~techmeme | Bookmarks (1030)

The Guardian: Researchers unveil Aardvark, an AI weather prediction system that they say uses thousands of times less computing power and is much faster than current methods  —  Researchers say Aardvark Weather uses thousands of times less computing power and is much faster than current systems

Abner Li / 9to5Google: Google adds “smarter search” to Gmail for Android, iOS, and the web, using AI to show the most relevant results instead of showing them in chronological order  —  Google is introducing “smarter search” to Gmail for Android, iOS, and the web that leverages “AI to show you the most relevant results, faster.”

Makena Kelly / Wired: Current and former employees say the FTC removed 300+ business guidance blogs from the Biden era, including info on AI consumer protection and Big Tech lawsuits  —  Business-guidance content published during the Biden administration has been removed from the Federal Trade Commission website.

June Yoon / Financial Times: Chinese firms like Alibaba, Baidu and DeepSeek are open sourcing AI models to bypass US curbs, decentralize development, and tap global talent for refinement  —  The pace of Beijing's open source push has been relentless  —  Retaliation seemed certain.  When the US tightened its grip …

Bloomberg: US sanctions, export controls, and tariff threats are driving TSMC's Taiwan peers, including Foxconn, server maker Wiwynn, and Quanta, to expand US production  —  For Trump, it was a moment to savor on the 43rd day back in office.  For Richard Lee, watching almost 8,000 miles away, it was a call to action.

Counterpoint Research: Global VR headset shipments fell 12% YoY in 2024, with Meta's market share rising to 84%; Vision Pro shipments fell 43% QoQ in Q4, but its enterprise sales grew  —  - Global VR headset shipments fell 12% YoY in 2024, marking their third consecutive year of declines due to the continued weak consumer demand.

Michael Peel / Financial Times: Microsoft partners with Swiss startup Inait to deploy an AI model that simulates mammal brain reasoning to advance fields like financial trading and robotics  —  New artificial intelligence learns from real-world experience rather than pre-existing data  —  Microsoft has joined forces …

Kamila Wojciechowska / Android Authority: A source details how Google built the Pixel 10's Tensor G5 chip without Samsung's help, using in-house and off-the-shelf IP, and partnering with Arm and others  —  The Tensor G5 won't be all that different from the previous generations.  —  •  —  •  —  •  —  TL;DR

Matt Kapko / CyberScoop: Flashpoint: 3.2B credentials were stolen from organizations in 2024, up 33% YoY, of which 2.1B were compromised using info-stealing malware infecting 23M hosts  —  Inexpensive information-stealing malware surged in 2024, infecting 23 million hosts, according to Flashpoint.  —  Learn more.

Reuters: Sources: the real closer for Wiz and Google executives was President Trump's election, which brought with it the prospect of a friendlier antitrust review  —  Less than a year after Google's plans to acquire Israeli cybersecurity firm Wiz fell apart, executives were able to ink a deal …

Moneycontrol: Sources: Indian edtech unicorn PhysicsWallah confidentially filed draft papers for a ~$530M IPO; the startup was valued at $2.8B in September 2024  —  Top edtech unicorn PhysicsWallah has filed draft papers through the confidential pre-filing route to raise Rs 4,600 crore via an initial public offer …

Lauren Thomas / Wall Street Journal: Sources: activist investor Starboard Value plans to nominate a minority slate of director candidates at Autodesk ahead of the company's coming annual meeting  —  Starboard has a more than $500 million stake and plans to nominate a minority board slate  —  Activist investor Starboard Value …

Jessica Mathews / Fortune: Sequoia is laying off its Washington, DC-based policy team and shuttering its office there this month, as other VC firms beef up their presence in the city  —  Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley's most prominent venture capital firms, is laying off its Washington, D.C.-based policy team …

Bloomberg.com: Community Notes, on X and now rolling out on Meta's services, fall short of stopping misinformation; removing rewards for posting misinformation would help more  —  The crowdsourced fact-checking system, which Meta adopted from X, is falling well short of stopping the spread of misinformation.

Financial Times: Sources: investors valued X at $44B in a secondary deal earlier this month; X posted ~$1.2B in adjusted EBITDA in 2024 and is raising $2B in a primary round  —  Social media site was valued at less than $10bn in September  —  Social media site X's valuation has soared back to $44bn …

Financial Times: Sources: US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick urged civil servants in charge of the $42B rural broadband program to increase the project's use of Starlink  —  Commerce secretary urges officials to consider Trump adviser's satellite connection for rural households

New York Times: Trump fires the two Democratic members of the FTC, threatening the independence of the regulator in a decision that is likely to face a legal challenge  —  The decision to fire the two Democratic members of the traditionally independent regulatory body is likely to face a legal challenge.

Scharon Harding / Ars Technica: A RevenueCat report, covering data from 75K+ mobile apps and $10B+ in revenue across 1B+ transactions, shows most apps fail to reach $1K/month after two years  —  If you're frustrated by some of your favorite apps pestering you to sign up for a subscription, some new data may help you empathize with their developers more.

Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch: San Francisco grants Waymo a temporary permit to map SFO roads with human-driven cars, paving the way for future commercial operations  —  Waymo has been given permission to map roadways at the San Francisco International Airport (SFO) via a temporary permit — the first step …

New York Times: Starlink is now accessible across the White House campus, which was already served by fiber cable, after service was “donated”, as some cite security concerns  —  Trump administration officials said the company donated the internet service, saying the gift had been vetted …

Bloomberg: Sources: Cognition, maker of AI coding assistant Devin, raised hundreds of millions led by 8VC at a ~$4B valuation, doubling its $2B valuation from April 2024  —  The new funding round is being led by 8VC, the Joe Lonsdale-backed venture capital firm, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information.

Todd Spangler / Variety: In an open letter to the OSTP, Ben Stiller and 400+ Hollywood creatives urge President Trump to not let Google, OpenAI, and others “exploit” copyrighted works  —  More than 400 Hollywood creative leaders signed an open letter to the Trump White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy …

Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer: A critical Apache Tomcat RCE flaw is being exploited, letting attackers take over servers via a PUT request; Wallarm: the attack “requires no authentication”  —  A critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in Apache Tomcat tracked as CVE-2025-24813 is actively exploited in the wild …

Scharon Harding / Ars Technica: Some owners of devices running Roku OS report seeing autoplaying video ads before they can access the home screen; Roku says it is just a test  —  Now, Roku is testing what it might look like if it took things a step further and forced people to watch a video ad play before getting to the Roku OS home...