Bookmarks (1028)

Clive Cookson / Financial Times: Researchers detail a new AI-powered Probability of Fire model, which they say could outperform the conventional danger forecasts used by wildfire trackers  —  New model takes into account weather forecasts as well as other factors such as levels of flammable vegetation and human activity

Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asia: UMC, Taiwan's second-largest chipmaker, opened a $5B plant in Singapore featuring 22nm and 28nm manufacturing technology; mass production won't start until 2026  —  TAIPEI — Taiwan's second-largest chipmaker, United Microelectronics Corp., on Tuesday opened a $5 billion plant that it describes as the …

Amy Thomson / Bloomberg: Qualcomm says it is weighing an acquisition offer for Alphawave, which has a market cap of ~$1.3B and makes high-speed semiconductor and connectivity technology  —  The San Diego-based chip firm will have to make a decision about whether to make an offer by April 29 to comply with the UK's takeover rules …

Reuters: Sources: Arm decided not to pursue a deal after recently seeking to acquire Alphawave, a UK-listed supplier of semiconductor IP that is exploring a sale  —  SoftBank-owned chip tech provider Arm Holdings (O9Ty.F) recently sought to acquire UK-based Alphawave (AWE.L) to secure a crucial technology …

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Qualcomm acquires the generative AI division of Vietnamese startup VinAI, following the acquisition of German AI and IoT company Edge Impulse in early March  —  Qualcomm has acquired the generative AI division of VinAI, an AI research company headquartered in Hanoi, for an undisclosed amount, the companies announced on Monday.

Adrian Zmudzinski / Cointelegraph: Bybit shutters its NFT marketplace, following a similar decision by NFT marketplace X2Y2; Token Terminal: daily NFT trading volume has dropped 70% YoY to $5.34M  —  Bybit is shutting down its NFT and inscription marketplaces on April 8, 2025, as part of a broader strategy to streamline its offerings amid declining market interest.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: In a new paper, Tim O'Reilly and other researchers say OpenAI likely trained GPT-4o on paywalled books from O'Reilly Media without a licensing agreement  —  OpenAI has been accused by many parties of training its AI on copyrighted content sans permission.  Now a new paper by an AI watchdog …

CJ Haddad / CNBC: Chef Robotics, which develops AI-powered robotic meal assembly systems, raised a $20.6M Series A led by Avataar Ventures, and an additional $22.5M in debt  —  As the food service industry continues to struggle with labor shortages, a Silicon Valley startup has put together artificially-intelligent robots that are ready to clock in.

Bloomberg: Sources: AI coding startup Replit is in talks with investors to raise about $200M at a $3B valuation, almost triple its last valuation  —  The new funding round would bring in about $200 million, one of the people said.  —  Replit did not respond to requests for comment.

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: Google researchers say DPRK's IT workers are fraudulently securing positions at companies in Germany, Portugal, and the UK, after facing sanctions in the US  —  North Korea's IT workers have expanded operations beyond the United States and are now increasingly targeting organizations across Europe.

Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer: Microsoft says it used its AI-powered Security Copilot to discover previously unknown vulnerabilities in the GRUB2, U-Boot, and Barebox open-source bootloaders  —  Microsoft used its AI-powered Security Copilot to discover 20 previously unknown vulnerabilities in the GRUB2, U-Boot, and Barebox open-source bootloaders.

Alexander Maxham / Android Headlines: Leaked renders of the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold show a design similar to its predecessor's; sources: it will feature a TSMC-made Tensor G5 chip and 16GB of RAM  —  Update: We've updated this article with the dimensions of the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. … After having released renders of the Google Pixel 10 …

Yazhou Sun / Bloomberg: Sources: Finland-based IQM, which builds full-stack superconducting quantum computers, is in talks to raise €200M+; IQM raised a €128M Series A2 in July 2022  —  IQM, a Finnish startup that builds quantum computers, is in talks to raise more than €200 million ($216 million) …

Jake Kanter / Deadline: YouTube suspends two major fake movie trailer channels from its partner program, after a report on how the AI-heavy trailers generated millions in ad revenue  —  The Google-owned video-hosting giant has turned off ad revenue on Screen Culture and KH Studio trailers after a Deadline investigation chronicled …

CNBC: Circle files for a US IPO, with plans to list on the NYSE under CRCL; Circle, which issues the USDC stablecoin, is reportedly seeking a $4B to $5B valuation  —  Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, has filed for an initial public offering and plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange.

Bloomberg: Chinese startup Manus, whose AI agent service is still in the beta testing phase, announces a $39/month Manus Starter plan and an upgraded $199/month Pro tier  —  The Beijing-based startup behind Manus has set up a $39-per-month tier and a $199 upgraded option, the latter in line with OpenAI's ChatGPT Pro.

