~techmeme | Bookmarks (1054)

Bloomberg: Takeaways from Computex 2025: little focus on consumer AI, Chinese AI and chip advances loom large, Intel and Nvidia courting Taiwanese partners, and more  —  With much of the world's attention on the AI race between the US and China, this week's Computex conference served as a stark reminder …

Financial Times: Sources: Telegram told investors ahead of a ~$1.5B bond offering that revenue reached $1.4B in 2024, up from $343M in 2023, and net profit reached $540M in 2024  —  Messaging app's finances are booming even as chief Pavel Durov fights French case over alleged content failings

Rebecca Dzombak / New York Times: Microsoft researchers and others detail Aurora, an AI weather model they say makes accurate 10-day forecasts faster and at smaller scales than many other models  —  A Microsoft model can make accurate 10-day forecasts quickly, an analysis found.  And, it's designed to predict more than weather.

Olga Kharif / Bloomberg: A profile of Bill Zanker, who sources say has been key in marketing the $TRUMP memecoin and organizing a dinner with Trump for the top 220 holders of the coin  —  A dinner on Thursday in Washington — billed as the “Most Exclusive Once in Lifetime Invitation” — is the latest …

Turner Wright / Cointelegraph: An NY jury convicts Braden John Karony, the former CEO of cryptocurrency company SafeMoon, of conspiracy to defraud the US, money laundering, and wire fraud  —  A New York jury found Braden John Karony, the former CEO of cryptocurrency company SafeMoon, guilty of three felony charges after less than a day of deliberation.

Andre Romani / Reuters: Marcos Galperin, founder and CEO of Latin American e-commerce giant MercadoLibre, will step down in late 2025 and be replaced by commerce head Ariel Szarfsztejn  —  Marcos Galperin, who founded e-commerce giant MercadoLibre (MELI.O) and built it into Latin America's most valuable listed company …

Berber Jin / Wall Street Journal: Leaked recording: Sam Altman told staff that OpenAI aims to ship 100M AI “companion” devices, with the goal of releasing a device by late next year  —  Idea is a 'chance to do the biggest thing we've ever done as a company here,' Altman told OpenAI employees Wednesday

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: NYC-based Siro, which offers AI-powered coaching for sales reps, raised a $50M Series B led by SignalFire, bringing its total raised to $75M  —  An increasing number of meetings have an AI note-taker present that transcribes the call and provides action items.

Kurt Schlosser / GeekWire: Amazon introduces AI shopping experts, an audio feature that summarizes product details, customer reviews, and more, on select products for some US customers  —  In-depth Amazon coverage from the tech giant's hometown, including e-commerce, AWS, Amazon Prime, Alexa, logistics, devices, and more.

Tom Warren / The Verge: Microsoft says it's reducing “politically focused emails” within the company, as workers are unable to send emails mentioning “Palestine”, “Gaza”, or “genocide”  —  Employees discovered that emails with a variety of terms related to Gaza and Palestine have been blocked internally.

Kevin Collier / NBC News: Nansen: the 220 winners of Trump's May 22 dinner contest spent $394M total on the $TRUMP token, with the top seven spending $10M+ each and a third $1M+ each  —  In total, the 220 winners of the contest to attend the dinner spent $394 million on Trump's official cryptocurrency.

Anthony Hughes / Bloomberg: Digital physical therapy provider Hinge Health raised $437M in its US IPO, after the company and its backers sold 13.7M shares at $32 each, the top of its range  —  The company and backers including Tiger Global Management and Insight Partners sold about 13.7 million shares in aggregate for $32 each, according to a statement Wednesday.

Sharon Goldman / Fortune: Google DeepMind says Gemini Diffusion, an experimental text diffusion model demoed at Google I/O and available by waitlist, generates 1,000-2,000 tokens/second  —  Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, at Google I/O 2025 in Mountain View.  (Photo courtesy of Google)

Sidhartha Shukla / Bloomberg: A look at South Korea's Bithumb as it preps for a 2025 IPO; Kaiko says Bithumb held 36% of the country's crypto trading in Jan. 2024, up from 11.5% in Jan. 2023  —  After years spent in the shadow of larger rival Upbit, crypto exchange Bithumb is clawing back a more meaningful share of South Korea's tightly held digital-assets market.

Bloomberg: Sources: Nintendo picked Samsung to make Switch 2 chips, aiming to ramp output and sell 20M+ units by March 2026, a key win for Samsung as it competes with TSMC  —  Securing a contract for one of the summer's hottest new gadgets will likely help lift utilization or boost business for the Korean conglomerate's chip foundries.

Steven T. Dennis / Bloomberg: GENIUS Act, a stablecoin bill, advances in the US Senate after a group of Democrats dropped their opposition, marking a major win for the crypto industry  —  Stablecoin legislation overcame a procedural blockade in the US Senate, marking a major victory for the crypto industry after a group of Democrats dropped their opposition Monday.

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: Nvidia unveils Isaac GR00T N1.5, an open, customizable AI model for humanoid reasoning and skills, and GR00T-Dreams, a tool for generating synthetic motion data  —  Nvidia said it is racing ahead with humanoid robotics technology, providing a custom foundation model for humanoid reasoning …

Kevin T. Dugan / Wall Street Journal: New lawsuit filings: Genesis creditors accuse Barry Silbert of fraud and propelling the 2022 crypto market collapse by misrepresenting his companies' finances  —  Creditors' lawsuits allege the crypto winter began earlier than believed, and with actions by Digital Currency Group's founder, Barry Silbert

MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC: The California Public Utilities Commission approves Waymo's proposal to expand its services to more parts of the Bay Area, including “nearly all of San Jose”  —  Alphabet's Waymo unit has received approval to expand its autonomous ride-hailing service to more parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, including San Jose.

Bloomberg: Huawei launches its first laptops running on HarmonyOS, including the 18-inch foldable MateBook Fold, and is working to make the OS compatible with 2,000+ apps  —  The company's HarmonyOS is now ready to run on the MateBook Fold, its latest foldable laptop, consumer chief Richard Yu said Monday.

Clare Duffy / CNN: The US House Budget Committee advances a budget bill that would ban US states from enforcing any law regulating AI for 10 years; the bill now goes to the House  —  New York CNN —  —  More than 100 organizations are raising alarms about a provision in the House's sweeping tax …

Todd Spangler / Variety: SAG-AFTRA files an NLRB unfair labor practice charge against Epic's Llama Productions for using AI to recreate James Earl Jones' Darth Vader voice in Fortnite  —  The actors union said Epic-owned Llama Productions “chose to replace the work of human performers with AI technology” …

Bloomberg: Source: the US DOJ has opened a probe into a recent data breach at Coinbase; Coinbase says it's working with the DOJ and other law enforcement agencies  —  Investigators, including those in the department's criminal division in Washington, are digging into the circumstances surrounding the breach …

Washington Post: Investigation: New Orleans police secretly scanned city streets with 200+ facial recognition cameras for two years, seemingly defying a 2022 city ordinance  —  Following records requests from The Post, officials paused the first known, widespread live facial recognition program used by police in the United States.