Techmeme
April 8, 2025, 11:20 PM

Top News

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says that President Trump believes the US has the resources and workforce to build iPhones in the US  —  Trump's massive 104% tariffs on China are set to go into effect at midnight tonight, a move that will have a major impact on Apple and its supply chain.
Elisabeth Buchwald / CNN:
The White House says that tariffs on China are set to rise to 104% at 12:01am ET on April 9 after China missed Trump's deadline to remove its reciprocal tariffs  —  President Donald Trump is set to impose an astounding 104% in levies across all Chinese imports on Wednesday …
Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge:
Razer pauses direct sales of its upcoming Blade 16 and other laptops in the US as new tariffs loom, leaving only skins and accessories available for purchase  —  With tariffs set to kick in tonight, Razer's new Blade 16 and other laptops are no longer available to purchase directly.
Reuters:
Ben Weiss / Fortune:
Internal memo: the US DOJ disbands the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Unit, established by Biden in 2021, as the agency is “not a digital assets regulator”  —  The U.S. Department of Justice notified staff on Monday evening that the agency was disbanding a unit dedicated to crypto-related investigations.
The Information:
Source: Instagram is working on an iPad app, and Adam Mosseri told staff to be willing to assume more “risk” to take advantage of a TikTok US ban or disruption  —  Meta Platforms has put the turmoil around TikTok to good use.  Amid a barrage of headlines about the White House's efforts …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google says Gemini Advanced subscribers can now use Deep Research with Gemini 2.5 Pro Experimental, vs. Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental at March launch  —  Gemini Advanced subscribers can now perform Deep Research with Google's most intelligent 2.5 Pro (experimental) model.
Reuters:
Sources: US officials say DOGE is using AI to surveil at least one federal agency's communications for anti-Trump talk; a source says DOGE is also using Signal  —  Trump administration officials have told some U.S. government employees that Elon Musk's DOGE team of technologists …
Kylie Robison / The Verge:
LMArena says it is updating its leaderboard policies after a Llama 4 Maverick version, which Meta said in fine print is not public, secured the number two spot  —  With Llama 4, Meta fudged benchmarks to appear as though its new AI model is better than the competition.
Bloomberg:
Sources: hackers accessed 150K+ emails from ~103 bank regulators from May 2023 to early 2025 at the US Treasury's OCC, which on February 26 disclosed a breach  —  - Attackers lurked within OCC email accounts since 2023  — Chinese state hackers previously targeted Treasury files
Bradly Shankar / MobileSyrup:
Nintendo says Switch 2 pre-orders in Canada “will not start on April 9, 2025 in order to align with the timing of pre-orders to be determined in the US”  —  The pre-orders were originally set to go live on April 9  —  Nintendo has confirmed that pre-orders for the Nintendo Switch 2 …
Darryn Bonthuys / GameSpot:
Karen Freifeld / Reuters:
Sources: TSMC could face a $1B+ penalty to settle a US Commerce Department export control investigation over a chip it made that is in Huawei's Ascend 910B chip  —  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (2330.TW) could face a penalty of $1 billion or more to settle a U.S. export control investigation …
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Meta rolls out Teen Accounts to Facebook and Messenger, automatically enrolling users and adding built-in protections, in the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada  —  Meta is introducing Teen Accounts to Facebook and Messenger.  The feature, which automatically enrolls young users …
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Amazon launches Nova Sonic, which can generate natural-sounding speech and that it claims is “the most cost-efficient” AI voice model on the market, via Bedrock  —  On Tuesday, Amazon debuted a new generative AI model, Nova Sonic, capable of natively processing voice and generating natural-sounding speech.
The Verge:
A look at the rise of “Frankenstein” laptops in India, made by salvaging parts from multiple brands and sold to students, gig workers, and small businesses  —  In a dimly lit, cluttered workshop in Delhi's Nehru Place, the air hums with the sound of whirring drills and the crackle of soldering irons.
Cecilia Kang / New York Times:
Tech CEOs who spent big on Trump's inauguration have yet to see the investment pay off; Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft are down 22% since January 20  —  With inauguration donations and Mar-a-Lago visits, leaders of the biggest tech companies sought favor with the president …

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
State of AI: Adoption, Challenges and Recommendations  —  Examining the current state of AI, the key challenges organizations face, and practical recommendations for utilizing AI integration alongside other best practices.
SignalFire:
SignalFire raises another $1 billion to back applied AI startups  —  We build AI too.  It tracks 650M tech employees so we can help companies with recruiting and GTM across enterprise, infra, healthcare, security, and consumer.
Zoho:
How to turn employees into your brand's biggest supporters  —  Turning your employees into your brand's biggest advocates is one of the most powerful ways to grow your brand.  When employees feel connected to your mission …
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.

Featured Podcasts

Lenny's Podcast:
Inside monday.com's transformation: radical transparency, impact over output, and their path to $1B ARR | Daniel Lereya (Chief Product and Technology Officer)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Zuck Trying To Make Fetch Happen
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Hard Fork:
Is Google Breaking Up? + Seasteading Is Back + Tool Time
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:20 PM ET, April 8, 2025.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority:
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Umar Shakir / The Verge:
Eliza Strickland / IEEE Spectrum:
More: The Decoder, Stanford HAI, and Wired
Bluesky: @erikbryn and @smcgrath.phd
LinkedIn: Xiaopeng Li and Jon AdamsForums: r/technews
Rebecca Szkutak / TechCrunch: