Wednesday, July 9, 2025

4:40 AM
Researchers: the Anatsa banking trojan snuck into Google Play once again via an app disguised as a PDF viewer, which had 50K+ downloads before Google removed it
BleepingComputer
4:01 AM
Researchers detail All-Topographic Neural Networks, claiming they better mimic human spatial biases and consume less energy than other machine vision networks
IEEE Spectrum
2:30 AM
ThinkBroadband: 78% of UK properties have access to full-fiber broadband, up from 12% in January 2020, which experts credit to Ofcom's 2021 pro-competition push
Financial Times
2:05 AM
A look at Yahoo Creators, launched in March 2024, offering creators a 50/50 ad revenue split for posting original written content, with 135 creators signed up
Digiday
1:40 AM
CA State Senator Scott Wiener releases amendments to SB 53, which has transparency requirements for AI companies but omits SB 1047's provision on liability
Bloomberg
1:25 AM
US federal prosecutors accuse two US men of operating and promoting OmegaPro, a crypto multi-level marketing scheme that allegedly defrauded victims of $650M+
CNBC
1:10 AM
A $242M+ Polymarket bet on whether President Zelenskyy would wear a suit before July 2025 closed as “No” despite claims he did, raising governance concerns
Decrypt
12:55 AM
Qantas confirms 5.7M customers' personal information was held on the system compromised in a recent cyberattack, including names, emails, and phone numbers
ABC
12:25 AM
Sources: Apple is in talks to acquire US streaming rights for Formula 1 following the success of F1 the Movie, which has grossed ~$300M at the box office
Financial Times

