Techmeme
April 8, 2025, 1:45 PM

Top News

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 …
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:
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:
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 …
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 …
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:
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
Wall Street Journal:
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.
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
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 …

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Andrej Karpathy / @karpathy:
Vallari Srivastava / Reuters:
Annie Palmer / CNBC: