~techmeme | Bookmarks (1051)

Julie Bort / TechCrunch: Former YC President Geoff Ralston launches Safe AI Fund, or SAIF, providing initial funding of $100K with a $10M cap to startups that “enhance AI safety”  —  Geoff Ralston, well-known in the startup community for his years at Y Combinator, is back in the formal investing ring, he announced Thursday.

Kyle Barr / Gizmodo: Framework Laptop 13 review: it's modular and customizable, has a great keyboard and improved thermals, but it's pricey and the screen's brightness can be better  —  The Framework 13 now feels like a laptop that's more than a modular, repairable novelty.  It's now a device that's a joy to both build and use.

Jess Weatherbed / The Verge: Google is offering its Google One AI Premium plan for free to US college students until spring 2026; students have until June 30, 2025, to sign up  —  That's more than a year of free access to Gemini tools.  —  Google is the latest AI service provider to court users in higher education.

Suvashree Ghosh / Bloomberg: Analysis: stablecoins' market value rose ~4.5% from the end of February to a new high of ~$234B in April, as crypto traders sat out the market volatility  —  In stable condition  —  As volatility took over global markets over the past couple of months, one part of the volatile digital asset market quietly grew: stablecoins.

Nikkei Asia: Trump's planned tariffs on chip imports risk upending a global supply chain and could lead to oversupply as the US and other countries seek domestic production  —  TOKYO/PALO ALTO, U.S. — The Trump administration's steps toward extending its tariffs to the semiconductor industry threaten …

Krishn Kaushik / Financial Times: A look at India's efforts to catch up in the AI race, as the government reviews 67 bids from startups and research labs seeking funding for domestic AI models  —  Modi's government seeks private sector backing to scale up LLMs and spur research  —  India is betting on the tradition of …

Debaroti Adhikary / Moneycontrol: Indian food delivery and quick commerce platform Swiggy launches Pyng, an online marketplace to let users find verified professionals like financial advisors  —  The app will help connect customers to verified professions including health & wellness experts, financial advisors …

Pranav Mukul / The Economic Times: Goldman Sachs Alternatives acquires India-based HR SaaS company PeopleStrong from Multiples PE, sources say for $130M; Tracxn: Multiples PE held an 84.3% stake  —  This is a second major private equity buyout deal of a SaaS firm this year, after Singapore-based private equity firm Everstone …

PYMNTS.com: Cape Town-based Stitch, which provides an online payments suite to enterprises, raised a $55M Series B led by QED Investors, bringing its total funding to $107M  —  South Africa-based payments infrastructure company Stitch raised $55 million in a Series B funding round to expand its offerings for enterprise merchants.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: xAI unveils Grok Studio, a canvas-like tool for its Grok chatbot that can generate and edit documents, run code like Python and JavaScript, and more  —  Grok, the chatbot from Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, has gained a canvas-like feature for editing and creating documents and basic apps.

Justin Dawes / Skift: São Paulo-based Onfly, which offers a corporate travel and expense management service, raised a $40M Series B led by Tidemark to expand further into LATAM  —  SKIFT TAKE  —  This is the second business travel startup in the last three weeks that has raised money to expand in Latin America.

Ben Weiss / Fortune: OKX relaunches in the US and unveils a new crypto wallet for users, two months after a $500M DOJ settlement over insufficient anti-money laundering processes  —  Seychelles-based OKX announced on Tuesday that it is relaunching the U.S. version of its crypto exchange and unveiled a new wallet …

Natasha Mascarenhas / The Information: PitchBook: US startups raised $91.5B in Q1 2025, up 116% YoY, while the number of deals fell 25% YoY to 3,003, as more money went into fewer very large rounds  —  U.S. startups raised $91.5 billion in the first quarter, up 116% from the year ago to the highest level since the fourth quarter of 2021 …

Business Insider: Email: Mark Zuckerberg offered to buy Snapchat for $6B in 2013; Zuckerberg testified that he thought Snapchat “wasn't growing at the potential that it could”  —  - Mark Zuckerberg's failed Snapchat bid resurfaced in Meta's antitrust trial.  — And the Meta boss seems like he hasn't fully moved on.

Max A. Cherney / Reuters: Sources: chip industry executives told US officials and lawmakers that Trump's new tariffs could cost US semiconductor equipment makers more than $1B a year  —  U.S. President Donald Trump's new tariffs could cost U.S. semiconductor equipment makers more than $1 billion a year …

David DiMolfetta / Nextgov/FCW: Mitre, the nonprofit research organization behind the CVE program, says the US government funding needed to develop and operate CVE will expire on April 16  —  The U.S. government funding needed for non-profit research giant MITRE to develop, operate and maintain its flagship Common Vulnerabilities …

Jay Peters / The Verge: OpenAI is adding an image library to ChatGPT to make it easier for users to access their AI-generated images, rolling out to all Free, Plus, and Pro users  —  The new Library is rolling out now to all Free, Plus, and Pro users. … OpenAI is adding an image library to ChatGPT to make it easier …

Abner Li / 9to5Google: Google plans to redirect all Search users to google.com over the coming months, saying “country-level domains are no longer necessary”  —  Historically, Google users around the world have visited country-specific sites like google.com.br (Brazil), google.fr (France), or google.co.uk (UK).

Camomile Shumba / CoinDesk: At the request of South Korean regulator, Apple blocked 14 and Google blocked 17 crypto apps, including exchanges KuCoin and MEXC, from their app stores  —  South Korean regulators will continue to block unreported virtual asset operators from accessing domestic sites, a statement said.  —  What to know:

Bloomberg: India plans to add 200M-300M UPI users, including via delegated accounts for kids, and pitch UPI abroad; PwC: India makes up ~46% of global digital transactions  —  - India accounts for 46% of world's digital transactions  — Its government is pitching UPI to diaspora-heavy countries

Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asia: Sources: TSMC is close to finalizing specs for a new chip packaging method, known in the industry as “panel-level”, to meet rising demand for powerful AI chips  —  TAIPEI — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is close to finalizing the specifications for a radically new approach …

Ike Swetlitz / Bloomberg: Science Corp., which was started by Neuralink co-founder Max Hodak to develop a retina and brain implant system, raised over $100M led by Khosla Ventures  —  “We have a philosophy of investing in companies that are early and make bold bets and can be impactful for the future,” said Shernaz Daver …

Anton Shilov / Tom's Hardware: AMD announces its first 2nm silicon fabricated on TSMC's N2 process, set to debut on its 6th-gen EPYC “Venice” chip, which is expected to launch in 2026  —  First 2nm HPC design.  —  In a rather unexpected turn of events, AMD announced late on Monday that it had obtained …

Reuters: South Korea increases assistance to semiconductor industry by ~25% to $23.25B amid US tariffs, competition with China; the sector represents 21% of its exports  —  South Korea announced on Tuesday an increase in its support package for the country's vital semiconductor industry to 33 trillion won …