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

11:15 PM
Millions of China's gig workers are having to endure record heat waves without legally mandated “heat wave allowances”, cooling breaks, or adequate insurance
Bloomberg
9:35 PM
Analysis: Chinese companies aim to buy 115K+ US-sanctioned Nvidia H100 and H200 chips for 39 data centers across China's western deserts, mostly in Xinjiang
Bloomberg
7:50 PM
Apple says COO Jeff Williams will retire later this year, and Sabih Khan, Apple's SVP of Operations, will take over much of his role later this month
Bloomberg
7:30 PM
Apple says its design team will report to Tim Cook after Jeff Williams retires; Williams was overseeing the team following Evans Hankey's departure in 2023
9to5Mac
6:45 PM
After Elon Musk said Grok was improved “significantly”, Grok wrote many antisemitic posts; xAI says it took “action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X”
NBC News
6:30 PM
Replit announces a partnership with Microsoft to make its platform available in the Azure Marketplace and integrate its tech with some Microsoft cloud services
TechCrunch
6:20 PM
Internal Slack message: OpenAI has hired four high-profile engineers from Tesla, xAI, and Meta, including David Lau, former VP of software engineering at Tesla
Wired
5:50 PM
A US appeals court blocks the FTC's “click-to-cancel” rule that would have taken effect on July 14, saying it didn't conduct a preliminary cost-benefit analysis
Reuters
5:40 PM
GlobalFoundries agrees to acquire MIPS, a developer of RISC-V-based solutions and IP, without disclosing financial terms, set to close in H2 2025
Tom's Hardware
5:10 PM
Waymo introduces teen accounts in Phoenix, letting teenagers aged 14 to 17 use its Waymo One ridehailing service alone with parental approval
The Verge
4:41 PM
Apple says COO Jeff Williams handing over role to Sabih Khan this month
CNBC
4:10 PM
Source: Activision pulled Call of Duty: WWII after hackers exploited a flaw in a PC version, which led to some players getting their computers hacked
TechCrunch
3:22 PM
Sources: Mistral AI is in talks to raise as much as $1B in equity from investors including Abu Dhabi's MGX; Mistral has raised €1B+ since its 2023 founding
Bloomberg
3:08 PM
Sources: Meta has bought under 3% of Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica, a stake worth ~€3B, and is considering further investment that could build the stake to ~5%
Bloomberg
3:01 PM
Private stock investment platform Linqto files for bankruptcy, citing SEC and DOJ probes and an internal probe that found users didn't own shares they bought
Wall Street Journal
2:10 PM
Arago, which is developing a photonic chip, codenamed JEF, that is designed to cut AI energy use by ten times at a comparable cost, raised a $26M seed
Tech.eu
1:05 PM
Dubai-based Xpanceo, which is developing smart contact lenses with night vision, health monitoring, and more, raised a $250M Series A at a $1.35B valuation
Bloomberg
12:05 PM
El Salvador-based Tether says it holds nearly 80 tons of gold, worth ~$8B, in a vault in Switzerland; precious metals made up nearly 5% of its reserves in March
Bloomberg
11:05 AM
Sources: an impostor used AI to mimic Marco Rubio's voice and writing style and contacted foreign ministers, a US governor, and a member of Congress
Washington Post
10:55 AM
ReserveOne, a cryptocurrency holding company with bitcoin, ethereum, and Solana, plans to list on the Nasdaq through a SPAC deal expected to raise $1B+
Reuters
10:40 AM
AirGarage, whose platform analyzes parking facilities' data to improve efficiency, raised a $23M Series B led by Headline, bringing its total funding to $41M
Axios
10:01 AM
X says India ordered it to block 2,355 accounts, including two from Reuters, on July 3, but then told X to unblock the Reuters accounts after a “public outcry”
Bloomberg
9:55 AM
Moonvalley debuts Marey, its licensed AI video model, for $14.99, $34.99, or $149.99 per month; ~80% of its footage is from independent filmmakers and agencies
Time
9:45 AM
Global VC funding reached $91B in Q2 2025, up from $82B in Q2 2024, driven largely by AI investments, but down from $114B in Q1 2025, the highest since Q3 2022
Crunchbase News
9:01 AM
France-based chipmaker SiPearl raised a €130M Series A from Taiwan's Cathay Venture and others to develop its ARM-based Rhea1 AI chip, set to feature 80 cores
Bloomberg
8:50 AM
IBM unveils Power11, its first major update to the chips since 2020, available from July 25, and says they can detect and respond to ransomware within a minute
Reuters
7:40 AM
M&S Chair Archie Norman tells UK parliament that M&S used the FBI and UK agencies to combat the May cyberattack and says M&S believes DragonForce was behind it
Financial Times
6:45 AM
Bluesky rolls out Activity Notifications, letting users get push notifications about new posts and replies from specific accounts, as it doubles down on sports
The Verge
6:30 AM
As Amazon Prime Day begins, some merchants say they can't afford to offer discounts due to Trump's tariffs; Adobe expects $23.8B in sales across the four days
Bloomberg
6:15 AM
The American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest US teachers' union, says it will open an AI training hub with $23M from Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic
New York Times
5:50 AM
OnePlus launches five products: the midrange €449 Nord 5 smartphone, the €349 Nord CE 5, a smaller €299 Watch 3, the €119 Buds 4, and the €229 Pad Lite tablet
The Verge
5:30 AM
Dubai-based Huspy, which offers proptech tools to home buyers, agents, and brokers, raised a $59M Series B led by Balderton, after a $40M+ Series A in June 2022
TechCrunch
5:15 AM
Italy arrests Chinese citizen Xu Zewei; a source says Xu is linked to hacking group Hafnium that breached Microsoft in 2021 to steal COVID-19 vaccine secrets
Financial Times
2:25 AM
The data industry is consolidating, with Databricks acquiring Neon for $1B and Salesforce acquiring Informatica for $8B, as companies want quality data for AI
TechCrunch
12:40 AM
Sources: OpenAI overhauled its security, adding biometric checks in its offices and isolating sensitive info, to protect IP such as model weights from espionage
Financial Times

