~techmeme | Bookmarks (1030)

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.

Vikki Blake / GamesIndustry.biz: The UK's home secretary criticizes Steam for hosting No Mercy, a game with sexual violence, rape, and incest; Steam removed it in the UK, Australia, and Canada  —  UPDATE: The game has been removed from Steam in the UK, Australia, and Canada  —  CW: This story contains references …

Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch: BeReal rolls out in-feed ads in the US, after Voodoo acquired it for €500M; BeReal says it has ~40M MAUs, including 5M in the US, and 85% of its users are Gen Z  —  It's time for BeReal to get real — it's difficult to turn a profit on a social photo-sharing app without selling ads or memberships.

Stephen Nellis / Reuters: nEye Systems, which is developing data center chips that use light to send data, raised a $58M Series B led by CapitalG, bringing its total funding to $72.5M  —  NEye Systems, a startup developing a new kind of networking chip for artificial intelligence data centers, on Thursday raised $58 million …

Wall Street Journal: X's merger with xAI caps its yearslong turnaround push; sources say X's revenue fell to $2.6B in 2024, down from $3B in 2023 and about $4.6B in 2022  —  xAI merger capped social-media company's yearslong turnaround push  —  A crowd of investors gathered at Morgan Stanley's New York office …

Ilya Gridneff / Financial Times: Docs: Canadian telecom Bell is lobbying to block Starlink subsidies, as Canada-US tensions and Musk's Trump ties put his satellite business under more scrutiny  —  Rival telecoms group Bell is lobbying for the Musk-owned group to be excluded for financial support for Far North region

Georgia Butler / DatacenterDynamics: Microsoft is backing away from its October 2024 plan to invest $1B in three Ohio data centers, the latest in a string of its data center project cancellations  —  Another data center project bites the dust  —  Microsoft has backed out of plans to build data centers in Licking County, Ohio.

Nikkei Asia: Sources: to offset tariffs, Apple, Dell, and others pressed suppliers to fly as many premium devices as possible to the US, especially those priced above $3,000  —  TAIPEI/PALO ALTO, California — Ever since Donald Trump was elected president back in November, the world's biggest electronics brands …

Moneycontrol: Pune, India-based online payments firm Easebuzz raised a $30M Series A led by Bessemer, says revenue grew 2x+ YoY to ~$78M in FY 2025 while staying profitable  —  The company's revenue doubled to Rs 650 crore in FY25, up from Rs 294 crore in the previous fiscal, while maintaining profitability

Will Canny / CoinDesk: Ripple agrees to acquire prime brokerage Hidden Road for $1.25B; Hidden Road plans to use Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin as collateral across its platform  —  Among other things, the deal is expected to strengthen Ripple's stablecoin ambitions.  —  What to know:

David Prosser / Forbes: London-based NexGen Cloud, which offers a GPU-as-a-service cloud for clients that need flexible access to train AI, raised a $45M Series A at a $354M valuation  —  As the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has swept round the world over the past two years, the space has largely been dominated by US technology businesses.

The Verge: A look at the rise of “Frankenstein” laptops in India, made by salvaging parts from multiple brands and sold to students, gig workers, and small businesses  —  In a dimly lit, cluttered workshop in Delhi's Nehru Place, the air hums with the sound of whirring drills and the crackle of soldering irons.

Theo Wayt / The Information: Amazon expands Haul, its Temu competitor, to offer name-brand items from Amazon's US inventory, as the US plans to end de minimis tariff exemptions on May 2  —  Amazon is broadening its Temu bargain shopping competitor, Haul, to offer a wider variety of goods, including name-brand items …