Bookmarks (1043)

Kashish Tandon / Reuters: Flipkart plans to shift its holding company from Singapore to India as Walmart aims to take it public; Flipkart moved the entity to Singapore in 2011  —  Flipkart will shift its holding company from Singapore to India, the e-commerce company said on Tuesday, as its parent Walmart aims to take the 17-year-old company public.

Nilay Patel / The Verge: Q&A with Verizon consumer CEO Sowmyanarayan Sampath on why net neutrality “has gone literally nowhere”, owning Yahoo, FCC probes over DEI, and more  —  Today, I'm talking with Verizon consumer CEO Sowmyanarayan Sampath, who goes by “Sampath.”

Marianna Giusti / Financial Times: Crypto casinos rival traditional betting groups in scale despite being illegal in most countries, with $81.4B in gross gaming revenue in 2024, up 5x since 2022  —  Platforms now rival traditional betting groups in scale despite their services being illegal in most countries

Kate Knibbs / Wired: Bluesky starts rolling out blue check verification, initially limiting verification to select organizations and its moderation team  —  Bluesky's new verification process launches today.  It mixes the old-school, Twitter-style blue check bestowed by the platform with a more decentralized option for trusted organizations.

Charles Rollet / TechCrunch: A Columbia student suspended over a tool to cheat on job interviews says he's raised a $5.3M seed for Cluely, which offers an AI tool to “cheat on everything”  —  On Sunday, 21-year-old Chungin ‘Roy’ Lee announced he's raised $5.3 million in seed funding from Abstract Ventures …

Julian Mark / Washington Post: The US v. Google remedies trial opens with the DOJ arguing that Google should be forced to divest Chrome, and Google calling the proposed remedies “extreme”  —  The remedies trial opens in Washington with the government pushing to break up the company through measures that Google lawyers deem “extreme.”

Emily Mason / Bloomberg: Circle unveils a network designed to link financial institutions and enable real-time settlement of cross-border payments, starting with USDC and EURC in May  —  Powerbeats Pro 2 Review: Best Workout Earbuds Still Lag on Audio Quality  —  Beats' newest exercise headphones are improved, but they face stiffer competition than ever.

Kevin Beaumont / DoublePulsar: Microsoft has improved Recall, but biometrics are only required for setup and users can open it with just a PIN, and sensitive data filtering is unreliable  —  Last year, Microsoft announced Recall, a feature which screenshots your PC every few seconds, OCRs the screenshots and produces …

Erin Woo / The Information: Judge Questions Chrome Divestiture Idea  —  The judge overseeing a hearing to determine how to fix Google's search monopoly on Monday questioned the government's proposal that Google be forced to divest the Chrome browser while signaling support for requiring Google to share some search data with rivals …

Natalie Lung / Bloomberg: Airbnb now shows the full cost of a stay, excluding taxes, in search results by default; a Biden-era FTC rule on “junk fees” is set to go into effect on May 12  —  Powerbeats Pro 2 Review: Best Workout Earbuds Still Lag on Audio Quality  —  Beats' newest exercise headphones are improved …

New York Times: After Meta blocked news on its platforms in Canada, misleading content from right-wing pages like Canada Proud filled the gap ahead of the federal election  —  Hyperpartisan and misleading content from popular right-wing pages such as Canada Proud is thriving on Facebook as the election nears.

NDTV: Google settles an Android TV case with India's competition regulator, will offer standalone licenses for Play Store and Play Services for Android TVs in India  —  This is the first case that has been settled under the amended Competition Act, wherein the settlement and committment provisions were introduced in 2023.

Annie Palmer / CNBC: The US FTC sues Uber, claiming the company charged for Uber One without consent, made it difficult to cancel, and failed to deliver promised savings  —  The Federal Trade Commission on Monday sued Uber, accusing the ride-hailing and delivery company of deceptive billing and cancellation practices tied to its subscription service.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Report: over a thousand international students have had US immigration statuses terminated in 2025; a Caltech ML professor says it's harming the talent pipeline  —  An AI doctoral student in California had their SEVIS record — the digital proof of their valid student visa — terminated, putting their immigration status at risk.

Mia Sato / The Verge: Meta is testing using AI tools in the US to detect teen Instagram users, even if they've lied about their birthday, and place them under Teen Account settings  —  On Instagram, AI tools will detect underage users and automatically change their account settings.

Ben Thompson / Stratechery: Q&A with Dan Kim and Hassan Khan, former officials at the CHIPS Program Office, on subsidizing supply versus coercing demand, the program's future, and more  —  An interview with Dan Kim and Hassan Khan about their work distributing CHIPS program money, and why they are optimistic about U.S. industrial policy going forward.

