a top competitor, Deel, of placing a mole in its ranks — which it uncovered via a “honeypot” trap on Slack.
Firat Kozok / Bloomberg: Sources: Turkey plans new EU-style rules to rein in major US tech companies, in a bill created by the ruling party and antitrust authority, risking a US clash — Turkey is planning new rules to rein in the dominance of major tech firms, imitating the European Union's regulatory approach at the risk of provoking US retaliation.
Austin Carr / Bloomberg: An interview with Snap CEO Evan Spiegel on Snap's fifth-generation smart glasses, unveiled in September 2024, competing with Apple and Meta, Snap OS, and more — The new Spectacles can project augmented-reality imagery onto the lenses. — Evan Spiegel sees something others don't …
Stephen Morris / Financial Times: Alphabet spins off laser-based internet company Taara from its X “moonshot” incubator; Taara, which raised new funding, has its origins in Loon, closed in 2021 — Taara start-up aims to compete with Elon Musk's Starlink to connect remote areas to the internet using light beams
Michael Levenson / New York Times: Carl Lundstrom, who financed file sharing service the Pirate Bay, died in a plane crash in Slovenia; at its peak, the Pirate Bay had an estimated 20M+ users — Mr. Lundstrom was a supporter of far-right causes and, at one point, an unsuccessful candidate for office.
Sidhartha Shukla / Bloomberg: Crypto exchange OKX says it has “temporarily” suspended its DEX aggregator services, used to launder the $1.5B Bybit hack, after reported EU scrutiny under MiCA — Digital-asset exchange OKX has suspended a service used by hackers to launder proceeds from a $1.5 billion heist …
Financial Times: Sources detail Alibaba's AI pivot, quietly led by Jack Ma after ChatGPT's 2022 launch, but question if it can establish a lead in China's competitive AI race — The Chinese tech giant is establishing a lead in a fiercely competitive sector, and its billionaire founder is back in favour
Emma Jacobs / Financial Times: A look at “coachbots”, AI-powered virtual coaches like CoachHub's Aimy and Valence's Nadia that advise on salary talks, work habits, and role-play conversations — AI-powered mentors offer cheaper — but more limited — advice on work issues — Conversing with one “difficult …
Nick Robins-Early / The Guardian: How Elon Musk targeted 18F, as ex-employees say the GSA's group focused on increasing bureaucratic efficiency through tech, similar to what DOGE claims to do — Rightwing campaign propelled by tech billionaire accuses General Services Administration's 18F of being a far-left cell
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: In an open letter, about 100 EU companies urge lawmakers to take “radical action” to cut reliance on foreign Big Tech by fostering a so-called “Euro stack” — A broad coalition drawn from across the ranks of Europe's tech industry is calling for “radical action” …
Sam Kim / Bloomberg: South Korea's Trade Ministry reports chip sales to China fell 31.8% YoY in February, after a 22.5% drop in January, amid tariffs, US controls, and weak demand — South Korea's semiconductor exports to China plunged last month, deepening concerns about a cooling in global demand already threatened …
Anissa Gardizy / The Information: Crusoe, a startup helping build the first data center for Stargate, says it secured a deal with a gas turbine owner to generate 4.5 gigawatts of energy by 2027 — An Nvidia-backed startup building a massive data center for OpenAI has gained access to one of the largest new power sources for data centers in the U.S.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Some developers say licenses for “open” AI models like Google's Gemma and Meta's Llama have limits that restrict commercial use without fear of legal reprisal — This week, Google released a family of open AI models, Gemma 3, that quickly garnered praise for their impressive efficiency.
Tom Dotan / Wall Street Journal: A profile of Chetan Nayak, who leads Microsoft's Station Q team trying to build a quantum computer; source: Microsoft spends ~$300M annually on quantum research — Chetan Nayak recently made a breakthrough after devoting his career to a new type of supercomputer
Rachyl Jones / Semafor: CoreWeave's upcoming IPO in a soft IPO market serves as a bellwether for both the tech industry and how the public market perceives AI in the years ahead — The Scene — One cloud computing company is trying to cut through the economic noise to become a herald of the artificial intelligence …
Ashley Carman / Bloomberg: A look at the growing battle over how to define a podcast, as YouTube pushes deeper into podcasting and Spotify pursues video — As YouTube pushes deeper into podcasting and Spotify pursues video, once-distinct business lines are getting increasingly blurry — Hello, hello. Welcome back to Soundbite.
Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal: Directors Anthony and Joe Russo say they're building a high-tech studio aiming to help artists use AI as a creative tool to make films, shows, and video games — The ‘Avengers’ directors are building a high-tech studio to help artists use AI to make films, shows and videogames with potentially smaller budgets
Daniel Thomas / Financial Times: Ofcom will enforce rules under the UK's Online Safety Act, designed to protect internet users from illegal content harmful activity online, starting March 17 — Watchdog will begin assessing tech group's compliance with new obligations under Online Safety Act
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: A closer look at the iPhone 17 “Air”, which lays the foundation for major design changes in future devices, including possible portless and foldable iPhones — Apple's upcoming iPhone 17 “Air” will foreshadow a move to slimmer models without charging ports.
Financial Times: Spotify slashed nearly €500M in marketing, R&D spending, and general administrative expenses in 2024, which helped the company swing to a net income of €1.1B — The Swedish music streaming service's size now gives it a durable advantage over rivals — Spotify has found its groove.
Scroll.in: Jio and Airtel, which initially opposed Starlink, partnered with the company following Modi's meeting with Musk and Trump's decision to impose tariffs on India — The announcements about Starlink's tie-ups with the Indian telecommunication giants follow Trump's decision to impose reciprocal tariffs on India from April 2.
Katherine Hamilton / Wall Street Journal: Etsy and eBay are starting to embrace tactics popularized by social media platforms, such as algorithm-based personalization, as a way to stay relevant — Companies are starting to emulate some of the tactics popularized by Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest to help boost sales
Catherine Thorbecke / Bloomberg: The hype around AI agent Manus doesn't represent a second DeepSeek moment, but reveals that Chinese startups can compete with AI product companies in the US — The viral AI agent from a Chinese startup isn't about research breakthroughs, it's about creating competitive consumer products.
Jennifer Elias / CNBC: Google and other companies are considering bringing back in-person job interviews, as some startups sell AI tools that let engineers cheat in virtual interviews — After landing internship offers from Amazon, Meta and TikTok, computer science student Chungin “Roy” Lee has decided to move to San Francisco.
Financial Times: Current and former Meta employees describe how Joel Kaplan has risen over the past decade to become Mark Zuckerberg's most trusted political fixer — Meta's newly promoted head of global affairs has masterminded social media giant's pivot towards Donald Trump
Bloomberg: Baidu releases Ernie X1, an AI model that articulates its reasoning similar to DeepSeek R1, and upgrades its flagship foundation model to Ernie 4.5 — The Ernie X1 model by China's internet search leader works similarly to DeepSeek R1 — which shocked Silicon Valley by offering comparable performance …
Kate Rooney / CNBC: Garry Tan says ~80% of YC's W25 batch is AI focused and the cohort is growing significantly faster than past ones, with actual revenue, thanks to “vibe coding” — WATCH NOW — Silicon Valley's earliest stage companies are getting a major boost from artificial intelligence.
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch: Bluesky proposes letting users indicate if their data can be used for AI training, web archiving, and more; critics see it as a reversal of its prior statements — Social network Bluesky recently published a proposal on GitHub outlining new options it could give users to indicate whether …
Molly White / Citation Needed: The real threat of AI models training on open-access material is that they may bleed free repositories dry by draining resources and not providing attribution — Listen to me read this post here (not an AI-generated voice!), subscribe to the feed in your podcast app, or download the recording for later.
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg: Google's Gemma 3 and Cohere's Command A, which require just one or two Nvidia AI chips to run, hint at an industry-wide push for more efficient AI software — Nearly two months after the viral success of China's DeepSeek prompted a reckoning over how much tech companies spend …
John Gruber / Daring Fireball: A developer who had a one-day session with Swift Assist in late 2024 says its UI is complete but results were not very good, and it falls apart on complex tasks — In an item earlier this week observing that Swift Assist, the most ambitious Xcode-related Apple Intelligence feature shown at WWDC last year …
Francisco Rodrigues / CoinDesk: 21Shares plans to liquidate two actively managed bitcoin and ether futures ETFs, following $1.66B in outflows from US-listed spot bitcoin ETFs this month — The firm is liquidating its ARK 21Shares Active On-Chain Bitcoin Strategy ETF and ARK 21Shares Active Bitcoin Ethereum Strategy ETF amid the downturn.
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