Wall Street Journal: A look at the race between China and the US to build truly useful humanoid robots, as China lists “embodied” AI as a priority for a $138B state investment fund  —  U.S. and China are racing to build a truly useful humanoid worker.  Whoever wins could gain a huge edge in countless industries.

Bloomberg: Japan earmarks up to ~$5.4B in additional aid for chipmaker Rapidus, which aims to begin mass production of 2nm chips in 2027, a highly ambitious target  —  Japan is preparing as much as ¥802.5 billion ($5.4 billion) in additional aid for chip startup Rapidus Corp. …

Isaac Schultz / Gizmodo: Report: 79% of 475 AI experts believe current public perceptions of AI do not match R&D realities, while 76% said scaling current approaches will not yield AGI  —  An extensive report on the future of AI research indicated that there's skepticism about current approaches to AGI.

Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg: South Korea-based Wrtn, a free-to-use AI platform with 5M+ users aggregating LLMs like GPT-4, Stable Diffusion 3, and Claude 3, raised a $56M Series B extension  —  Existing backers BRV Capital Management and Capstone Partners participated in the so-called extension round …

CNBC: After Trump signed an EO to end the government's DEI programs, tech firms like Google are rebranding DEI efforts, using terms like “learning” or “hiring”  —  After Google scrapped its diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, hiring aspirations in February …

Dia Rekhi / The Economic Times: Sources: Foxconn plans to assemble 25M to 30M iPhones in India in 2025, up from ~12M in 2024, and is conducting production trials at its new Bengaluru plant  —  Foxconn has also been conducting limited trials at its Bengaluru campus in the last three-four months, signalling swift progress …

Wall Street Journal: Sources detail tensions between Apple and Elon Musk's SpaceX over efforts to expand satellite cellphone services  —  The iPhone maker and SpaceX are competing in the race to eliminate cellphone dead spots, a rift that is set to intensify  —  Apple is clashing with Elon Musk in its push …

Counterpoint Research: Global foldable smartphone shipments increased by just 2.9% YoY in 2024, and shipments are expected to decline by about 4% YoY in 2025  —  - 2024 saw the global foldable market growing at a comparatively flat annual rate of 2.9%.  — Samsung and OPPO's unusually weak Q4 negatively impacted broader market dynamics.

Bethan Staton / Financial Times: Many LinkedIn users put part-time job-level effort to maintain their pages; LinkedIn: 85% of FTSE 100 CEOs have a presence on the platform, up from 12% in 2023  —  More users are chasing high follower counts as the professional network expands its reach  —  Soon after lawyer Paul Verrico posted …

Ernie Smith / Tedium: Apple's current enterprise offerings are built for single machines and have complex virtualization rules, saddling high-end users with inefficient remote setups  —  Whether it was trying to or not, Apple exposed a huge flaw with its pitch to professional video editors with a new Severance promotional video.

Bloomberg: Ethereum is struggling to keep the interest of investors and developers, having fallen out of step in an industry transformed by the embrace of Donald Trump  —  Vitalik Buterin was long viewed as the wunderkind of the cryptocurrency world.  —  The gawky, playful founder of Ethereum …

Abner Li / 9to5Google: Google announces it is rolling out Gemini 2.5 Pro Experimental to all Gemini users, after initially launching it for Gemini Advanced subscribers on March 25  —  In a rather unexpected move, Google announced Saturday that it is rolling out the latest 2.5 Pro (experimental) model to all (free) Gemini app users.

New York Times: A look at the RainbowEx crypto Ponzi scheme, which ensnared 16,000 people in San Pedro, Argentina; different versions of the scam have emerged around the world  —  In San Pedro, Argentina, 16,000 people, a fifth of the population, signed up for a cryptocurrency exchange where everyone won.

Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE: Straiker, which develops tech for securing enterprise AI applications, emerges from stealth with a $21M Series A from Lightspeed and Bain Capital  —  Artificial intelligence-native security company Straiker launched today with an announcement that it has raised $21 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners LP and Bain Capital Ventures.

Ashwin Manikandan / Reuters: Bain and Flipkart report: quick commerce made up over two-thirds of India's e-grocery orders in 2024, with GMV rising nearly five times to $6B-$7B from 2022  —  India's quick commerce sector accounted for over two-thirds of all e-grocery orders last year, with its total market share growing …

Catherine McGrath / Fortune: NYC-based Rain, which issues credit cards that let customers settle payments in stablecoins, raised $24.5M led by Norwest, taking its total funding to $30.5M  —  Rain, which issues credit cards that let customers settle payments in stablecoins, has raised $24.5 million in a funding round led …

Dan Primack / Axios: Brooklyn-based Underdog, a fantasy sports and sports betting app, raised $70M in a first Series C tranche at a $1.23B valuation from Spark Capital  —  Underdog, a Brooklyn-based fantasy sports and sports betting app, tells Axios that it raised $70 million in Series C funding at a $1.23 billion valuation from Spark Capital.

