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<!--[if !gte mso 9]><!----><span class="mcnPreview Text" style="display:none; font-size:0px; line-height:0px; max-height:0px; max-width:0px; opacity:0; overflow:hidden; visibility:hidden; mso-hide:all;">Test conversations with some Meta AI digital companions, including celebrity-voiced ones, show them engaging in sexual chats even when users identify </span><!--<![endif]-->
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<td class="page_date" style="vertical-align:middle;text-align:right;color:#004860;font-weight:700;padding-right:10px">Sun, Apr 27</td>
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<span style="color:#455;font-weight:bold;">Tomorrow's events: </span>
<span class="event"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=4496f8fd49&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;">Web Summit Rio (day 2)</a>, </span>
<span class="event"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=3568197070&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;">Earnings: NXPI</a>, </span>
<span class="event"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=35f101b01c&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;">RSA Conference</a></span>
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top news
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<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="first_story first_in_section big_story">
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<span class="title" style="font-size: 24px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=4d7f198f21&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Test conversations with some Meta AI digital companions, including celebrity-voiced ones, show them engaging in sexual chats even when users identify as minors</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Jeff Horwitz / </span><span class="pub_name">Wall Street Journal</span>)</span>
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<span class="excerpt">Chatbots on Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp are empowered to engage in ‘romantic role-play’ that can turn explicit.</span>
<span class="cite">(Jeff Horwitz / Wall Street Journal)</span>
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<div class="tweet" style="padding: 1px 0;">
<img class="tweet_image" width="12" src="https://techmeme.com/img/twitter_x.png" style="width: 12px;">
<a class="tweet_cite" href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=0f44be88f9&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: black;">@andrewcurran_:</a>
<a class="tweet_body" href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=6312b0428b&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: black;">I think part of the reason we are suddenly seeing this general shift in model personas towards increasingly humanlike behavior is that a lot of the big labs looked at character ai's engagement numbers a while back and decided maybe they were too hasty on anthropomorphism. [image]</a>
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<div class="tweet" style="padding: 1px 0;">
<img class="tweet_image" width="12" src="https://techmeme.com/img/twitter_x.png" style="width: 12px;">
<a class="tweet_cite" href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=56994bdcd7&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: black;">@zamaan_qureshi:</a>
<a class="tweet_body" href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=cbf55a6cba&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: black;">This Meta statement is also infuriating. It's not taking responsibility, it's doubling down and... pointing fingers at the WSJ?? [Screenshot: “The use-case of this product in the way described is so manufacured that it's not just fringe, it's hypothetical, nevertheless, we've now taken additional measures to help ensure other individuals who want to spend hours manipulating our products into extreme use cases will have an even more difficult time of it"]</a>
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<div class="tweet" style="padding: 1px 0;">
<img class="tweet_image" width="12" src="https://techmeme.com/img/twitter_x.png" style="width: 12px;">
<a class="tweet_cite" href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=ee4f4160a4&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: black;">@mattyglesias:</a>
<a class="tweet_body" href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=076b415f24&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: black;">This seems like a bad idea [image]</a>
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<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="big_story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
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<span class="title" style="font-size: 24px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=d0b539d67d&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Sources: XAI Holdings, the newly combined entity housing xAI and X, is in talks to raise roughly $20B, or possibly more, valuing the company at more than $120B</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="pub_name">Bloomberg</span>)</span>
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<img src="https://www.techmeme.com/250425/i32.jpg">
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<span class="excerpt">Elon Musk's XAI Holdings is in talks with investors to raise roughly $20 billion … </span>
<span class="cite">(Bloomberg)</span>
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<ul style="padding:0px 10px 0px 0px;">
<li class="sub_item" style="margin:10px 0 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=3142ab67e9&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Docs and sources detail the opaque market for shares of Elon Musk's private companies; Valor recently offered investors $1B worth of shares in SpaceX and xAI</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="pub_name">Wall Street Journal</span>)</span>
</li>
<li class="sub_item" style="margin:10px 0 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=39453f65a9&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">A profile of Saudi billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed, who, along with his investment firm Kingdom Holding, is the second-biggest shareholder in XAI Holdings</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Devon Pendleton / </span><span class="pub_name">Bloomberg</span>)</span>
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<span class="label" style="display: block;color: #686860;font-size: 12px;font-weight: bold;padding: 2px 0;">SPONSOR</span>
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=74eb9aaaa9&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">SignalFire raises another $1 billion to back applied AI startups</a></span>
