Bookmarks (1049)

Scharon Harding / Ars Technica: A deep dive into Apple TV's privacy features shows that Apple's streaming device is more private than the vast majority of alternatives, save for dumb TVs  —  Using the Apple TV app or an Apple account means giving Apple more data, though. … Among smart TVs, streaming sticks …

Connie Loizos / TechCrunch: Elad Gil, backer of Perplexity, Character.AI, Airbnb, Coinbase, and Stripe, invested in Enam Co., which aims to transform businesses with AI via PE roll-ups  —  Elad Gil started betting on AI before most of the world took notice.  By the time investors began grasping the implications of ChatGPT …

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Samsung and Perplexity in talks about an investment, preloading Perplexity's app on Samsung devices, adding its search to Samsung's browser, and more  —  The two companies are in talks to preload Perplexity's app and assistant on upcoming Samsung devices and integrate …

Justina Lee / Bloomberg: A profile of prediction market Kalshi, which is using its federal financial license to open up sports gambling across the US, even in states where it is illegal  —  Armed with a federal license and allies in Trumpworld, the tech start-up is pushing prediction markets across America into a legal gray zone: sports betting.

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg: Sources: UMG, Warner Music, and Sony Music are in talks to license their work to AI music services Udio and Suno and settle copyright infringement lawsuits  —  Music companies would settle lawsuits with startups they accused of copyright infringement  —  Major music companies are in talks …

Alex Harring / CNBC: How Vancouver-based delivery app Fantuan expanded to 50+ US cities since 2019 by focusing on Asian cuisines, with an app design reminiscent of Chinese platforms  —  NEW YORK - When Kelly Wu feels sick and wants a delivery of congee, the Chinese porridge she grew up eating, she opts for a platform many may not have heard of.

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: A look at Apple's AI plans for WWDC; sources: Apple is testing its 3B, 7B, 33B, 150B AI models via internal Playground tool, and macOS 26 will be named Tahoe  —  Apple, a year after debuting its AI platform, will do little at WWDC to show it's catching up to leaders like OpenAI and Google.

Nitasha Tiku / Washington Post: Researchers say tactics used to make AI more engaging, like making them more agreeable, can drive chatbots to reinforce harmful ideas, like encouraging drug use  —  Tactics used to make AI tools more engaging can drive chatbots to monopolize users' time or reinforce harmful ideas.

Stephen Katte / Cointelegraph: DappRadar: NFT lending market volume is down 97% from a peak of ~$1B in January 2024 to ~$50M in May 2025, with borrower activity down 90% and lenders down 78%  —  Average NFT loan sizes have tanked, which DappRadar's Sara Gherghelas says means users are borrowing against low-value assets or being conservative with leverage.

Samantha Subin / CNBC: A profile of DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, who has transformed the once-scrappy delivery startup into a ~$90B industry consolidator through an acquisition spree  —  During the depths of the Covid pandemic, with restaurants around the country facing an existential crisis, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu had an unconventional proposal.

Kyle Baird / DL News: Meta shareholders overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to explore adding Bitcoin to the company's treasury, with less than 1% voting in favor of the measure  —  Of the 14 proposals on Meta's 2025 ballot, Bitcoin came in dead last.  —  Shareholders overwhelmingly rejected a plan …

The Guardian: An analysis of the top 100 trending TikTok videos under #mentalhealthtips finds 52 contain misinformation, including misused language and quick-fix methods  —  Guardian investigation reveals promotion of dubious advice, questionable supplements and quick-fix healing methods

Josh Eidelson / Bloomberg: Microsoft and the CWA reach a tentative contract agreement for ~300 ZeniMax QA workers after two years of talks, marking Microsoft's first US union contract  —  Vietnam's AI Ambitions Hinge on One $6.8 Billion Tech Company … Explainers

Amar Diwakar / Rest of World: Dubai is emerging as a global hub for AI talent, attracting workers with its Golden Visa program, no taxes, attractive salaries, and ease of setting up business  —  Western job seekers see lucrative offers in the booming AI hub, while others deal with rejections and lower pay.

Nicholas Carr / New Cartographies: AI's real threat to education isn't that it encourages students to cheat, but that it short-circuits the learning processes needed to use generative AI adeptly  —  AI's real threat to education.  —  Among the general public, generative AI's most enthusiastic early adopters have been students.

Jay Peters / The Verge: Twitch plans to start testing the ability to host a vertical livestream and rolls out an open beta of “2K streaming”, letting creators stream at 1440p  —  The platform is also launching an open beta of higher-quality streams. … Twitch is announcing a bunch of updates at TwitchCon Europe …

Pew Research Center: Share of news influencers on Bluesky has doubled after the 2024 US election to 43%, but X remains popular, with 82% of news influencers maintaining an account  —  The Pew-Knight Initiative supports new research on how Americans absorb civic information, form beliefs and identities, and engage in their communities.

