Note: Techmeme is hiring part-time editors. Go here to apply, or tell a friend!
Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise
Techmeme
April 8, 2025, 11:00 PM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Get our daily newsletter and never miss a story!   ⓧ Newsletter

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:
Sources: Micron has told US customers that it plans to impose a surcharge on some products like SSDs from April 9 to account for President Trump's new tariffs
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 …
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 …
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.
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
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
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.
David Prosser / Forbes:
London-based NexGen Cloud, which offers a GPU-as-a-service cloud for clients that need flexible access to train AI, raised a $45M Series A at a $354M valuation  —  As the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has swept round the world over the past two years, the space has largely been dominated by US technology businesses.
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

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.
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.
Zoho:
AI meeting assistants: A game-changer in communication  —  We've come a long way from live video call demonstrations at world's fairs.  What was once considered a futuristic idea is now a vital part of how we collaborate …
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.
Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
 How DoorDash Has Quietly Been Killing It
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Sponsor this podcast
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
 Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky wants to build the everything app
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Grit:
 Bret Taylor's Journey Leading Salesforce, Sierra & OpenAI
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Acquired:
 The Steve Ballmer Interview
Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.
Subscribe to Acquired.
Lenny's Podcast:
 Why Uber's CPO delivers food on weekends | Sachin Kansal
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.
The Social Radars:
 Ron Conway, Founder, SV Angel Part 4 (Bonus)
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
Subscribe to The Social Radars.
Add your podcast here
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:00 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.

From Mediagazer

Max Tani / Semafor:
Sources: in May 2024, Business Insider sent some staff a recommended reading list that included seemingly AI-generated books that did not appear to exist

Naman Ramachandran / Variety:
Marc Maron plans to end WTF With Marc Maron podcast in the fall; the groundbreaking podcast helped define the medium with 1,600+ episodes after its 2009 launch

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Taylor Swift is the most business-savvy artist alive, reacquiring her music by driving negotiations between major music groups, streamers, and social networks

More News

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
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
Toronto-based Tailscale, which offers an enterprise mesh VPN service, raised $160M led by Accel, a source says at a $1.5B valuation, up from $1B in May 2022

Earlier Picks

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
Eliza Strickland / IEEE Spectrum:
A look at the state of AI in 2025 across training and inference costs, carbon footprint, US vs. China, investment activity, bills proposed in the US, and more
More: The Decoder, Stanford HAI, and Wired
Bluesky: @erikbryn and @smcgrath.phd
LinkedIn: Xiaopeng Li and Jon Adams.  Forums: r/technews
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
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter