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March 12, 2025, 2:35 PM
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WeSmirchTop News
| Jess Weatherbed / The Verge: |
Niantic Labs says it is selling its video game division, including Pokémon Go, to Saudi Arabia-owned developer Scopely for $3.5B, subject to regulatory approval — The $3.5 billion Scopely deal could bring Niantic's AR gaming catalog under Saudi ownership.
More: 404 Media, Scopely, GamesIndustry.biz, Niantic Labs, Pokémon GO, 9to5Google, TechCrunch, CNET, Android Police, BBC, UploadVR, Engadget, Scopely, San Francisco Business Times, VICE, Crunchbase News, Reuters, Polygon, The Hollywood Reporter, Game World Observer, Eurogamer.net, en.ain.ua, TechSpot, MobileSyrup, Shacknews, Game Developer, Advanced Television, Dot Esports, Tech Startups, Droid Life, Bloomberg, Forbes, The Wrap, Dexerto, IGN, Game Rant, GameSpot, Mobilegamer.biz, TechRaptor, Kotaku, BGR, The Shortcut, My Nintendo News, PocketGamer.biz, Deadline, TheGamer, GoNintendo, Nintendo World Report Updates, and Gematsu
Bluesky: @calbucci. Mastodon: @cR0w@infosec.exchange. X: @mgsiegler, @mgsiegler, @msquinn, @cecianasta, @lewchube, @joemerrick, @nianticlabs, and @scopely
Forums: r/PikminBloomApp, r/Games, r/augmentedreality, and r/technology
| Financial Times: |
Niantic's $3.5B deal gives Scopely, acquired by Saudi-owned Savvy Games Group in 2023 for $4.9B, a total audience of 500M+ players, driven by Monopoly Go! — US-based Niantic is selling its games business as part of a pivot to artificial intelligence — Scopely, the Saudi-owned developer …
More: Scopely, VentureBeat, GamingBolt, Dot Esports, Variety, and Video Games Chronicle
| 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.
More: The Keyword, Google for Developers on YouTube, Google Developers Blog, Ars Technica, Fortune, Google Developers Blog, PC Guide, MediaPost, Maginative, Hugging Face, TestingCatalog, Thurrott, Simon Willison's Weblog, TipRanks Financial, Android Police, Seeking Alpha, The Decoder, Tech Startups, The Verge, MarkTechPost, Forexlive, Capacity Media, Moneycontrol, Analytics India Magazine, CryptoSlate, WinBuzzer, SiliconANGLE, Digital Trends, BGR, The Indian Express, YourStory.com, Neowin, VentureBeat, and AI News
X: @sundarpichai, @googledevs, @sam_paech, @levie, @willhawkins3, @btibor91, @flavioad, @thexeophon, @steren, @_philschmid, @googledevs, @legit_api, @film_girl, @lmarena_ai, @googledevs, @osanseviero, @deliprao, @reach_vb, @shiels_ai, @clmt, and @gm8xx8
Forums: r/singularity, r/LocalLLM, and r/Bard
| Emma Roth / The Verge: |
Google DeepMind launches two AI models, Gemini 2.0-based Robotics and Robotics-ER, to help robots “perform a wider range of real-world tasks than ever before” — Gemini Robotics also makes robots more dexterous, allowing them to perform more precise tasks, like folding a piece of paper.
More: Google DeepMind, 9to5Google, Engadget, Android Police, Moneycontrol, IEEE Spectrum, Mercury News, Reuters, MIT Technology Review, Gizmodo, Axios, CNBC, Digital Trends, Nature, WinBuzzer, Financial Times, and Wired
X: @sundarpichai, @tdavchev, @googledeepmind, and @googledeepmind. LinkedIn: Andrew Hyland. Forums: r/singularity
| Annie Palmer / CNBC: |
The US FTC asks a judge to delay its case accusing Amazon of deceptive practices with Amazon Prime, citing staffing shortfalls — The Federal Trade Commission asked a judge in Seattle to delay the start of its trial accusing Amazon of duping consumers into signing up for its Prime program, citing staffing constraints.| 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.