Christopher Grimes / Financial Times: Art house streaming service and distributor Mubi raised $100M led by Sequoia at a $1B valuation; Mubi has about 20M registered users worldwide  —  Capital infusion led by Silicon Valley firm comes after box office success of ‘The Substance’  —  Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

NPR: Internal docs show Meta plans to use AI to automate up to 90% of its privacy and integrity risk assessments, including in sensitive areas like youth risk  —  For years, when Meta launched new features for Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook, teams of reviewers evaluated possible risks: Could it violate users' privacy?

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Google quietly released an Android app called Google AI Edge Gallery on GitHub, letting users run some AI models from Hugging Face locally on their phones  —  Last week, Google quietly released an app that lets users run a range of openly available AI models from the AI dev platform Hugging Face on their phones.

Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg: Grow a Garden, a hit game on Roblox, has spawned a market where in-game items are sold for real money on sites like eBay, potentially violating Roblox's ToS  —  At a recent peak on Saturday, May 24, some 8.7 million people were playing at once, roughly the population of Switzerland …

Gabriel Daros / Rest of World: Brazil is piloting dWallet, a digital wallet program that allows users to monetize their data, the first nationwide initiative of its kind in the world  —  Brazil is piloting dWallet, a project that lets citizens earn money from their data.  It is ahead of similar U.S-based initiatives.

Reed Albergotti / Semafor: A Replit employee details a critical security flaw in web apps created using AI-powered app builder Lovable that exposes API keys and personal info of app users  —  THE SCOOP  —  Lovable, the popular vibe coding app that describes itself as the fastest-growing company in Europe …

Vishal Singh / Silicon Canals: London-based Dojo, a payments tech provider to over 140K businesses, raised $190M from Vitruvian Partners in its first equity raise since launching in 2021  —  London-based Dojo, a payments technology provider, has announced an investment of $190M (nearly €168.66M) from global investment firm Vitruvian Partners.

Katherine Davis / Axios: Vivodyne, which uses AI and robots to grow human tissues in the lab for drug discovery and development, raised a $40M Series A, taking its total funding to $78M  —  Vivodyne, a San Francisco-based startup using lab-grown human tissues to discover and develop drugs, raised $40 million in a Series A led by Khosla Ventures.

Courtney Albon / Defense News: Defense tech firm Leidos acquires VA-based Kudu Dynamics, which provides AI-enabled cyber defense and offense tools to the US DOD and other customers, for $300M  —  Defense technology firm Leidos announced Wednesday it closed a $300 million acquisition of Kudu Dynamics, a company that develops AI-enabled cyber capabilities.

Olivia Poh / Bloomberg: Sources: TikTok Shop cuts several hundred jobs in Indonesia, leaving Tokopedia and TikTok Shop with ~2,500 employees in the country, down from ~5,000 last year  —  The Chinese social media giant is reducing staff across e-commerce teams including logistics, operations, marketing and warehousing …

Max Knoblauch / Sherwood News: Nvidia reported record gaming revenue of $3.76B in Q1, up 42% YoY, driven by sales of its Blackwell chips that are used to enhance game graphics through DLSS  —  Nvidia's former cash cow posted record sales in the first quarter, carrying the company to a sales beat.

Bloomberg: Docs and sources: Builder.ai faked business with Bengaluru-based VerSe, which runs the Dailyhunt news app, by “round-tripping” sales worth ~$60M from 2021-2024  —  Builder.ai, the artificial intelligence startup that recently announced plans to declare bankruptcy …

Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: NYC-based Empathy, which runs an online platform providing on-demand tools and guidance for bereaving families, raised a $72M Series C led by Adams Street  —  Ron Gura, cofounder and CEO of Empathy.  —  Empathy  —  Ron Gura doesn't use the word “death” every day.  —  Recommended Video

Bloomberg: Vista Equity Partners agrees to acquire ERP software provider Acumatica from PE firm EQT, sources say in a deal that values Acumatica at ~$2B including debt  —  Vista is buying the Bellvue, Washington-based firm from private equity firm EQT AB, according to a statement Thursday that confirmed an earlier Bloomberg News report.

