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March 17, 2025, 8:25 PM
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Top News

Lauren Thomas / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Alphabet is in advanced talks to acquire cybersecurity startup Wiz for ~$30B; Alphabet was close to a $23B deal for Wiz last summer before talks ended  —  A deal worth some $30 billion could come together soon, after talks fizzled last summer  —  Google parent Alphabet …
Qianer Liu / The Information:
Sources: Google plans to partner with Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek to design and produce its next-gen TPUs, set for 2026, but will still work with Broadcom  —  Google plans to work with a new firm to help design and produce some of its artificial intelligence chips: MediaTek.
New York Times:
HR service Rippling sues Deel, accusing its rival of hiring a mole in its Dublin office to comb through trade secrets, uncovered via a “honeypot” Slack channel  —  A lawsuit by Rippling accuses a top competitor, Deel, of placing a mole in its ranks — which it uncovered via a “honeypot” trap on Slack.
Zhiye Liu / Tom's Hardware:
Qualcomm unveils the Snapdragon G3 Gen 3, G2 Gen 2, and G1 Gen 2 for gaming handhelds, saying the G3 Gen 3 offers a CPU 30% faster than the previous generation  —  Snapdragon G3 Gen 3, Snapdragon G2 Gen 2, and Snapdragon G1 Gen 2 enter the ring.  —  Qualcomm expanded its Snapdragon G series …
Max A. Cherney / Reuters:
Sources: Intel's new CEO Lip-Bu Tan has considered restructuring Intel's AI approach and cutting staff to address a slow and bloated middle management layer  —  Intel's incoming CEO Lip-Bu Tan has considered significant changes to its chip manufacturing methods and artificial intelligence strategies ahead …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Users report that Gemini 2.0 Flash is very good at removing watermarks from images; many models allow this but some, like Claude 3.7 Sonnet and GPT-4o, do not  —  Users on social media have discovered a controversial use case for Google's new Gemini AI model: removing watermarks from images …
Stephen Morris / Financial Times:
Alphabet spins off laser-based internet company Taara from its X “moonshot” incubator; Taara, which raised new funding, has its origins in Loon, closed in 2021  —  Taara start-up aims to compete with Elon Musk's Starlink to connect remote areas to the internet using light beams
Andrew Liszewski / The Verge:
Snap updates Spectacles AR glasses to add GPS support for Lenses, improved hand tracking, an AR keyboard, and more  —  The augmented reality smart glasses can now point you in the right direction. … Lenses — what Snap calls the Spectacles' various AR effects …
Karen Freifeld / Reuters:
Sources: US Commerce Department bureaus informed staffers in recent weeks that DeepSeek is banned on their government devices  —  U.S. Commerce department bureaus informed staffers in recent weeks that Chinese artificial intelligence model DeepSeek is banned on their government devices …
Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:
Mistral debuts Mistral Small 3.1, a 24B-parameter multimodal and multilingual open-source model it says outperforms Gemma 3 and GPT-4o-mini and runs on 32GB RAM  —  French artificial-intelligence startup Mistral AI unveiled a new open-source model today that the company says outperforms similar offerings …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Discord launches a Social SDK to let developers offer friends lists, cross-platform messaging, voice, and more, with console and mobile support “coming soon”  —  An easier way to connect with Discord friends. … Discord is launching a way for developers to directly integrate …
Hugh Son / CNBC:
Walmart's OnePay says Klarna will replace Affirm to offer buy-now-pay-later to US shoppers later in 2025, and OnePay can buy a Klarna stake; AFRM drops 10%+  —  Swedish fintech firm Klarna will be the exclusive provider of buy now, pay later loans for Walmart, taking a coveted partnership away from rival Affirm, CNBC has learned.
Sean Michael Kerner / VentureBeat:
Zoom unveils AI Companion 2.0, which adds agentic AI features, including calendar management, meeting tools, and document creation, rolling out by July 2025  —  Zoom became a household name during the pandemic as remote work became the norm nearly overnight.
Paige Smith / Bloomberg:
Robinhood partners with Kalshi to launch a prediction markets hub in the US for retail traders, starting with bets on the federal funds rate and March Madness  —  Prediction markets have grown in popularity among investors, spurred on by the surge of wagers ahead of the November US presidential race …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Roblox open sources Cube 3D, the first version of its AI foundation model for generating 3D objects, trained on licensed and public datasets and its own data  —  The model, Cube 3D, creates 3D models from a text prompt. … Roblox is launching and open-sourcing Cube 3D …

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From Mediagazer

The Wrap:
VOA director Michael Abramowitz condemns its shutdown, says Trump is “failing to protect US interests”; others say shutting VOA is a “national security issue”

Nicole Sperling / New York Times:
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences says Conan O'Brien will reprise his Oscar hosting duties in 2026, one of the earliest renewals for an Oscar host

Kurt Schlosser / GeekWire:
Trump praises Jeff Bezos for changes at WaPo, says he doesn't think media's treatment of him has changed so far, but he sees a shift among tech giants

More News

Scharon Harding / Ars Technica:
Some owners of devices running Roku OS report seeing autoplaying video ads before they can access the home screen; Roku says it is just a test
Daryna Antoniuk / The Record:
Telegram's Pavel Durov has left France, reportedly after a judge authorized him to leave the country for “several weeks”; the investigation is ongoing
Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
AI slop, shared by thousands of prolific accounts, is brute forcing virality, and platforms like Meta embrace it; some AI videos get 350M+ views

Earlier Picks

Sidhartha Shukla / Bloomberg:
Crypto exchange OKX says it has “temporarily” suspended its DEX aggregator services, used to launder the $1.5B Bybit hack, after reported EU scrutiny under MiCA
Nick Robins-Early / The Guardian:
How Elon Musk targeted 18F, as former employees say the GSA group focused on increasing bureaucratic efficiency through tech, similar to what DOGE claims to do
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Open letter: ~100 EU companies urge EU lawmakers to take “radical action” to shrink the reliance on foreign infrastructure by fostering a so-called “Euro stack”
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