~techmeme | Bookmarks (1013)

Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch: Denver-based Multiply Mortgage, which provides an AI-based mortgage origination service for tech employees, raised a $23.5M Series A led by Kleiner Perkins  —  After hitting record lows at the start of the pandemic, mortgage rates began to climb in 2022 and haven't come down significantly since.

Kara Fellows / CBS News: Google says it uncovered 10K+ illegitimate listings, including for fake businesses, on Maps and files a lawsuit against the alleged scammers behind the fraud  —  Google says it uncovered thousands of illegitimate listings, including for fake businesses, on Google Maps and has announced …

Kif Leswing / CNBC: At Nvidia's Quantum Day, Jensen Huang walked back his January comments that cast doubt on the timeline for useful quantum computing and caused a stock selloff  —  Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Thursday walked back comments he made in January, when he cast doubt on whether useful quantum computers would hit the market in the next 15 years.

Cheyenne Ligon / CoinDesk: The US SEC says proof-of-work crypto mining doesn't trigger federal securities laws and mining operators do not need to register their transactions with the SEC  —  In a staff statement published Thursday, the SEC said that both solo mining and mining pool operations would fail the first prong of the Howey Test.

Carolina Millan / Bloomberg: Argentina-based neobank Ualá raised an additional $66M for its Series E, after an initial raise of $300M led by Allianz X at a $2.75B valuation in November 2024  —  Latin American fintech Ualá boosted its Series E round by $66 million in a second close that included participation …

Mike Butcher / TechCrunch: Stockholm-based Rerun, which is building a data stack for “Physical AI” like robots and drones, raised a $17M seed, bringing its total funding to $20.2M  —  As generative AI moves increasingly into the physical world through robotics, vehicles, and drones, the need to map cloud-based AIs …

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.