Chris Metinko / Axios: Boston-based cloud cost management startup CloudZero raised a $56M Series C led by BlueCrest Capital Management and Innovius Capital  —  CloudZero raised $56 million to help companies rein in soaring AI-driven cloud costs, CEO Phil Pergola tells Axios Pro.  —  Why it matters …

Bloomberg: Sources: Elon Musk is pushing lawmakers to help clear a path for driverless vehicles and has been weighing in on revisions of a bill on autonomous vehicles  —  In recent weeks, Musk and people who work for him have been calling members of Congress directly to gather support, said the people …

Reed Albergotti / Semafor: Sources: Anthropic has been lobbying Congress to oppose a bill banning states from regulating AI, and pushed against the recent US AI deal with Gulf states  —  THE SCOOP  —  Anthropic is going toe-to-toe with the Trump Administration on artificial intelligence policy …

Reuters: Sources: Anthropic's annualized revenue hit ~$3B at the end of May, driven by business demand, up from $2B around the end of March and ~$1B in December 2024  —  Artificial intelligence developer Anthropic is making about $3 billion in annualized revenue, according to two sources familiar with the matter …

Wall Street Journal: US v. Google: during closing arguments, a judge queried both sides on ideas to limit Google's monopoly in search and said he expects to issue a ruling in August  —  Lawyers began making closing arguments Friday in landmark antitrust case over online search market, future of artificial intelligence

Washington Post: Sources: the White House is finalizing EOs on drones that could end Chinese drone sales in the US, update federal rules on where drones can be flown, and more  —  President Trump is expected to sign executive orders next week that widen his policies targeting China and Chinese companies.

Axios: Dario Amodei says AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and spike unemployment in the US to 10%-20% in the next one to five years  —  Dario Amodei — CEO of Anthropic, one of the world's most powerful creators of artificial intelligence — has a blunt, scary warning for the U.S. government and all of us:

Katie Notopoulos / Business Insider: Inside Solana Accelerate conference in NYC, which was full of buzz about stablecoins and lacked the over-the-top glitz and pomp of earlier crypto conferences  —  - Solana's Accelerate conference in New York City was full of buzz about stablecoins.  — It lacked the flashy over-the-top goofiness …

Financial Times: The Czech Republic says that the state-sponsored Chinese hacking group APT31 has targeted its foreign ministry's unclassified communications network since 2022  —  ‘Malicious’ assault blamed on group known as APT31 that has been linked with Chinese state security ministry

Anupriya Datta / Euractiv: EU Tech Commissioner Henna Virkkunen says that far more online content is being removed in the EU under the T&Cs of US platforms than as a result of the DSA  —  “Often in the US, platforms have more strict rules with content,” Virkkunen said.  —  Based on facts, either observed …

Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer: GreyNoise researchers detail a novel botnet infecting 9K+ routers from Asus and others with a persistent SSH backdoor, enabling access after reboots and updates  —  Over 9,000 ASUS routers are compromised by a novel botnet dubbed “AyySSHush” that was also observed targeting SOHO routers from Cisco, D-Link, and Linksys.

Financial Times: Sources: X covered some losses usually borne by banks when seven lenders, including Morgan Stanley, sold $1.2B of its debt at 98 cents on the dollar in April  —  Trump's election helped revive loans that once threatened to hit banks with big losses  —  Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free

Sahil Lavingia: Gumroad founder Sahil Lavingia on working as a DOGE software engineer for the VA, says he was let go after his Fast Company interview was published  —  In August 2014, President Obama and Congress created the United States Digital Service (USDS).  —  In January 2025, President Trump signed …

Wall Street Journal: Source: Delaware's AG is hiring an investment bank to independently value the equity that OpenAI's nonprofit parent will hold in the new for-profit entity  —  Startup must determine how to distribute equity in the new public-benefit corporation  —  OpenAI is undergoing a transformation meant …

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica: In a SCOTUS brief, the Trump administration backs Cox's argument that ISPs shouldn't have to terminate customers based on unproven copyright infringement claims  —  The Trump administration is backing cable company Cox in a battle that could determine whether Internet service providers are forced to disconnect users accused of piracy.

Allie Garfinkle / Fortune: Hex, which provides a tool for finding correlations between data points, building predictive models, and running experiments, raised a $70M Series C led by Avra  —  Hex cofounders Glen Takahashi, Barry McCardel, and Caitlin Colgrove.  —  Hex  —  On Memorial Day, the Oklahoma City Thunder's …

Jess Weatherbed / The Verge: Google unveils new Photos features, including a redesigned editor with AI features rolling out globally to Android next month and to iOS “later this year”  —  The UI has been redesigned to focus on Google's AI Magic Editor features.

New York Times: Sources detail factors that weakened Elon Musk's alliance with President Trump, including his frustrations with Trump's tariffs and his disillusionment with DC  —  The billionaire has made clear he is frustrated with the obstacles he encountered as he tried to upend the federal bureaucracy.

Tom Warren / The Verge: Microsoft opens Windows Update to any third-party app that needs to be updated, letting developers sign up for a private preview of a new orchestration platform  —  A new orchestration platform will let developers update any app through Windows Update.