Debarghya Sil / Inc42 Media: Gensol's financial woes have cast doubt on the future of BluSmart, an Indian EV ride-hailing startup founded by Gensol's promoters, Anmol Jaggi and Puneet Jaggi  —  There seems to be no respite for Gensol Engineering and ride-hailing startup BluSmart.  In a fresh development …

Steven Church / Bloomberg: FTX tells a US bankruptcy judge it will make the first payment to its main creditors on May 30 using the $11.4B cash hoard it has collected since shutting down  —  Former cryptocurrency firm FTX will start paying its main creditors at the end of May using a cash hoard of $11.4 billion the company has collected since its shut...

Patience Haggin / Wall Street Journal: Adalytics: DoubleVerify, IAS, and Human Security, paid by advertisers to detect bots, regularly miss such traffic; DoubleVerify missed 21% of bot visits  —  Companies that claim to help brands avoid serving digital ads to bots regularly miss nonhuman traffic

Zac Bowden / Windows Central: In the latest Windows 11 preview build, Microsoft removed the “bypassnro” command, which let users skip signing into a Microsoft Account when installing Windows  —  The popular “bypassnro” command, which let users to skip connecting to the Internet and signing into a Microsoft Account, is being removed.

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters: A US judge rejects Musk's bid to dismiss a lawsuit claiming he defrauded ex-Twitter shareholders by delaying the disclosure of his initial Twitter investment  —  A U.S. judge on Friday rejected billionaire Elon Musk's bid to dismiss a lawsuit claiming he defrauded former Twitter shareholders …

Bloomberg: Source: the new combined entity housing xAI and X is called XAI Holdings and is valued at more than $100B, not including debt  —  - New joint entity is valued at over $100 billion, person says  — X, xAI already partnered on data sharing and Grok distribution

Arsheeya Bajwa / Reuters: Filing: Intel says three board members will not stand for reelection at its 2025 annual meeting, shrinking the size of the board to 11 members  —  Three Intel (INTC.O) board members will not stand for reelection at its 2025 annual meeting, the chipmaker said in a regulatory filing on Thursday …

Bloomberg: Source: hackers broke into Oracle's Cerner servers sometime after January 22 and stole patient data to extort US medical providers; the FBI is investigating  —  - The FBI is investigating the incident from earlier this year  — Hacker used stolen logins to access old servers, Oracle said

Reuters: Sources: Blackstone is evaluating a small minority investment in TikTok's US operations, joining the front-running bid by ByteDance's non-Chinese shareholders  —  Private equity firm Blackstone is evaluating making a small minority investment in TikTok's U.S. operations, according to two people familiar with the matter.

CNBC: Elon Musk says xAI acquired X in an all-stock deal valuing xAI at $80B and X at $33B; xAI was reportedly in talks to raise funds in February at a $75B valuation  —  Elon Musk said on Friday that his startup xAI has merged with X, his social network, in an all-stock transaction that values …

Ben Bergman / Business Insider: Sources: ScaleAI is seeking a valuation as high as $25B in a potential tender offer; it was last valued at $13.8B in a $1B Series F round led by Accel in 2024  —  - Scale AI has become increasingly in demand as companies need to label and sort data to train AI models.

Mackenzie Hawkins / Bloomberg: The Trump administration cut $20M in funding from the Bureau of Industry and Security, which oversees chip export controls, representing ~10% of BIS's budget  —  A White House move to cut 10% of the funding for the agency responsible for semiconductor export controls risks undermining US efforts …

Belle Lin / Wall Street Journal: Anthropic and Databricks ink a five-year deal, expected to jointly generate $100M in revenue, by selling AI tools to businesses developing their own AI agents  —  The AI startup and data company are working together to help businesses build their own artificial intelligence bots …

Dylan Butts / CNBC: Alibaba releases open-source multimodal AI model Qwen2.5-Omni-7B on Hugging Face and GitHub, saying the model can be deployed on edge devices like smartphones  —  Alibaba Cloud launched Thursday its latest AI model in its “Qwen series,” as large language model competition in China continues to heat up following the “DeepSeek moment.”

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Sam Altman says OpenAI will support Anthropic's Model Context Protocol, an open-source standard that connects AI models to data for more relevant answers  —  OpenAI is embracing rival Anthropic's standard for connecting AI assistants to the systems where data resides.

Jordan Novet / CNBC: Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger joins VC firm Playground Global as a GP and the board of portfolio company xLight, which develops lasers for chip manufacturing  —  After a tumultuous four years running Intel, Pat Gelsinger is going into venture capital.  —  Gelsinger, who was ousted …

Ryan Whitwam / Ars Technica: Nvidia releases G-Assist, an experimental, gaming-centric AI chatbot that runs locally and provides real-time system information for a given game  —  Most people use their Nvidia GPUs for games, but why not both?  Nvidia has a new AI you can run at the same time, having just released its experimental G-Assist AI.