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April 8, 2025, 1:30 PM
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Top News

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.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Meta VP of Generative AI Ahmad Al-Dahle denies a rumor that the company trained Llama 4 Maverick and Scout on test sets, saying that Meta “would never do that”
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:
Nintendo says the Switch 2's Game-Key cards, which trigger a game download when loaded, are not tied to a user's account and can be resold, unlike the Switch's  —  Nintendo's new Game-Key cards will work in any Switch 2 console they're inserted into.  —  With the Switch 2 generation …
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.
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 …
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority:
Google says all new Google TV devices in the US must now have a remote with a Free TV or Live TV button that opens its Freeplay library of 150+ FAST channels  —  Starting this month, new Google TV devices will have a big “Free TV” button on their remotes  — Google has confirmed …
Matthew Gault / 404 Media:
Framework pauses sales of its six lowest-priced laptops in the US, saying the models would sell at a loss due to the 10% tariff that went into effect on April 5
Umar Shakir / The Verge:
Google rolls out Gemini Live camera and screenshare features to the Pixel 9 series and Samsung Galaxy S25 devices, available in 45 languages for users 18 and up  —  It's also coming soon to paid Gemini Advanced users on other devices. … Google's Gemini Live camera and screenshare functions …
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 …
Bloomberg:
Sources: hackers intercepted ~100 bank regulators' emails, 150K+ in total, for over a year at the US Treasury's OCC, which disclosed a breach on February 26  —  - Attackers lurked within OCC email accounts since 2023  — Chinese state hackers previously targeted Treasury files
Rebecca Szkutak / TechCrunch:
IBM unveils the z17 mainframe with a Telum II chip, able to process 450B daily inference operations, 50% more than the z16 released in 2022, available June 18  —  IBM is releasing the latest version of its mainframe hardware that includes new updates meant to accelerate AI adoption.
Bloomberg:
Apple Store employees say the past few days have felt like the busy holiday season, as the threat of tariffs and potential price hikes sparked a shopping frenzy  —  - Store sales were higher this past weekend than in prior years  — Employees say the frenzy has felt like holiday shopping season
Bloomberg:
Publishers say site traffic has plummeted since Google rolled out AI Overviews; sources say Google acknowledged the drop in an October 2024 publisher meeting  —  In March 2024, website owner Morgan McBride was posing for photos in her half-renovated kitchen for a Google ad celebrating the ways …
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Rain, which offers an employer-integrated personal finance and earned wage access app, raised a $75M Series B led by Prosus at a $340M post-money valuation  —  Rain, a startup offering employer-integrated earned wage access (EWA) app coupled with financial-wellness features like overdraft alerts …
More: FinSMEs
Allison Schiff / AdExchanger:
Snap releases sponsored AI lenses, a new generative AI ad format users can interact with and that is powered by One Snap, its homegrown generative AI tech  —  The creative on Snapchat has evolved a lot since those puking rainbow filters.  —  On Tuesday, Snap released sponsored AI lenses …
More: TechCrunch

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:30 PM ET, April 8, 2025.

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From Mediagazer

Pew Research Center:
A survey of US adults finds 77% say press freedom is “extremely or very important”, but only 33% say the media is “completely free” to report the news in the US

Nicholas Riccardi / Associated Press:
The stripped-down festivities at the WHCD reflected the somber tone in Washington, with White House journalists using the event to celebrate the First Amendment

Axios:
Internal memo: AG Pam Bondi rescinds Merrick Garland's policy restricting most subpoenas for journalists, “to identify and punish the source of improper leaks”

More News

Earlier Picks

Andrej Karpathy / @karpathy:
LLMs, unlike prior transformative tech like the internet, disproportionately benefit regular people, with a muted, slower impact on corporations and governments
Vallari Srivastava / Reuters:
Infineon agrees to acquire Marvell's Automotive Ethernet business, expected to generate $225M to $250M in 2025 revenue, for ~$2.5B in cash, set to close in 2025
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Memo: Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke says using AI is now a “fundamental expectation” and that teams asking for more resources must first show why AI can't do the job
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