~techmeme | Bookmarks (1043)

Ben Jiang / South China Morning Post: Alibaba's AI assistant Quark surpassed ByteDance's Doubao to become China's most popular AI app in March, with ~150M and ~100M MAUs globally, respectively  —  Quark's rapid ascent comes as Alibaba has transformed the app from a cloud storage and search service into an ‘AI super assistant’

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: LiveKit, which offers open-source tools for building apps to transmit real-time audio and video, raised a $45M Series B; LiveKit also powers ChatGPT Voice Mode  —  A challenge for many tech companies is delivering high-bandwidth, multimodal data — for example, simultaneous audio and video …

Martine Paris / Forbes: Sam Altman says ChatGPT users had doubled in the past few weeks and that “10% of the world uses our systems”, which would peg the number closer to 800M users  —  Martine Paris is a San Francisco-based reporter covering trends in AI  —  OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman might …

Sankalp Phartiyal / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple produced $22B worth of iPhones in India in the 12 months ended March 2025, up nearly 60% YoY, and now makes 20% of its iPhones in the country  —  The Cupertino, California-headquartered company now makes 20%, or one in five, of its prized iPhones in the South Asian country …

Kate Pickert / Bloomberg: AI could transform medicine by helping doctors and medical students improve their empathy and bedside manner before they interact with real patients  —  The hope is that artificial intelligence will eventually do much of the work that makes it difficult for doctors to spend enough time with patients.

Belle Lin / Wall Street Journal: A look at the US Energy Department's Argonne National Lab, whose AI-based PRO-AID tool assists in nuclear reactor design and helps operators run nuclear plants  —  Argonne National Lab has an AI-based tool that can help design and operate nuclear reactors—at a time when AI itself is feeding a power frenzy.

James O'Donnell / MIT Technology Review: How the Pentagon uses AI tools from Vannevar Labs, which got a DOD deal worth up to $99M, to scan open-source intelligence, write intelligence reports, and more  —  For much of last year, about 2,500 US service members from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit sailed aboard three ships throughout the Pacific …

Connor Jones / The Register: UK government report: 43% of businesses faced a cyber breach or attack in the past year; phishing was the most common type, affecting 85% of those attacked  —  The UK government's latest annual data breach survey shows the number of ransomware attacks on the isles is on the increase …

Washington Post: Arguments start Monday in the FTC's antitrust suit targeting Meta's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, amid reports Zuckerberg asked Trump to intervene  —  Arguments start Monday in the FTC's blockbuster antitrust suit targeting Facebook's purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp, as Zuckerberg pleads for the White House to intervene.

Bloomberg: India's JioHotstar now has 200M+ paid subscribers, driven by multi-language IPL cricket streams, ranking third-largest globally after Netflix and Prime Video  —  JioHotstar, India's largest streaming platform, has increased its paying subscriber base to over 200 million …

Bloomberg: The Trump administration exempts smartphones, laptops, hard drives, processors, memory chips, and machines used to make semiconductors from reciprocal tariffs  —  President Donald Trump's administration exempted smartphones, computers and other electronics from its so-called reciprocal tariffs …

Financial Times: Trump exempts smartphones from ‘reciprocal’ tariffs after market rout  —  Dispensation is first sign of softening of levies against China and provides a big boost for Apple  —  The Trump administration has excluded smartphones and other consumer electronics from its steep “reciprocal” …

Financial Times: EC president von der Leyen: the EU may tax Big Tech ad revenue, targeting Meta and Google, if Trump trade talks fail and won't revisit its “untouchable” rules  —  European Commission president tells FT she wants ‘balanced’ deal but could hit US services in retaliation

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Despite Trump admin pressure, Apple is unlikely to move iPhone production to the US soon due to facility, labor, and supply chain gaps only Asia can fill now  —  For US President Donald Trump, there would be few bigger victories than having a domestically produced version of the iPhone, one of the most popular tech products in history.

Erin Woo / The Information: Source: Google laid off hundreds of employees in its platforms and devices unit, which works on Android, Pixel, and Chrome, after offering buyouts in January  —  Google on Thursday laid off hundreds of employees in its platforms and devices unit, which works on Android software …

Cristina Criddle / Financial Times: Sources: OpenAI recently gave staff and third-party groups just days, vs. several months previously, to evaluate risks and performance of its latest models  —  Testers have raised concerns that its technology is being rushed out without sufficient safeguards

Ann Cao / South China Morning Post: China discloses details about its ~$8.2B AI Industry Investment Fund, aimed at early-stage investments in AI projects, established with money from the Big Fund  —  The AI Industry Investment Fund was established by the industry and finance ministries with money from the Big Fund

Charles Rollet / TechCrunch: The DOJ charges AI shopping app Nate's ex-CEO, Albert Saniger, with fraud, alleging the app relies heavily on workers in the Philippines; Nate had raised $50M+  —  Albert Saniger, the founder and former CEO of Nate, an AI shopping app that promised a “universal” checkout experience …

Hadlee Simons / Android Authority: Oppo launches the Find X8 Ultra in China, with a 6.82" OLED, a Snapdragon 8 Elite, a 6,100mAh battery, four rear cameras, and 100W charging, starting at ~$890  —  Unfortunately, the Find X8 Ultra isn't coming to global markets.  —  •  —  •  —  • … What if the Pro wasn't enough for you, though?

Jesse Hamilton / CoinDesk: Trump signs a bill repealing IRS rules that treat DeFi platforms as brokers and require them to report user data, the first pro-crypto effort to clear Congress  —  The successful reversal of the Internal Revenue Service rule marks the first time the industry got a significant pro-crypto effort through Congress.

Andrew Liszewski / The Verge: Razer launches Razer PC Remote Play, which streams PC games to mobile devices running Windows 11, iOS 18, iPadOS 18, or Android 14+ at their native resolutions  —  Razer PC Remote Play streams games to mobile devices at their native resolutions and aspect ratios.

Reuters: The cybersecurity industry is quiet after Trump canceled SentinelOne's security clearances on April 9 for hiring Chris Krebs; SentinelOne says it will cooperate  —  The cybersecurity industry has gone mostly quiet after President Donald Trump took action against one of its prominent members.

Sharon Goldman / Fortune: Some Meta insiders fear FAIR is “dying a slow death” as Joelle Pineau exits in May; Yann LeCun says it's “a new beginning” for “Advanced Machine Intelligence”  —  Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist at Meta Platforms Inc. Photographer: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Samantha Subin / CNBC: The Nasdaq closes down 4%, with Meta down 7%, Nvidia down 6%, Amazon down 5%, and Apple down 4%, as the White House says Trump's tariffs on China now total 145%  —  Technology stocks plummeted Thursday and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 4% on the heels of its record-setting session.