~techmeme | Bookmarks (1054)

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: Foxconn receives approval from India's cabinet to build a new $435M semiconductor plant, expected to open in 2027, in a joint venture with IT giant HCL Group  —  Foxconn, a key manufacturer for Apple, has received an approval from India's cabinet to build a new 37 billion Indian rupees …

Tom Warren / The Verge: Microsoft extends support for Microsoft 365 apps on Windows 10 until October 10, 2028, after previously announcing plans to end support by October 14, 2025  —  Microsoft 365 apps will continue to get security updates on Windows 10 for another three years.

Kevin McLaughlin / The Information: Source: Arista plans to acquire Broadcom's VeloCloud, a provider of SD-WAN tech to telecoms, for less than $1B: VMware bought VeloCloud for ~$450M in 2017  —  Arista Networks is in the process of acquiring VeloCloud, a Broadcom business unit that sells networking software and hardware …

Jessica Lyons / The Register: The EU's Vulnerability Database project, first announced in June 2024, is now fully operational, while the US's NVD struggles with a backlog of submissions  —  EUVD comes into play not a moment too soon  —  The European Vulnerability Database (EUVD) is now fully operational …

Krisztian Sandor / CoinDesk: Filing: Cantor Equity Partners bought $458.7M in BTC as part of a pending merger with Twenty One Capital, the BTC investment vehicle backed by Tether and others  —  The bitcoin treasury company made the purchase via Tether at an average price of $95,320 per BTC.

Tsubasa Suruga / Nikkei Asia: Sea reports Q1 revenue up 29.6% YoY to $4.84B vs $4.89B est., net profit of $403M vs $23M net loss in Q1 2024, and e-commerce revenue up 28.3% YoY to $3.5B  —  SINGAPORE — Singapore-based consumer tech group Sea on Tuesday posted a net profit of $403 million for the January to March quarter …

Wall Street Journal: Sources: Baidu plans to test its Apollo Go robotaxi service in Switzerland by the end of the year, its first expansion in Europe, and also launch it in Turkey  —  Chinese autonomous-driving companies are racing to extend their competitive advantage abroad as domestic competition mounts

Alan Neuhauser / Axios: UK-based Space Forge, which aims to develop ultra-efficient semiconductors and other materials in orbit, raised a $30M Series A led by the NATO Innovation Fund  —  Space Forge raised $30 million in Series A funding to develop ultra-efficient semiconductors and other advanced materials in orbit, the startup's CEO tells Axios.

Alex Perry / The Information: Amazon's Zoox offers free robotaxi rides to employees and other invited users in Las Vegas, after receiving approval to accept paying customers in Clark County  —  Zoox, the Amazon-backed robotaxi company, has been offering free robotaxi rides in Las Vegas to some users over an app that staff refer to as Concierge.

Bloomberg: Former employees, analysts, VCs, and executives detail how DeepSeek works and how it fits into China's broader AI ambitions  —  The company's sudden emergence illustrates how China's industry is thriving despite Washington's efforts to slow it down.  —  With his wispy frame and reserved style …

The Information: Sources: TikTok has been working on a new feature that will allow US users to share photos over DMs inside the app and also plans to introduce voice messaging  —  TikTok has been working on a new feature that will allow users in the U.S. to share photos over direct messages inside the app …

Samantha Subin / CNBC: eToro prices its shares at $52 for its IPO, above its expected range of $46 to $50, raising nearly $310M and valuing the company at about $4.2B  —  EToro, a stock brokerage platform that's been ramping up in crypto, has priced its IPO at $52 a share, as the company prepares to test the market's appetite for new offerings.

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: Glass Imaging, which develops AI-powered software to improve digital image quality, raised a $20M Series A led by Insight Partners  —  Glass Imaging, a company harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to revolutionize digital image quality, raised $20 million in funding.

Tina Nguyen / The Verge: Trump's acting replacements for the Copyright Office are known to be unfriendly to the tech industry and not the kind of people that AI proponents would support  —  What initially appeared to be a power play by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) …

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch: WhatsApp v. NSO Group: NSO kept targeting WhatsApp users even after Meta sued, it spent $59M on R&D in 2024, and its customers pay ~$3M-$30M to use Pegasus  —  On Tuesday, WhatsApp scored a major victory against NSO Group when a jury ordered the infamous spyware maker to pay …

Ian King / Bloomberg: AMD and Humain partner to invest up to $10B on AI infrastructure over the next five years, including in data centers stretching from Saudi Arabia to the US  —  Silicon Valley Is Coming for the Pentagon's $1 Trillion Budget  —  The Trump administration wants startups to remake the US military …

Tage Kene-Okafor / TechCrunch: Cairo-based Nawy, Africa's largest proptech platform combining listings with brokerage services, raised a $52M Series A led by Partech Africa  —  For decades, buying property in Egypt meant navigating a fragmented real estate market, relying on personal networks, dealing with commission-driven brokers …

Alex Wilkins / New Scientist: A look at Foresight, an AI model trained on anonymized NHS data from 57M people in England, which could help predict diseases or forecast hospitalization rates  —  The makers of an AI model called Foresight say it could help predict disease or hospitalisation rates, but others have expressed concern …

Ernesto Van der Sar / TorrentFreak: How OpenDNS, Cloudflare, and Google responded to EU court orders to block DNS resolution for pirate sites; OpenDNS left France and Belgium instead of complying  —  Pirate site blocking orders issued against DNS resolvers including OpenDNS, Google, and Cloudflare are stacking up in Europe.

Jo Constantz / Bloomberg: A look at “AI-native” startups, which integrate AI into their workflows and team structures, allowing them to operate with fewer employees and consolidate tasks  —  Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy is now trying to tame the bureaucracy this created, arguing the company needs …

Will Knight / Wired: Singapore unveils a blueprint for global collaboration on AI safety, developed in consensus with researchers and experts from the US, China, and other countries  —  In a rare moment of global consensus, AI researchers from the US, Europe, and Asia came together in Singapore to form a plan for researching AI risks.

Lulu Garcia-Navarro / New York Times: Q&A with Whitney Wolfe Herd about returning as Bumble CEO, Tinder lawsuit, being bullish about using AI in dating apps, funding for female founders, and more  —  Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times  —  It feels like a lifetime ago, but when Whitney Wolfe Herd co-founded her first company …

Nicole Kobie / Wired: As the consumer metaverse falters, the World Economic Forum projects the industrial metaverse will reach $100B by 2030, led by platforms like Nvidia Omniverse  —  Forget Mark Zuckerberg's vision of VR meetings; the industrial metaverse bridges digital and physical worlds in a way that's actually useful.

Financial Times: Sources: OpenAI is negotiating with Microsoft to enable a future IPO; Microsoft offers to cut its equity stake for continued access to OpenAI tech beyond 2030  —  High-stakes talks to revise terms of multibillion-dollar partnership are key to plans to adopt for-profit model