<span class="excerpt" style="color: black;font-size: 16px;"> — We build AI too. It tracks 650M tech employees so we can help companies with recruiting and GTM across enterprise, infra, healthcare, security, and consumer.</span>
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<a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=84b3d92d61&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;">
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<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="big_story">
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<span class="title" style="font-size: 24px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=5fcdd14fc3&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">While Apple's iPhone manufacturing in India matches China in quality, making the extraordinarily complex 20th anniversary iPhones outside China remains doubtful</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Mark Gurman / </span><span class="pub_name">Bloomberg</span>)</span>
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<td style="padding: 0 10px;vertical-align:top;">
<div class="narrow_image" style="position:relative;">
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<span class="excerpt">Apple has begun breaking up its AI and machine learning organization by moving pieces to other parts of the company.</span>
<span class="cite">(Mark Gurman / Bloomberg)</span>
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<div class="tweet" style="padding: 1px 0;">
<img class="tweet_image" width="12" src="https://techmeme.com/img/twitter_x.png" style="width: 12px;">
<a class="tweet_cite" href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=75d18005b2&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: black;">@markgurman:</a>
<a class="tweet_body" href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=abfbec0c0d&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: black;">The latest on Meta racing to get smart glasses with a display out this year - including weekend work — and Apple's own development of non-AR glasses (N50). </a>
</div>
<div class="tweet" style="padding: 1px 0;">
<img class="tweet_image" width="12" src="https://techmeme.com/img/twitter_x.png" style="width: 12px;">
<a class="tweet_cite" href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=d2a6ebd5b0&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: black;">@markgurman:</a>
<a class="tweet_body" href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=ede868cb44&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: black;">Apple won't be able to make every US iPhone in India by 2027. I don't see a scenario where 20 year anniversary iPhones - foldable & glass centric model - are made in India. Apple has never produced a major new design outside China for the first go-around. </a>
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<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
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<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=46afb4b376&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">India faces a shortage of agentic AI professionals, with executives estimating fewer than 100K in the country while demand is projected to hit ~200K by 2026</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Prachi Verma / </span><span class="pub_name">The Economic Times</span>)</span>
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<table class="clustered_items" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
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<ul style="padding:0px 10px 0px 0px;">
<li class="sub_item" style="margin:10px 0 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=a3742e58ab&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Experts say that India is behind China in deep tech innovation due to its historical focus on services, lower R&D investment, and a brain drain of AI talent</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Furquan Ameen / </span><span class="pub_name">Rest of World</span>)</span>
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<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
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<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=e667824423&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">US v. Google: Chrome's GM testified that other companies cannot develop Chrome effectively, given the browser's “interdependencies” on other parts of Google</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Leah Nylen / </span><span class="pub_name">Bloomberg</span>)</span>
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<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
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<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=bcff40ae3b&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Stripe plans to test a stablecoin payments product aimed at companies outside the US, the UK, and the EU, using tech from Bridge, which Stripe acquired in 2024</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Francisco Rodrigues / </span><span class="pub_name">CoinDesk</span>)</span>
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<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
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<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=7ca6eeb202&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Sources: Huawei has approached some clients about testing the technical feasibility of the Ascend 910D, its newest AI chip that it hopes will beat Nvidia's H100</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="pub_name">Wall Street Journal</span>)</span>
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<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
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<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=29328b0637&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">a16z, which has a ~20% stake in Deel worth $2.5B+, is advising Deel in fighting Rippling, whose CEO, Parker Conrad, said a16z pushed him out of Zenefits in 2016</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="pub_name">The Information</span>)</span>
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<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
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<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=898dfbc92e&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Trump's tariffs could slow robot adoption in the US, as demand weakens and supplies of components from China, like magnets and precision bearings, are disrupted</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="pub_name">Financial Times</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" style="margin-top: 12px;">
<div class="section_header uppercase" style="border-bottom: 3px solid #004860;letter-spacing: 1px;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;padding: 4px 10px;text-transform: uppercase;">
artificial intelligence
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="first_in_section story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=b98a18e5ff&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Q&A with Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas on Motorola partnership, Perplexity's upcoming browser Comet, TikTok bid, ChatGPT's scale, Google's DOJ trial, and more</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Alex Heath / </span><span class="pub_name">The Verge</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=ed3bff42ae&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Watching OpenAI's o3 guess a photo's location, a process that included running Python code to examine license plates, is surreal, dystopian, and entertaining</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Simon Willison / </span><span class="pub_name">Simon Willison's Weblog</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=68ec771793&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Sources: ~300 London-based DeepMind staff have sought to unionize with the CWU in recent weeks, to challenge AI sales to defense groups and Google's Israel ties</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="pub_name">Financial Times</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=8402ab6e0a&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Geoffrey Hinton fears AI companies are under-investing in safety research, embracing military usage, and sharing model weights while pushing for less regulation</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="pub_name">CBS Mornings on YouTube</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=31d6fba289&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Many AI features, like Gmail's AI assistant, feel useless because they don't allow users to edit system prompts, constraining the AI models they're built with</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="pub_name">Pete Koomen</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=e8a88d790d&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Prompt engineering roles, one of the buzziest jobs in 2023, become obsolete as AI models better intuit user intent and companies train staff in writing prompts</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Isabelle Bousquette / </span><span class="pub_name">Wall Street Journal</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=a4a141ed56&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">IBM has booked $6B in sales around generative AI and Red Hat's revenue has about doubled since IBM bought it, fueling a ~2x jump in IBM's stock since April 2020</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Asa Fitch / </span><span class="pub_name">Wall Street Journal</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" style="margin-top: 12px;">
<div class="section_header uppercase" style="border-bottom: 3px solid #004860;letter-spacing: 1px;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;padding: 4px 10px;text-transform: uppercase;">
infosec
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="first_in_section story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=f74f2a92e9&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">4chan is back online after being down for 10 days, following a hack on April 14 that led to emails of its lead administrators, called “janitors”, being leaked</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Owen Carry / </span><span class="pub_name">Know Your Meme</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=ef9eb56715&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">A US DOJ official says Tyler Buchanan, a 23-year-old from Scotland, and an alleged Scattered Spider cybercrime group member, was extradited from Spain to the US</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Margi Murphy / </span><span class="pub_name">Bloomberg</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=edfb44ad9d&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">A profile of Darktrace CEO Jill Popelka, who joined the British cyber security firm in Jan. 2024 and was at the helm when it was bought by Thoma Bravo for £4.3B</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Anjli Raval / </span><span class="pub_name">Financial Times</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" style="margin-top: 12px;">
<div class="section_header uppercase" style="border-bottom: 3px solid #004860;letter-spacing: 1px;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;padding: 4px 10px;text-transform: uppercase;">
cryptocurrency
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="first_in_section story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=254933bff3&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Architect Partners: crypto firms have struck 88 M&A and SPAC deals worth $8.2B so far in 2025, nearly 3x the $2.75B transaction value across 188 deals in 2024</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="pub_name">Wall Street Journal</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=4fb01c8d41&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">A look at the rise of “pure play” bitcoin companies like Twenty One, as the stock market is paying far more for crypto exposure than the crypto market itself is</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Matt Levine / </span><span class="pub_name">Bloomberg</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=9470b8982c&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Bitcoin miners' earnings power and stocks have diverged from the asset they help produce, as the hashrate languishes amid technical and macroeconomic headwinds</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Sidhartha Shukla / </span><span class="pub_name">Bloomberg</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" style="margin-top: 12px;">
<div class="section_header uppercase" style="border-bottom: 3px solid #004860;letter-spacing: 1px;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;padding: 4px 10px;text-transform: uppercase;">
personnel changes
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="first_in_section story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=28ef651ff1&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">NetEase has lost at least three senior executives in recent months, as CEO William Ding pulls back on investments and cuts jobs in a bid to boost profits</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="pub_name">Bloomberg</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=9448600f90&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Autodesk adds Jeff Epstein and Christie Simons to its board and settles the proxy fight with Starboard Value, which has criticized Autodesk for underperformance</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Svea Herbst-Bayliss / </span><span class="pub_name">Reuters</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" style="margin-top: 12px;">