Ethan Mollick / One Useful Thing: Models like o3 and Gemini 2.5 Pro feel like “Jagged AGI”: unreliable, even at some mundane tasks, but still offering superhuman capabilities in many areas  —  New models and new thresholds  —  Amid today's AI boom, it's disconcerting that we still don't know how to measure how smart …

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch: Paul Graham likened Palantir's ICE work to “infrastructure of the police state”; a Palantir exec said Paul's view is like Google's when it killed Project Maven  —  One of the founders of startup accelerator Y Combinator offered unsparing criticism this weekend …

Ionut Ilascu / BleepingComputer: In a clever attack, hackers were able to send phishing emails that appeared to come from “no-reply@google.com”, after a similar attack on PayPal users in March  —  In a rather clever attack, hackers leveraged a weakness that allowed them to send a fake email that seemed delivered …

Knight First Amendment Institute: A deep dive into AI as a normal technology vs. a humanlike intelligence and how major public policy based on controlling superintelligence may make things worse  —  An alternative to the vision of AI as a potential superintelligence  —  We articulate a vision of artificial intelligence (AI) as normal technology.

Ruth Reader / Politico: After lobbying US Congress to shelve the Senate-passed KOSA bill in 2024, Meta has now made headway in lobbying for an app store age-verification bill  —  The Facebook founder is lobbying Congress to leave his firm alone — and making headway.  —  To protect kids online …

Financial Times: A look at the race to turn brainwaves into fluent speech, as researchers at universities in California and companies use brain implants and AI to make advances  —  Californian researchers and groups such as Precision Neuroscience use implants and AI to make advances in ‘voice prosthesis’

Christopher Grimes / Financial Times: The success of A Minecraft Movie, set to hit $700M in ticket sales globally this weekend, signals Hollywood's breakthrough in adapting video games into films  —  While superhero franchises flag, ‘A Minecraft Movie’ shows the industry has finally cracked the formula for translating popular games into films

Krishnapriya V.S. / The India Forum: India's Open Network for Digital Commerce has struggled to break the near-duopoly of Zomato and Swiggy in online food delivery after cutting back on discounts  —  A near-duopoly of Zomato and Swiggy controls almost 95% of India's digital platform-based food delivery market …

Mark Bergen / Bloomberg: How YouTube is adapting to the AI era; a VP expects that in five years, every video uploaded to YouTube could be dubbed automatically into every spoken language  —  The video giant, turning 20, tries to keep the content spigot flowing while appeasing its army of broadcasters and copyright holders.

Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: Assort Health, which is developing voice AI agents for healthcare to manage patient phone calls, raised a $22M Series A co-led by First Round and Chemistry  —  Assort Health cofounders Jeff Liu and Jon Wang.  —  Assort Health  —  Jon Wang and Jeff Liu met dozens of prospective cofounders—until they met each other.

Katie Fehrenbacher / Axios: Crux, a financing software provider for clean energy companies, raised a $50M Series B led by Lowercarbon Capital, taking its total funding to more than $77M  —  Crux, a clean economy financing software provider, raised a $50 million Series B round to expand its capital platforms, CEO Alfred Johnson tells Axios.

CTech: Plano, Texas-based Tapcheck, which works with companies to let workers access their earnings before payday, raised a $25M Series A extension and $200M in debt  —  Hilton, Taco Bell, and McDonald's among companies using the fintech's on-demand pay service.  —  Tapcheck  —  Funding  —  Fintech

Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: Revel, which builds software for controlling critical hardware like rockets, emerges from stealth with $30M in funding, including a ~$23M Series A led by Thrive  —  Revel founder Scott Morton.  —  Revel  —  Scott Morton's heart rate spiked at the same time, every time.

Ben Weiss / Fortune: Coinbase faces pump-and-dump accusations after its subsidiary Base launched a “content coin” on Zora; Coinbase clarifies that Base will never sell the tokens  —  Jesse Pollak is the creator of Base, a new blockchain from Coinbase.  —  Winni Wintermeyer for Fortune

Fortune: A profile of Bo Hines, a 29-year-old official in the Trump administration who has become the main liaison between the White House and the crypto industry  —  Since his appointment, Bo Hines has become a mini-celebrity in the crypto world—with CEOs, billionaire investors, and lobbyists vying for face time.

Manish Singh / India Dispatch: India's top IT firms, TCS, Infosys, and Wipro, are facing their steepest growth slowdown in years amid global economic uncertainty and geopolitical challenges  —  Infosys, TCS and Wipro report disappointing results as Trump tariffs and economic headwinds prompt corporate caution

The Block: Sources: BOA, principally lobbying through trade associations, is pushing US lawmakers for rules favoring banks over tech companies in stablecoin issuance  —  - Bank of America is lobbying for rules favoring banks over tech firms in stablecoin issuance.  — Circle is positioning itself …

Kentaro Shiozaki / Nikkei Asia: Garment workshops are closing across the “Shein village” in Panyu, China, after the US ended the de minimis exemption; Shein urges suppliers to shift to Vietnam  —  GUANGZHOU — Garment workshops are shuttering across a Guangzhou district dubbed “Shein Village,” …

Ryan Lawler / Axios: API-based background check provider Checkr acquires income and employment verification startup Truework, which had raised $125M+ and was last valued at ~$480M  —  Checkr, an API-based background check provider, is acquiring income and employment verification startup Truework, Checkr CEO Daniel Yanisse tells Axios exclusively.