Monday, July 7, 2025

10:00 PM
Meta's WhatsApp Pay has struggled to gain traction in India in part due to regulators delaying its full launch as well as minimal product upgrades and marketing
Rest of World
8:20 PM
Samsung projects Q2 operating profit down 56% YoY to $3.3B, below $4.5B est., due to struggles in its chip business stemming from the US' China export controls
Reuters
8:05 PM
Open letter signed by 800+ founders, VCs, and others: Sequoia must act after Shaun Maguire said Zohran Mamdani “comes from a culture that lies about everything”
Bloomberg
7:10 PM
Quantum computing company IonQ raised $1B via a sale of stock and warrants to Heights Capital Management, an affiliate of Susquehanna International Group
Bloomberg
6:05 PM
Sources: Ruoming Pang, the head of Apple's foundation models team, is leaving to join Meta, which offered a package worth tens of millions of dollars per year
Bloomberg
5:20 PM
A look at some options for fighting AI companies' scraping, including open-source Anubis' cryptographic JavaScript math challenges and Cloudflare's AI Labyrinth
404 Media
3:45 PM
In iOS 26 beta 3, Apple dials back the transparency, after user complaints that its new Liquid Glass design language made parts of the UI more difficult to read
TechCrunch
3:05 PM
Epic reaches a settlement with Samsung, which it sued over allegedly conspiring with Google to undermine third-party app stores via its Auto Blocker feature
The Verge
1:25 PM
Jack Dorsey shares TestFlight and GitHub links to his “weekend project”, Bitchat, a decentralized P2P messaging app that only works over Bluetooth mesh networks
CNBC
12:31 PM
Trump announces 25% tariffs on Japan, South Korea, and Malaysia, 32% on Indonesia, 36% on Cambodia and Thailand, 40% on Laos and Myanmar, and more from August 1
CNBC
12:00 PM
Docs: OpenAI told investors stock-based compensation jumped over 5x in 2024 to $4.4B, or 119% of its total revenue, but expects it to fall to under 10% by 2030
The Information
11:58 AM
Private equity firm TPG completes its $7.6B acquisition of the remaining 70% stake in DirecTV from AT&T, marking AT&T's exit from media
Axios
9:01 AM
CoreWeave says it has agreed to acquire bitcoin miner Core Scientific in a ~$9B all-stock deal, set to close in Q4 2025, to expand its AI data center capacity
Bloomberg
7:45 AM
Stat Counter: Windows 11 had a 50.9% share of the Windows market on July 4, ahead of Windows 10's 46.2%; the OS, released in 2021, only had a <10% share in 2022
Windows Central
7:20 AM
Huawei's AI lab refutes accusations that its Pangu Pro MoE model source code used uncredited material from key rivals, after a GitHub group debated its origins
Bloomberg
6:40 AM
Experts say ransomware group DragonForce, which targeted M&S, Harrods, and the Co-op, started a turf war with rival RansomHub that may bring more company hacks
Financial Times
5:35 AM
An analysis of Crunchbase and PitchBook data: in 2025 so far, 36+ tech startups hit a $1B+ valuation, including seven in June, six in May, and four in April
TechCrunch
5:10 AM
Apple appeals the EU's €500M DMA fine, levied in April 2025 over its App Store steering rules, claiming the decision goes “far beyond what the law requires”
MacRumors
5:00 AM
Paris-based Capgemini plans to acquire US-listed IT outsourcing company WNS for $3.3B in cash, seeking to boost its agentic AI services; WNS serves 600+ clients
Bloomberg
4:20 AM
On-the-job learning in fields like law and banking faces a double threat: hybrid work limiting juniors' time with seniors and Gen AI cutting many routine tasks
Financial Times
3:55 AM
Meituan says daily orders on its instant delivery service surpassed 120M on July 5, setting an all-time high, with food orders accounting for 100M, or 83%
South China Morning Post
2:25 AM
Gates Industrial, Generac, and other US industrial firms are seeking to share of the AI boom by increasing efforts to supply specialized data center equipment
Financial Times
12:50 AM
Hangzhou, home to DeepSeek and Alibaba, has become a Chinese AI startup hub, and the suburb Liangzhu has emerged as a hot spot for coders in their 20s and 30s
New York Times