<div class="section_header uppercase" style="border-bottom: 3px solid #004860;letter-spacing: 1px;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;padding: 4px 10px;text-transform: uppercase;">
funding deals
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="first_in_section story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=1dfb853f91&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Tel Aviv-based Sentra, whose cloud data security software now includes controls aimed at keeping AI prompts free from restricted data, raised a $50M Series B</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Ryan Naraine / </span><span class="pub_name">SecurityWeek</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=52e231d7de&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">NYC-based Healthee, whose AI assistant Zoe lets its clients' workers navigate health insurance and benefits options, raised a $50M Series B led by Key1 Capital</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Erin Brodwin / </span><span class="pub_name">Axios</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=cbbf7a7642&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Alpaca, which offers APIs to 200+ financial firms to help their clients trade US stocks, raised a $52M Series C to expand in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Kate Park / </span><span class="pub_name">TechCrunch</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=98a4024d76&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Symbiotic, which is building a “universal staking” platform after starting as a restaking protocol on Ethereum, raised a $29M Series A led by Pantera Capital</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Yogita Khatri / </span><span class="pub_name">The Block</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=930a80e5c9&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Salsa, which provides APIs and UI components that let vertical SaaS platforms offer payroll as a feature to their customers, raised a $20M Series A led by Altos</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Ryan Lawler / </span><span class="pub_name">Axios</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" style="margin-top: 12px;">
<div class="section_header uppercase" style="border-bottom: 3px solid #004860;letter-spacing: 1px;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;padding: 4px 10px;text-transform: uppercase;">
more news
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="first_in_section story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=c7cf736aba&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Analysis: Meesho accounts for about 37% of India's e-commerce orders, but only 8%-9% of the sector's total value due to the small average transaction size</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Manish Singh / </span><span class="pub_name">India Dispatch</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=b38c8505ce&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">A look at efforts by Apple and others to become carbon neutral by investing in eucalyptus farms in Brazil's Cerrado region, amid skepticism from some ecologists</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Gregory Barber / </span><span class="pub_name">MIT Technology Review</span>)</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
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<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=57233b7215&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Protecting your Cloud Applications Data</a></span>
<span class="excerpt" style="color: black;font-size: 16px;"> — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.</span>
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<a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=f015b917d5&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;">
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<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
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<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=3cc0e2051e&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">A Nigerian tribunal upholds a $220M fine imposed on Meta in July 2024 for discriminatory and exploitative practices against Nigerian consumers</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Nnaemeka Onyekachi / </span><span class="pub_name">Nairametrics</span>)</span>
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<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
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<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=cda7cd083c&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">At a major Hong Kong electronics exhibition, some Chinese companies say they are exploring ways to lower or skirt tariffs while others plan to wait for clarity</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Luz Ding / </span><span class="pub_name">Bloomberg</span>)</span>
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<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
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<td style="padding:5px 10px 0;">
<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=b188edcb09&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Etsy agrees to sell Reverb, an online musical instruments marketplace that it acquired for $275M in 2019, to investors Creator Partners and Servco</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Stuart Dredge / </span><span class="pub_name">Music Ally</span>)</span>
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<div style="width:100%;border-top:1px solid lightgray;padding:14px 0;" class="story">
<table class="leading_item" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
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<span class="title" style="font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://techmeme.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94ccd3ae223561415b05892ab&id=9fca2aee83&e=06cea4a9e4" style="text-decoration: none;color: #004860;font-weight: bold;">Filing: China's leading flash memory chipmaker YMTC raised ~$219M from Hebei Yangyuan Zhihui Beverage Co. at a ~$22.1B valuation in December 2023</a></span>
<span class="cite" style="color: #888;display: inline-block;white-space: nowrap;">(<span class="author">Coco Feng / </span><span class="pub_name">South China Morning Post</span>)</span>
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