Emma-Victoria Farr / Reuters: PE firm KKR agrees to acquire and take private Frankfurt-listed IT company Datagroup for about €450M in an all-cash deal expected to close in Q3 2025  —  U.S.-based private equity firm KKR (KKR.N) has reached a deal with Frankfurt-listed Datagroup (D6HG.DE) to buy the firm …

PYMNTS.com: HR management company Paychex acquires Paycor, which provides HR and payroll management software, for $4.1B in an all-cash deal  —  Human capital management (HCM) firm Paychex has announced its acquisition of Paycor HCM, a software company providing HCM, payroll and talent services.

Tripp Mickle / New York Times: The Trump administration's restrictions on AI chip exports by Nvidia, AMD, and Intel to China could help turn Huawei into a global chip-making powerhouse  —  New restrictions on semiconductor exports to China are scrambling sales and fueling concerns that the Chinese tech giant will become a chip-making powerhouse.

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: OpenAI says its new o3 and o4-mini AI models hallucinate more often than its previous reasoning and traditional models, and the company doesn't know why  —  OpenAI's recently launched o3 and o4-mini AI models are state-of-the-art in many respects.  However, the new models still hallucinate …

Steve Lohr / New York Times: Experts say two federal judges declaring Google a monopoly within a year signals a judicial shift toward addressing anticompetitive behavior in digital markets  —  Within a year, two federal judges declared the tech giant a monopoly in search and ad technology.  The tide may be turning for antitrust.

Vince Quill / Cointelegraph: Oregon sues Coinbase, alleging the exchange is selling unregistered securities; Coinbase CLO Paul Grewal says it's a “copycat case” of SEC's now-dropped lawsuit  —  While winning legal victories at the federal level, the crypto industry still faces regulatory hurdles at the state level in the United States.

Douglas Gillison / Reuters: A US judge temporarily halts mass firings at the US CFPB after the agency fired between 1,400 and 1,500 workers, eliminating as much as 90% of its workforce  —  A federal judge on Friday halted the mass firings carried out Thursday afternoon at the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau …

Matthew Gault / 404 Media: A Nevada judge rules that “tower dumps”, the law enforcement practice of grabbing vast troves of private personal data from cell towers, is unconstitutional  —  This article was produced in collaboration with Court Watch, an independent outlet that unearths overlooked court records.

The Verge: Nintendo says Switch 2 preorders will start in the US on April 24, with the price staying at the initially announced $450; prices of accessories will go up  —  The company delayed its original preorder date in the US. … Nintendo has announced a new date for when Switch 2 preorders will kick off in the US; April 24th.

Wall Street Journal: Sources: the EU planned to penalize Meta and Apple on April 15 but delayed the announcement, avoiding conflict with the Trump administration before trade talks  —  Officials postponed an announcement initially planned for this week  —  The European Union recently delayed penalizing Apple …

Coco Liu / Bloomberg: A look at ways AI is being used to cut carbon emissions: calculating fuel-efficient driving patterns, monitoring grid infrastructure, and more  —  Shrinking the world's carbon footprint will require poring over vast datasets to spot solutions — something computers do better and faster than humans.

IDC: China's Q1 2025 smartphone shipments grew 3.3% YoY to 71.6M units; Xiaomi led with 18.6% market share, Apple was the only foreign brand in top 5 with 13.7%  —  Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, China's smartphone market shipped 71.6 million units in 1Q25, a 3.3% year-on-year (YoY) increase.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: ChatGPT users are figuring out the location of photos using o3's image-analyzing capabilities paired with its web search functionality, raising privacy concerns  —  There's a somewhat concerning new trend going viral: people are using ChatGPT to figure out the location shown in pictures.

Stephen Nellis / Reuters: Memo: CEO Lip-Bu Tan flattens Intel's leadership team, with important semiconductor groups reporting directly to him, and names Sachin Katti as CTO and AI chief  —  Intel's (INTC.O) new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, is flattening the semiconductor giant's leadership team, with important chip groups reporting directly …

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: US consumers are flocking to Chinese shopping apps DHgate and Taobao, which let them buy direct from manufacturers, as Shein and Temu prices rise amid tariffs  —  The Chinese e-commerce marketplace app DHgate, which is now the No. 2 free iPhone app in the U.S., isn't the only one that's oddly benefiting …