More: Pulse 2.0, Pivot to AI, and Forrester
Bluesky: @mandithran and @simonwillison.net
Mastodon: @remixtures@tldr.nettime.org and @vaurora@mstdn.social
X: @dksf, @jeyffre, @vineetwts, @jarrodwattsdev, @dennisonbertram, @notionhq, @alexisgauba, @bigboxswe, @thekitze, @din0s_, @skooookum, and @jonhearty. Forums: Lobsters
| Bloomberg: |
Roomba maker iRobot warns of “substantial doubt” over its ability to continue operating, after Amazon abandoned a $1B+ takeover in January 2024; IRBT drops 35%+ — IRobot Corp., the consumer robotics company that Amazon.com Inc. once planned to buy for more than $1 billion … | 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) …
More: DatacenterDynamics, Yahoo Finance, Tom's Hardware, Quartz, The Decoder, Silicon UK, PC Gamer, TipRanks Financial, Wall Street Pit, Benzinga, The Information, CTech, ZeroHedge News, DigiTimes, Barron's Online, Verdict, Taiwan News, TechSpot, TechPowerUp, TrendForce News, Forexlive, and Electronics Weekly
X: @mingchikuo and @rwang07
Forums: r/intel, r/hardware, r/NVDA_Stock, and r/wallstreetbets
| Financial Times: |
Amazon, Google, and Meta join a World Nuclear Association statement, alongside Occidental, Dow, and others, to triple capacity by 2050; Microsoft didn't sign — Tech giants join banks in calling for new power stations to meet growing energy demands and combat climate change| Associated Press: |
Investigation: AI-powered student monitoring tool Gaggle, used to track ~6M US students, isn't always secure, and there's no research showing it boosts safety — One student asked a search engine, “Why does my boyfriend hit me?” Another threatened suicide in an email to an unrequited love.| Anna Nicolaou / Financial Times: |
Spotify says it paid $10B+ in royalties in 2024, “the largest in music history”, making up 60%+ of its $17.13B+ 2024 revenue, with ~1,500 artists earning $1M+ — Company has long drawn ire from musicians who say streaming model does not remunerate them enough| 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.
More: Chrome for Developers, How-To Geek, Android Authority, 9to5Google, PCWorld, Lifewire, TechRadar, Android Police, TechIssuesToday.com, Neowin, crypto.news, Tom's Guide, and Digital Trends
Forums: r/technology and Beehaw
| Olga Kharif / Bloomberg: |
Binance says Abu Dhabi's MGX acquired a minority stake for $2B, the first institutional investment in the exchange and MGX's first entry into the crypto — Binance said Abu Dhabi's MGX has acquired a minority stake for $2 billion, the first institutional investment in the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange.| 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 — Jio Platforms, the subsidiary of India's conglomerate Reliance Industries and the country's largest telecom operator …
More: Financial Express, The Economic Times, Reuters, TelecomTV, Total Telecom, Business Today, Quartz, CNN, Silicon Republic, Hindustan Times, SammyGuru, Associated Press, RCR Wireless News, Gulf Business, Trak.in, Business Insider, Neowin, Business Standard, World News, Analytics India Magazine, Inc42 Media, The Independent, YourStory.com, The Hindu, The Indian Express, Forbes, Bloomberg, Digit, International Business Times, and Reuters
| 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
More: The Guardian, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, CNET, The Information, PC Gamer, TechRadar, Neowin, Moneycontrol, SiliconANGLE, and The Decoder
Bluesky: @janerosenzweig, @nataljastgermain, @sashafury, @cethanleahy.com, @edroso, @karlbode.com, @alexandtheweb, @hermando, @charrindisguise, and @howardm
X: @colin_fraser, @scottnover, @tszzl, @bigblackjacobin, @krishnanrohit, @willystaley, @anecdotal, @katrosenfield, @aanand, @jeremypgordon, @max_spero_, @katienotopoulos, @luke_winkie, @nabeelqu, @edzitron, @loudmouthjulia, @pourfairelevide, @simonw, @dangerbrooks, @srirachachau, @tszzl, @emollick, @peligrietzer, @kunktation, @krishnanrohit, @david_perell, @deryatr_, @grantslatton, @ns123abc, @sashworthhayes, @seconds_0, @shakeelhashim, @gillverd, @evanewashington, and @arictoler. Forums: r/singularity
| Nikkei Asia: |
Sakana CEO David Ha says its AI CUDA Engineer “cheated” to speed up training by 100x and “preliminary results” show it “will be closer to the 10% to 100% level” — TOKYO — Sakana AI's announcement that its recent artificial intelligence breakthrough … | Tom Warren / The Verge: |
Sources: an Xbox-branded Asus handheld may debut this year as part of Microsoft's effort to unify Windows and Xbox into a universal library of Xbox and PC games — Microsoft's next-gen Xbox platform is shaping up. — Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer warned in November … | Aisha Malik / TechCrunch: |
Snapchat introduces AI video Lenses, powered by Snap's in-house generative video model, available to subscribers of the $16/month Snapchat Platinum tier — Snapchat is introducing its first ever video generative AI Lenses, the company told TechCrunch exclusively.| 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.| Saritha Rai / Bloomberg: |
Bengaluru is becoming an AI talent hub as overseas startups compete with Big Tech; Bain & Co predicts India's AI talent gap will reach 1M workers by 2027 — The San Francisco-based startup plans to hire more than 300 people for its AI, product and engineering teams at its Bangalore development center … | Luz Ding / Bloomberg: |
Alibaba demos R1-Omni, an open-source model that its Tongyi Lab researchers say can read emotions, building on HumanOmni, in a bid to compete with OpenAI — In two demonstrations, Alibaba's Tongyi Lab researchers showed their new open source R1-Omni inferring the emotional state of a person … | 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: AIN
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