~techmeme | Bookmarks (1054)

Joseph Cox / 404 Media: The Signal Clone the Trump Admin Uses Was Hacked  —  A hacker has breached and stolen customer data from TeleMessage, an obscure Israeli company that sells modified versions of Signal and other messaging apps to the U.S. government to archive messages, 404 Media has learned.

Rachyl Jones / Semafor: Zeki: the US risks losing its edge as the top destination for AI talent, as the 12-month rolling average of AI talent entering in 2025 equals the number leaving  —  The US risks losing its edge as the best place in the world to work in tech, according to new reports.

Sara Gharaibeh / Bloomberg: The UAE will add AI to public school curriculum, including ethical awareness and foundational concepts, for kindergarten pupils through to 12th grade this year  —  The United Arab Emirates will introduce artificial intelligence to the public school curriculum this year …

Tim Starks / CyberScoop: President Trump's fiscal 2026 budget proposal suggests slashing $491M from CISA's ~$3B budget, claiming the cut “refocuses CISA on its core mission”  —  A budget summary doesn't give specific details on which programs it would cut, instead providing a broad outline.  —  Learn more.

Jason Schreier / Bloomberg: As Xbox hikes game prices, the three highest-reviewed games of 2025 so far on Metacritic—Clair Obscur, Blue Prince, and Split Fiction—are all budget titles  —  As Xbox announces a price hike, the year's best-reviewed games are all budget titles  —  Hi everyone.

Financial Times: Sources: Huawei is building an advanced chip production line in Shenzhen and is the key player behind three plants, as satellite imagery shows rapid development  —  Rapid expansion of Shenzhen facilities designed to break dependence on foreign technologies  —  Huawei is building a production line …

Joanna Stern / Wall Street Journal: Wearing three AI-powered devices, the $50 Bee Pioneer, $199 Limitless Pendant, and $159 Plaud NotePin, shows how the wearables can be useful but also creepy  —  The Bee, Limitless and Plaud wearables record everything you say and use AI to provide summaries, to-do's—and a slightly terrifying glimpse of the future

Zoltan Vardai / Cointelegraph: Polygon Labs spinout Miden, a zero-knowledge proof-based blockchain project focused on high scalability, raised a $25M seed led by a16z Crypto, 1kx, and Hack VC  —  A16z Crypto led a $25 million investment round into Miden, an independent blockchain project spun out of Polygon Labs.

Aaron Weitzman / Axios: NYC-based Blooming Health, an online coordination network for social service agencies and aging care providers, raised a $26M Series A led by Insight Partners  —  Blooming Health, a social services and health care coordination network, raised a $26 million Series A led by Insight Partners, CEO Nima Roohi tells Axios exclusively.

FinSMEs: Salt Lake City-based Canopy, which provides a firm-wide operating system for accounting, raised a $70M Series C led by Viking Global Investors  —  Canopy, a Salt Lake City, UT-based provider of a firm-wide operating system for accounting, raised $70M in Series C funding.

Jeff St. John / Canary Media: Rhode Island-based Utilidata, which develops AI-enabled smart meters and grid control devices with Nvidia chips for energy utilities, raised a $60.3M Series C  —  Utilidata and Nvidia think their AI-enabled smart meters can help solve tricky grid challenges, from growing data center demand to more rooftop solar and EVs.

Ian Johnston / Financial Times: Ookla: Starlink use rose by 35% above average in Spain and Portugal on April 28, as a widespread electricity outage exposed vulnerabilities in telecoms networks  —  Widespread electricity outage on the Iberian peninsula exposed vulnerabilities in telecoms  —  Spanish and Portuguese mobile …

Tom Matsuda / Sifted: London-based Navro, which develops APIs to enable businesses to send and receive international payments with various payment options, raised a $41M Series B  —  Founder and CEO Aran Brown says the US and Asia are key geographies for expansion  —  Navro, a London-based payments fintech …

Lucy Adams / Tech.eu: Berlin-based Pliant, which helps corporates combine physical and virtual credit cards with automation tools to streamline spending, raised a $40M Series B  —  The company plans to hire additional talent and expand its partner network to facilitate growth.  —  Berlin-based fintech has secured …

Chloe Cornish / Financial Times: Filings: Abu Dhabi-based AI group G42 set-up a US company to boost its presence in the country, as the UAE plans to invest tens of billions of dollars in the US  —  State-backed group accelerates investment plans as it deepens collaboration over the technology

Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE: Minimus, which offers secure, minimal container images and VMs to let enterprises reduce vulnerability exposure in development workflows, raised a $51M seed  —  Application security startup Minimus Inc. today launched at the RSAC 2025 Conference 2025 with an announcement that it has raised $51 million …

Maria Deutscher / SiliconANGLE: Doppel, which provides an AI-powered social engineering detection service for enterprises, raised a $35M Series B led by Bessemer at a $205M valuation  —  Cybersecurity startup Doppel Inc. today disclosed that it has closed a $35 million funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners.

Bloomberg: An in-depth look at the impact of stratospheric pollution from satellite reentries on the ozone layer, as Starlink and others launch more internet satellites  —  for Bloomberg Green + The Big Take May 1, 2025  —  Elon Musk's SpaceX has more than 7,000 satellites in orbit to create its Starlink internet constellation.

Brian Merchant / Blood in the Machine: Duolingo's “AI-first” announcement highlights the unfolding AI jobs crisis, with attrition in creative fields, hiring cuts, declining freelance incomes, more  —  On Monday, April 29th, Luis von Ahn, the billionaire CEO of the popular language learning app Duolingo …

New York Times: Sensor Tower: Temu cut US digital ad spending by an estimated 31% and Shein by 19% in the two week period from March 31 as the de minimis exemption is closed  —  For Meta, Alphabet and other platforms, the elimination of the tariff exemption for inexpensive goods is already cutting into advertising revenue.

Financial Times: Inside Japan's Disco Corp, which makes ~75% of the world's chip cutting tools, and where no staffer has a boss, with decisions made using a currency called Will  —  It's the start of another day for an ordinary Tokyo salaryman.  On a rain-drenched Monday morning, the engineer stows …

Paresh Dave / Wired: Advocacy groups push the California's AG to ensure that OpenAI's becoming a for-profit adheres to the law; OpenAI formed an advisory commission in response  —  A group of activists is turning to an old playbook to influence the future of one of the world's most powerful AI companies.

Ernest Scheyder / Reuters: The US DOD transfers its AI-based Open Price Exploration for National Security program to nonprofit Critical Minerals Forum to boost Western supply deals  —  A U.S. government-created artificial intelligence program that aims to predict the supply and price of critical minerals has been transferred …

Jordan Novet / CNBC: Veza, which helps company administrators manage employee access to applications and data, raised a $108M Series D led by NEA at a valuation of just over $800M  —  Tech giants like Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Nvidia have captured headlines in recent years for their massive investments …