Bookmarks (1054)

Lulu Yilun Chen / Bloomberg: Sources: Thrive and Capital Group visited China to study its AI scene, joining a wave of US investors rekindling interest in China after DeepSeek's advances  —  Joshua Kushner's Thrive Capital and investment firm Capital Group have in recent months visited China to learn about its AI industry …

Shannon Cuthrell / IEEE Spectrum: A look at Australian startup Cortical Labs' CL1, billed as the first code-deployable biological computer, with 115 units shipping this summer at $35K each  —  World-first biocomputing platform hits the market  —  Shannon Cuthrell is a freelance journalist covering business and technology.

Saritha Rai / Bloomberg: Chinese startup Butterfly Effect's Manus launches text-to-video generation tool in early access for paid users, with plans to roll it out for free to all users  —  Manus unveiled a text-to-video generation feature, entering a competitive segment populated by rivals from OpenAI …

Reuters: AI coding startups are at risk of being disrupted by Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI; source: Microsoft's GitHub Copilot grew to over $500M in revenue last year  —  Two years after the launch of ChatGPT, return on investment in generative AI has been elusive, but one area stands out: software development.

Financial Times: Sources: Toronto-based AI startup Cohere is seeking to raise $500M+ at a valuation of over $5.5B; it raised a $500M Series D at a $5.5B valuation in July 2024  —  Canadian group seeks valuation of up to $6.5bn but rivals have soared far higher in comparison

Jaspreet Singh / Reuters: CEO Alex Bouaziz says Deel crossed $1B annual revenue run rate in Q1 2025 and has allocated an M&A budget of between $200M and $500M in 2025  —  Payroll startup Deel said on Tuesday it crossed $1 billion annual revenue run rate in the first quarter and has earmarked up to $500 million for acquisitions this year to bolster growth.

Sophia Fox-Sowell / StateScoop: A bipartisan group of over 260 US state legislators sign a letter opposing a federal budget bill provision that bans states from enforcing AI laws for 10 years  —  More than 260 state legislators from all 50 states have signed a letter opposing a provision in the federal budget reconciliation bill …

George Hammond / Financial Times: Court filing: Deel alleges Rippling's “competitive intelligence manager” Brett Alexander Johnson posed as a customer to access Deel's product and business info  —  HR start-ups Rippling and Deel trade allegations their leaders directed efforts to steal company secrets from one another

Vildana Hajric / Bloomberg: NYSE Arca files with the SEC to list a Bitcoin ETF linked to Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social and Truth.fi  —  NYSE Group Inc. filed regulatory paperwork on Tuesday to list the Truth Social Bitcoin ETF, using the name of President Donald Trump's social network.

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: Windsurf says Anthropic is limiting its direct access to its AI models, including the newest Claude 4 family and the highly popular Claude 3 models  —  Windsurf, the popular vibe coding startup that's reportedly being acquired by OpenAI, said Anthropic significantly reduced its first-party access …

Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE: Asana reports Q1 revenue of $187.3M, vs. $185.5M est., up 9% YoY vs. 26% last year, and adjusted EPS of $0.05, vs. $0.02 est.; ASAN falls 8%+ after hours  —  Shares in Asana Inc. fell more than 7% in late trading today on investor concerns about slowing revenue growth, after the work management …

Sam Sabin / Axios: Source: ~1,000 people have left the CISA during the second Trump administration, including 750+ taking a buyout, cutting CISA's workforce by nearly a third  —  Roughly 1,000 people have already left the nation's top cybersecurity agency during the second Trump administration …

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch: Qualcomm releases patches to fix a series of vulnerabilities in dozens of chips, including three zero-days that “may be under limited, targeted exploitation”  —  Chipmaker giant Qualcomm released patches on Monday fixing a series of vulnerabilities in dozens of chips …

Thomas Brewster / Forbes: The Trump administration announces plans to reorganize the US AI Safety Institute into the new Center for AI Standards and Innovation  —  The Trump administration has announced plans to reorganize the U.S. AI Safety Institute (AISI) into the new Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI).

Kate Payne / Associated Press: A federal judge temporarily blocks Florida from enforcing a law banning social media accounts for children under 14, saying the law is “likely unconstitutional”  —  A federal judge has barred state officials from enforcing a Florida law that would ban social media accounts for young children …

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 …