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April 1, 2025, 7:00 AM
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| CNBC: |
OpenAI closes a $40B funding round, the most ever raised by a private tech company, at a $300B post-money valuation; SoftBank led the round with $30B — OpenAI on Monday announced it had closed what amounts to the largest private tech funding round on record.
More: OpenAI, The Verge, Financial Times, Reuters, Interesting Engineering, Axios, StrictlyVC, San Francisco Business Times, Nairametrics, SiliconANGLE, VentureBeat, PYMNTS.com, Neowin, Decrypt, Forbes, Cryptopolitan, YourStory.com, Australian Financial Review, Thurrott, The Wrap, Sherwood News, and TechCrunch
Bluesky: @edzitron.com, @andrewparker, @edsbs, and @edzitron.com
X: @sama, @mikeisaac, @garymarcus, @rogoswami, @kyliebytes, @apompliano, @edzitron, @danprimack, and @gavinpurcell
LinkedIn: Hayden Field and Geoff Lewis
Forums: Hacker News, r/singularity, r/technology, and Slashdot
| Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg: |
Source: SoftBank will invest an initial $7.5B in OpenAI's $40B round, plus $22.5B by 2025's end; other backers include Microsoft, Coatue, Altimeter, and Thrive — OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT, said it has finalized a funding round that will bring in $40 billion …
More: Benzinga, Reuters, Silicon Republic, CNBC, Business Today, PitchBook, Blockonomi, Pulse 2.0, New York Times, Verdict, TNGlobal, Proactive, YourStory.com, Tech Xplore, Times of India, CRN, The Guardian, The Information, Financial Express, Wall Street Journal, The Crypto Times, Tech in Asia, Hindustan Times, Nikkei Asia, The Japan Times, and DigiTimes
Forums: r/Economics and Beehaw
| Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: |
OpenAI's new GPT-4o-powered image generator is now available to all users; Sam Altman last week mentioned a limit of three images per day for free-tier users — OpenAI's new image generator, powered by its GPT-4o model, is now available to all users, CEO Sam Altman said in a post on X … | Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: |
Sam Altman says OpenAI is planning to “release a powerful new open-weight language model with reasoning in the coming months” — OpenAI says that it intends to release its first “open” language model since GPT‑2 “in the coming months.” — That's according to a feedback form …
More: OpenAI, Business Standard, WinBuzzer, Reuters, Cointelegraph, VentureBeat, Neowin, The Indian Express, CNET, The Crypto Times, Digit, SiliconANGLE, Benzinga, Business Insider, Decrypt, The Information, Wired, and SD Times
X: @sama, @sama, @clementdelangue, @joheidecke, @garrytan, @dorialexander, @thexeophon, @joheidecke, @gdb, @altcap, and @levie
LinkedIn: Jake Saper and Romain Huet
Forums: r/LocalLLaMA and Slashdot
| Kylie Robison / The Verge: |
| Ian King / Bloomberg: |
At the Intel Vision conference, CEO Lip-Bu Tan says Intel plans to spin off non-core assets, create new products including custom semiconductors, and more — Intel Corp. Chief Executive Officer Lip-Bu Tan said the chipmaker will spin off assets that aren't central to its mission and create …
More: Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Capacity Media, Intel, Business Insider, Tech in Asia, TrendForce News, MarketWatch, Nikkei Asia, Wall Street Journal, CRN, Benzinga, PCWorld, Reuters, Barron's Online, Intel on YouTube, and Thurrott
Threads: @sung.kim.mw. X: @greengart, @intelnews, @iancutress, @iancutress, @greengart, @firstadopter, @underfox3, @underfox3, @intelnews, @iancutress, @intelnews, @intelnews, @iancutress, and @iancutress
| Sean Endicott / Windows Central: |
Microsoft expands Copilot+ PC features like Live Captions and Cocreator, previously exclusive to models with Snapdragon chips, to models with AMD or Intel chips — Staggered feature releases make me ask “what even is a Copilot+ PC?” — Microsoft has a big update for Copilot+ PCs powered by Intel or AMD processors.
More: Windows Experience Blog, Business Standard, BetaNews, Cryptopolitan, Guru3D, Digital Trends, TechPowerUp, MakeUseOf, Liliputing, CRN, VideoCardz.com, The Verge, XDA Developers, Neowin, and Thurrott
X: @zacbowden, @pavandavuluri, @windowsblog, @sasamarinkovic, @dylanonchips, @yusuf_i_mehdi, @amdryzen, and @dylanonchips. LinkedIn: Mark Linton
| Bloomberg: |
Sources: US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick signals withholding promised CHIPS Act grants as he pushes companies to substantially expand their US projects — Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has signaled he could withhold promised Chips Act grants as he pushes companies in line … | Wall Street Journal: |
Sources: in recent weeks, Meta executives including Mark Zuckerberg have pressed US trade officials to oppose an impending EU fine and cease-and-desist order — Facebook owner presses trade officials to push back against European law that could undermine its ad business
More: The Verge
| Juli Clover / MacRumors: |
Apple releases iOS 18.4 with Priority notifications for Apple Intelligence, which gets support for eight more languages, and Ambient Music via Control Center — Apple today released iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4, the fourth major updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating system updates …
More: 9to5Mac, Apple, Mirror, MacRumors, MacRumors, The Hindu, Emojipedia, AppleInsider, O'Grady's PowerPage, WebKit, MacRumors, MacStories, TechCrunch, Stephen Robles on YouTube, YouTube, Brandon Butch on YouTube, zollotech on YouTube, Cult of Mac Today, iDeviceHelp on YouTube, CNET, AppleInsider, Laptop Mag, mjtsai.com, Axios, Ars Technica, 9to5Mac, Appleosophy, 9to5Mac, Digital Trends, MacRumors, PhoneArena, Daring Fireball, Forbes, 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, Thurrott, iDownloadBlog.com, 9to5Mac, TechRadar, Engadget, BGR, The Mac Observer, The Mac Observer, The Mac Observer, The Mac Observer, The Apple Post, The Verge, Macworld, iPhone in Canada Blog, The Mac Observer, Forbes, AppleInsider, AppleInsider, Cult of Mac, and CNET
Bluesky: @sdw. Mastodon: @viticci@mastodon …, @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social, and @Kierkegaanks@beige.party. Threads: @danawollman. X: @markgurman
LinkedIn: Eric Gourlaouen and Christopher B. Neubauer
Forums: r/OpenCoreLegacyPatcher, r/iphone, r/apple, r/MacOS, MacRumors Forums, and MacRumors Forums
| Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: |
| Bloomberg: |
Builder.ai lowers H2 2024 revenue estimates by ~25% after some sales channels “did not come through” and says a full audit report is expected by summer 2025 — The London-based company, which has raised more than $450 million, dropped its revenue estimates for the second half … | Zoë Schiffer / Wired: |
USPTO suspended xAI's Grok trademark application, saying the name could be confused with companies Groq and Grokstream; startup Bizly claims rights to “Grok” — Elon Musk said he borrowed the name from a 1960s science fiction novel, but another AI startup applied to trademark it before xAI launched its chatbot.
More: eWeek. Bluesky: @paleofuture, @destroyer267, @mikewilsoninoz, and @elleisanisland
Forums: r/NewsOfTheStupid and r/inthenews
| Financial Times: |
The Alan Turing Institute, the UK's flagship AI agency, plans to focus on defense, environment, and health, after staff criticized its leadership in December — Chief of Britain's flagship AI agency says ‘big strategic’ shift is needed — Britain's flagship artificial intelligence agency … | Wency Chen / South China Morning Post: |
Microsoft closes its IoT & AI Insider Lab in Shanghai, opened in May 2019, reflecting a broader pullback from China amid geopolitical tensions with the US — The IoT & AI Insider Lab in the Zhangjiang hi-tech zone likely closed in January or February, nearby workers say| Financial Times: |
Current and former Google DeepMind scientists say a tougher vetting process and more bureaucracy at Google's AI arm have made it harder to publish AI research — Google's AI arm led by Demis Hassabis makes it harder for its researchers to publish studies in major change in approach
X: @tanarrowz and @aiamblichus
| Lam Le / Rest of World: |
A look at Shanghai municipal government-backed SpaceSail, a satellite internet company that has launched ~90 satellites so far and plans to have 15,000 by 2030 — The Shanghai satellite company is launching deals in countries where Starlink, X or Tesla are creating friction.
More: Benzinga, GSMArena.com, TechCabal, Wall Street Pit, PhoneArena, iPhone in Canada Blog, and Cult of Mac
| Lora Kolodny / CNBC: |
LightSource, whose software helps companies manage their procurement process, costs, and vendor relationships, raised $33M led by Bain Capital and Lightspeed — With President Donald Trump set to impose sweeping tariffs on a wide swath of U.S. trading partners this week, corporate America is awash in uncertainty.| Washington Post: |
Uncertainty around high-skilled visas is unsettling Silicon Valley's immigrant tech community, as tech companies tell employees on visas not to leave the US — Uncertainty around high-skilled visas is rattling the immigrant tech community in Silicon Valley long viewed as one of the key pillars of U.S. innovation.| Stephen Nellis / Reuters: |
Lightmatter, which uses silicon photonics to move data in chips via light, unveils an interposer and chiplet for AI chips; the startup has raised $850M so far — Lightmatter, a startup valued at $4.4 billion, on Monday released two pieces of technology aimed at speeding up the connections between artificial intelligence chips.
More: SiliconANGLE
| Megan Specia / New York Times: |
How some UK parents created a “Smartphone Free Childhood” pledge, signed by 124K+ people, after the UK government watered down a bill banning phones in schools — In Britain, amid growing evidence of harm to young people from extreme content online, a “Smartphone Free Childhood” campaign is going viral.Sponsor Posts
Google:
Generate videos with Veo 3 in Google Gemini — Create high-quality, 8-second videos with Veo 3, our state-of-the-art AI video generator. Try it with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.
Generate videos with Veo 3 in Google Gemini — Create high-quality, 8-second videos with Veo 3, our state-of-the-art AI video generator. Try it with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.
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
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:
New in Zoho Payroll USA: Multi-state payroll and more — Running payroll shouldn't get harder as your business grows. Whether you've expanded into new states or built a team with unique needs …
New in Zoho Payroll USA: Multi-state payroll and more — Running payroll shouldn't get harder as your business grows. Whether you've expanded into new states or built a team with unique needs …
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.
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.Featured Podcasts
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