Techmeme
April 18, 2024, 8:45 AM

Top News

Thomas Barrabi / New York Post:
Google fires 28 employees over their participation in a 10-hour sit-in at the company's New York and Sunnyvale offices to protest its business ties with Israel  —  Google has fired 28 employees over their participation in a 10-hour sit-in at the search giant's offices in New York and Sunnyvale …
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Europol, law enforcement in 19 countries, Microsoft, and others disrupt phishing-as-a-service platform LabHost in a year-long operation and make 37 arrests  —  The LabHost phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) platform has been disrupted in a year-long global law enforcement operation that compromised …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
The US CFPB fines BloomTech, formerly Lambda School, and CEO Austen Allred $164K and bans BloomTech from lending for 10 years over deceiving students on loans  —  In an order today, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said that BloomTech, the for-profit coding bootcamp previously known …
The Verge:
iOS app store AltStore PAL launches in the EU for €1.50/year with two apps: game emulator Delta, which is also live on the App Store, and a clipboard manager  —  After we recently tested it in beta, the third-party iOS app store AltStore PAL is now live in the European Union thanks …
Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Boston Dynamics debuts an electric version of humanoid robot Atlas for commercial use, a day after retiring the hydraulic Atlas, with a pilot starting in 2025  —  A day after retiring the hydraulic model, Boston Dynamics' CEO discusses the company's commercial humanoid ambitions
Sheila Chiang / CNBC:
TSMC reports Q1 revenue up 16.5% YoY to ~$18.87B, vs. ~$18B est., net income up 8.9% YoY to ~$6.97B, vs. ~$6.6B est., and expects strong AI chip demand in Q2  —  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company on Thursday beat revenue and profit expectations in the first quarter …
Amanda Lee / Wall Street Journal:
Apple plans to spend $250M+ on its regional hub in Singapore, including expanding its campus later in 2024, as Tim Cook visits Vietnam and other Asian countries  —  Apple seeks to diversify its supply chain amid rising U.S.-China tensions and global concerns of decoupling trade
Ashley Belanger / Ars Technica:
Bloomberg:
Huawei releases its Pura 70 series, available for ~$760 to ~$1,380; reviewers show high-end models have a Kirin 9010 chip, an update to the Mate 60 Pro's 9000s  —  - Huawei building out portfolio with fresh upgrades and design  — New phones likely to add further pressure on iPhone in China
Molly White / Citation Needed:
An experiment with LLMs: the tools are helpful in mundane ways but users can't build a hundred-billion-dollar industry around a technology that's kind of useful  —  AI can be kind of useful, but I'm not sure that a “kind of useful” tool justifies the harm.  —  /1311.164082  —  1×
Sheena Vasani / The Verge:
TikTok starts rolling out TikTok Notes, its Instagram rival for sharing photo and text content, for limited testing in Australia and Canada on Android and iOS  —  TikTok has started rolling out its Instagram rival, TikTok Notes, to select Android and iOS users “for download and limited testing in Australia and Canada.”
Clint Watts / Microsoft On the Issues:
MTAC report: foreign malign influence from Russia, China, and Iran in the US presidential election got off to a slower start in 2023 compared to 2016 and 2020  —  Clint Watts - General Manager, Microsoft Threat Analysis Center  —  Foreign malign influence in the U.S. presidential election got off …
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
The European Data Protection Board says large online platforms like Meta should give users an option to use their services for free without behavioral ads  —  Meta Platforms (META.O) and other large online platforms should give users an option to use their services for free without targeted advertising …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Nothing unveils the $149 Nothing Ear and $99 Nothing Ear (a), offering improved sound, personalization, and battery life; Nothing plans to integrate ChatGPT  —  Nothing is churning out new earbuds at a faster clip than smartphones.  The company just introduced the Nothing Ear and Nothing Ear (a), priced at $149 and $99, respectively.
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
An interview with Reddit Chief Product Officer Pali Bhat on the company's roadmap: faster load times, new moderator and developer tools, and AI translation  —  It's a big year for Reddit.  After its IPO, the platform is planning a slew of product features for the year ahead, and — spoiler alert — most of them are powered by AI.
CNBC:
AWS discontinues its Snowmobile service, an 18-wheeler truck introduced in 2016 to help customers transport large amounts of on-premises data to AWS facilities  —  Amazon Web Services Snowmobile Truck  —  At Amazon's annual cloud conference in 2016, the company captured the crowd's attention by driving an 18-wheeler onstage.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
Zoho:
How EQ plays a defining role in workplace communication  —  What if everyone you worked with had a psychic ability to understand how you're feeling and respond accordingly?  Wouldn't that be great?
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  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.

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More News

Mackenzie Hawkins / Bloomberg:
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Earlier Picks

Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Matt Day / Bloomberg: