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March 12, 2025, 6:40 AM
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Top News

Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google unveils Gemma 3, the “world's best single-accelerator model”, running on a single GPU, in 1B, 4B, 12B, and 27B sizes, and says it outperforms Llama-405B  —  Following version 1 in February 2024 and 2 in May, Google today announced Gemma 3 as its latest open model for developers.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Google updates Chrome's extension rules to ban affiliate link injection without user action or benefit, after Honey allegedly stole creators' affiliate revenue  —  Honey was accused of shadily swapping out affiliate links, and now Google has new rules for extensions targeting exactly that.
Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:
Thoughts on using LLMs for coding, which can often be difficult and unintuitive, and why “vibe coding” is a fantastic way to explore the capabilities of LLMs  —  Online discussions about using Large Language Models to help write code inevitably produce comments from developers who's experiences have been disappointing.
Emma Roth / The Verge:
OpenAI debuts a Responses API to help developers build agents that search the web, scan for files, and perform tasks on PCs, and an Agents SDK for orchestration  —  OpenAI's new Responses API comes with web search, the ability to look through files, and computer use out of the box.
Reuters:
Sources: TSMC has pitched Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom, and Qualcomm about taking stakes in a JV to run Intel Foundry; TSMC would hold no more than a 50% stake  —  TSMC (2330.TW) has pitched U.S. chip designers Nvidia (NVDA.O), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O) and Broadcom (AVGO.O) …
New York Times:
Filings: Google owns a 14% Anthropic stake but holds no voting rights, board seats, or board observer rights; Google aims to invest $750M more in September 2025  —  The internet giant owns 14% of the high-profile artificial intelligence company, according to legal filings obtained by The New York Times.
Sam Altman / @sama:
Sam Altman says OpenAI trained an AI model that is good at creative writing and shares a short story it wrote; he's “not sure yet how/when it will get released”  —  we trained a new model that is good at creative writing (not sure yet how/when it will get released). this is the first time i have been really struck by something written by AI; it got the vibe of metafiction so right. PROMPT: Please write a metafictional literary short story
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Google is in final talks to acquire AdHawk Microsystems, a Canadian maker of eye-tracking tech, for $115M, including $15M in performance-based payments  —  Alphabet Inc.'s Google is in final talks to acquire AdHawk Microsystems Inc., a maker of eye-tracking technology, part of a renewed push into headsets and smart glasses.
Reuters:
Manus partners with Alibaba's Qwen to integrate Manus' AI agent functions with AI models and computing platforms in China and to collaborate on Qwen's AI models  —  China's Manus AI announced on Tuesday a strategic partnership with the team behind tech giant Alibaba's Qwen AI models …
Dave2D on YouTube:
Mac Studio with M3 Ultra and 512GB of unified memory review: opens up new workflows on a ~$10,000 desktop, like running a quantized version of DeepSeek R1 671B  —  My review of Apple Mac Studio with the M3 Ultra with Gaming benchmarks and Deepseek R1 If you'd like to support the channel, consider a Dave2D membership by ...
Brandon Hill / Tom's Hardware:
Apple Mac Studio review: M3 Ultra offers amazing performance, silent operation, and a variety of ports, but no user memory or SSD upgrades, which are expensive
Devindra Hardawar / Engadget:
Apple MacBook Air M4 review: fast, thin and light, great keyboard and touchpad, and excellent battery life, but could use more ports and only a 60Hz screen
Stephen Totilo / Game File:
Mike Verdu, who joined Netflix in 2021 to launch its game offering and took on a new role as VP of Generative AI for games four months ago, has left the company  —  Plus: Some key changes for this year's Game Developers Conference  —  Mike Verdu, the executive who led Netflix's foray …
The Information:
Source: Anthropic's annualized revenue grew from $1B at the end of 2024 to $1.4B in early March; Manus uses tools including Claude 3.7 Sonnet to power its agent  —  Anthropic's year is off to a good start.  —  Its annualized revenue—a measure of the past month's revenue multiplied by 12 …
Ott Tammik / Bloomberg:
Estonian startups aim to turn its thriving tech sector into a military-industrial complex, including making autonomous drones, as Europe boosts defense spending  —  The Baltic country hopes to turn its thriving tech sector into a military-industrial complex, and tap into rising European defense spending.
More: Forbes
Chihiro Ishikawa / Nikkei Asia:
BeReal CEO Aymeric Roffe says Japan is now the photo sharing app's second-largest market with over 4.5M MAUs, 83% aged 14 to 27; BeReal has 40M users globally  —  TOKYO — BeReal is eager to expand in Japan's fast-growing and highly engaged market, said its CEO in an interview with Nikkei Asia.
The Reporters' Collective:
A look at community apps like Kutumb mobilizing millions of Indians for politics, spreading disinformation, and inciting hate, beyond civil watchdogs' scrutiny  —  Away From Scrutiny, New Networking Apps Are Mobilising Millions of Indians For Politics, Disinformation and Hate.
David McCabe / New York Times:
The Senate approves Gail Slater, President Trump's pick to lead the DOJ's antitrust unit, by a 78-19 vote; she has been critical of power in the tech industry  —  Slater, a longtime Washington lawyer, has been particularly critical of power in the tech industry.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro 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:
Pay bosses in units of purpose  —  On average, it takes just 14 seconds for candidates to decide whether to apply for a job.  How can you craft job descriptions that truly connect — from entry-level to C-suite?
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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From Mediagazer

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Paramount has offered $15M to settle with Trump; Trump's team wants more than $25M, is seeking an apology from CBS News, and threatened another lawsuit

Ben Johansen / Politico:
Sources: all 800 full-time VOA staff are expected to receive reduction-in-force notices this week, after ~600 VOA contractors were dismissed earlier in May

Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Memo: David Leavy, who became CNN's COO in 2023, is leaving; sources say the longtime key lieutenant of David Zaslav is returning to Warner Bros. Discovery

More News

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
India's largest telco Jio Platforms partners with SpaceX to offer Starlink in the country, just hours after rival Airtel announced a similar partnership
Krisztian Sandor / CoinDesk:
Mesh raised an $82M Series B, settled mostly in PayPal's PYUSD stablecoin and led by Paradigm, to expand its stablecoin-based payments settlement network

Earlier Picks

Sander Lutz / Decrypt:
Senator Lummis unveils the Bitcoin Act in the US Senate, with five Republican co-sponsors, to codify a strategic Bitcoin reserve and let the US buy up to 1M BTC
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Waymo expands its operating area around Silicon Valley to a 27 square-mile region, including Mountain View, Palo Alto, Los Altos, and parts of Sunnyvale
Emma Roth / The Verge:
TikTok rolls out a new feature to show users under 16 a “wind down” reminder after 10PM, interrupting the feed and playing “calming music to help teens relax”
Sam Sabin / Axios:
President Trump nominates Sean Plankey, the director of cyber policy at the White House during the first Trump administration, to run CISA
Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D review: great gaming and general performance and AMD removed overclocking limitations, but a niche CPU, some software issues, and pricey
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