Sunday, July 6, 2025

11:20 PM
How the US government debuted a revamped online system in September 2024 that simplifies passport renewal; the system is already handling nearly 50% of renewals
Wall Street Journal
9:50 PM
After Elon Musk unveiled the America Party, a new US political party, President Trump called Musk a “TRAIN WRECK” fueled by discontent over EV subsidies ending
The Guardian
8:50 PM
Tokyo-based Sakana AI details a new Monte Carlo Tree Search-based technique that lets multiple LLMs cooperate on a single task, outperforming individual LLMs
VentureBeat
5:30 PM
A look at the US Secret Service's GIOC, which sources say has seized nearly $400M in digital assets over the past decade via crypto scam investigations globally
Bloomberg
3:25 PM
Q&A with British Library CEO Rebecca Lawrence on dealing with the aftermath of the major October 2023 cyberattack, AI scraping, AI for text analysis, and more
Bloomberg
2:15 PM
Gemini referencing real-life moments when prompted to write a birthday letter shows how effectively Google is leveraging user data to craft personalized content
The Atlantic
1:20 PM
Former Google staff and others detail why Google's effort in 2013 to build Motorola smartphones in Texas failed, as Trump pushes Apple to make iPhones in the US
Fortune
12:55 PM
Sources: TikTok plans to launch a new app version on September 5, ahead of the US' September 17 divest-or-ban enforcement deadline, that US users must switch to
The Information
12:20 PM
The GSA says Oracle is giving the US government a 75% discount on its license-based software and a “substantial” discount on its cloud service through November
Wall Street Journal
11:25 AM
Adalytics finds 9,000+ pirated movies on YouTube, including summer blockbusters, TV shows, and live sports, that amassed 250M+ views from July 2024 to May 2025
New York Times
9:35 AM
Velvet Sundown, an AI‑created band with 850K+ monthly Spotify listeners and two albums in June alone, shows how some listeners are turning to anodyne AI music
The Atlantic
8:15 AM
DefiLlama: monthly DeFi fees have risen to $577M from an April low of $366M, with major protocols generating $275M through automated market-making services
The Block
6:10 AM
A profile of Steam developer Valve, which has a flat corporate structure and high profit-per-head; Ampere: Steam hit 170M MAUs in May, up from 153M in May 2024
Financial Times
4:05 AM
How Shein is leveraging its Reliance Retail partnership in its return to India, as fashion now accounts for 27% of India's online sales, up from 16% in 2020
India Dispatch
2:00 AM
A look at DeepSeek's impact on the AI model race, market share, and pricing, roughly 150 days after DeepSeek R1 shook stock markets and the Western AI world
SemiAnalysis
1:35 AM
PitchBook: VC exits through public listings, acquisitions, and buyouts reached $67.7B in Q2 2025, up from $38.5B a year ago and the strongest showing since 2021
Financial Times
1:05 AM
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act expands Qualified Small Business Stock benefits for VCs, founders, and startup staff, raising tax-free gains from $10M to $15M
CNBC
12:30 AM
Analysts estimate AI services within Microsoft Azure generated $11.5B in revenue in the just-ended fiscal year, up 100%+ YoY but only ~4% of Microsoft's revenue
Wall Street Journal

Saturday, July 5, 2025

11:55 PM
Savvy Wealth, a digital wealth management service for financial advisors, raised a $72M Series B led by Industry Ventures, taking its total funding to $100M+
Wealth Management
11:25 PM
An interview with Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost on settling the proxy fight with Starboard Value, serving the “design and make” workforce, US reshoring, and more
Semafor
9:25 PM
How Clorox is using generative AI for ad creation, brainstorming new products, and analyzing consumer reviews, as part of a five-year, $580M digital overhaul
Wall Street Journal
7:25 PM
The Colombian navy says it has seized an unmanned narco-submarine that was equipped with a Starlink terminal, enabling the sub to be controlled remotely
France 24
5:25 PM
A developer details how he shipped Context, a native macOS app that was almost 100% built using Claude Code
My Portfolio
4:10 PM
Sources: Google told publishers it is hiring new staff to market its ad tech to big advertisers and ad agencies, signaling a renewed focus on publisher ad tech
The Information
3:30 PM
A look at India's push to compete in the global AI race, as the country's vast linguistic diversity poses a core challenge to building foundational AI models
MIT Technology Review
2:40 PM
Investigation: preprint research papers on arXiv from 14 academic institutions in eight countries had hidden prompts telling AI tools to give positive reviews
Nikkei Asia
2:00 PM
Cluely says its ARR hit $7M after signing a public company; a startup called Pickle says it built Glass, an open source, free product similar to Cluely
TechCrunch
1:15 PM
Source: an ongoing outage at IT giant Ingram Micro is caused by a ransomware attack from SafePay, which has become one of the more active operations of 2025
BleepingComputer
12:35 PM
A look at the annual Ethereum Community Conference, or EthCC, Ethereum's flagship European event, held in Cannes this year to showcase the network's growth
CNBC
11:40 AM
Foxconn reports Q1 revenue up 15.8% YoY to ~$62B, driven by strong demand for iPhones and AI servers powered by Nvidia chips, meeting analysts' expectations
Bloomberg
11:01 AM
House GOP leaders announce a regulatory Crypto Week from July 14 to July 18 to consider three key crypto bills, including the Senate-led GENIUS Act
Cointelegraph
9:50 AM
A look at Meta's recent hires for its nascent superintelligence unit, including Pei Sun, who developed two generations of Waymo's perception models
Semafor
8:45 AM
Over the past year, long-time Bitcoin whales have been selling off their holdings, leading to a reshaping of the market as institutions increase their buying
Bloomberg
5:40 AM
Two dormant Bitcoin wallets, each holding 10,000 “Satoshi era” BTC since 2011, transferred the coins to new wallets using a modern, lower-fee address format
CoinDesk
2:35 AM
The term “superintelligence” is becoming increasingly popular among AI leaders, even as many in the industry question whether it is ill-defined and overhyped
Bloomberg
2:25 AM
Distinct Possibility, a gaming studio launched by EverQuest co-creator to build a web3 shooter on Etherlink, a Layer 2 network built on Tezos, raised $30.5M
The Block
2:20 AM
Tailor, which offers a headless ERP system for retail businesses that separates the front end and back end, raised a $22M Series A from ANRI, NEA, YC, others
TechCrunch
2:15 AM
Blackstone acquires Vista Equity Partners' minority stake in event software company Cvent, sources say for $1.3B; Blackstone acquired Cvent for $4.6B in 2023
Bloomberg
2:05 AM
Emerald AI, whose software lets AI data centers flexibly adjust power consumption, raised a $24.5M seed led by Radical Ventures, with NVentures participating
Axios
12:25 AM
Tel Aviv-based Qedma, which is developing error mitigation software for quantum computers called QESEM, raised a $26M Series A led by Glilot Capital Partners
TechCrunch

Friday, July 4, 2025

11:55 PM
LumApps, which makes intranet software, agrees to merge with frontline staff communication app Beekeeper in a deal valuing the combined entity at about $1.1B
Reuters
8:25 PM
PitchBook: AI startups received 53% of all global VC dollars invested in H1 2025, rising to 64% in the US, and accounted for 29% of all global startups funded
Axios
5:50 PM
President Trump signs the One Big Beautiful Bill, which allows immediate deduction of US software labor; foreign R&D still must be amortized over 15 years
KBKG
4:01 PM
UK minister instructs the Turing AI institute, which has lately focused on responsible AI and ethics, to prioritize national security and defense instead
BBC
2:50 PM
Sources: Nvidia's deal to buy CentML, which offers tools to optimize the running of AI models on chips, could exceed $400M; CentML raised a $27M seed in 2023
The Logic
1:50 PM
Doc: UK's Independent Publishers Alliance files an antitrust complaint with EU and the UK CMA against Google, alleging misuse of web content for AI Overviews
Reuters
12:20 PM
Sam Altman says he believes in “techno-capitalism” and is “politically homeless” as Democrats no longer encourage a “culture of innovation and entrepreneurship”
CNBC
10:25 AM
Sources: the Trump administration plans to curb AI chip shipments to Malaysia and Thailand, as part of an effort to crack down on suspected smuggling into China
Bloomberg
9:25 AM
Sources: Google plans to propose a price comparison box at the top of search results in the EU, featuring ranked options from competitors, to avoid DMA fines
Bloomberg
8:00 AM
The European Commission says it won't pause the rollout of its AI Act, after Alphabet, Meta, Mistral, ASML, and others urged the EU to delay the rules by years
Reuters
7:20 AM
Sources: TSMC delays the construction of its second plant in Japan, initially slated for early 2025, to invest in US expansion ahead of potential Trump tariffs
Wall Street Journal
5:40 AM
As companies like SpaceX, Stripe, and OpenAI stay private longer, tokenized stocks on blockchains offer a way for the public to access lucrative private markets
Bloomberg