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Techmeme
April 29, 2025, 7:10 AM
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Top News

Will Oremus / Washington Post:
The US House passes the Take It Down Act to criminalize posting nonconsensual intimate imagery, including deepfakes, and require online platforms to remove them  —  Trump is expected to sign into law a bill that would force online platforms to quickly take down nonconsensual intimate images.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Alibaba debuts its Qwen3 family of open-weight “hybrid” AI reasoning models, including Qwen3-235B-A22B, with 235B total parameters and 22B activated parameters  —  Chinese tech company Alibaba on Monday released Qwen3, a family of AI models the company claims matches …
Reece Rogers / Wired:
OpenAI starts rolling out product recommendations in ChatGPT, including Plus, Pro, Free, and logged-out users, with buy buttons that link to merchants' websites  —  OpenAI is launching a shopping experience inside of ChatGPT, complete with product picks and buy buttons.
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
OpenAI says users made 1B+ web searches in ChatGPT last week and that WhatsApp users can now message 1-800-ChatGPT to get up-to-date search results  —  OpenAI is updating ChatGPT search, its web search tool in ChatGPT, to give users an improved online shopping experience, the company announced Monday.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn says the company will “gradually stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle”, as part of a shift to become “AI-first”  —  The company is going to be ‘AI-first,’ says its CEO. … Duolingo will “gradually stop using contractors …
Joey Roulette / Reuters:
Amazon launches 27 satellites for its Project Kuiper broadband internet program, the first batch of 3,236 satellites it plans to send into low-Earth orbit  —  The first 27 satellites for Amazon's Kuiper broadband internet constellation were launched into space from Florida on Monday …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources detail a growing rift between Sam Altman and Satya Nadella, whose partnership began after a 2018 meeting; Microsoft can block OpenAI's for-profit move  —  The OpenAI and Microsoft CEOs helped each other become power players in generative AI but are now preparing for independent futures
Zvi Mowshowitz / Don't Worry About the Vase:
A deep dive on GPT-4o's tendency to give sycophantic responses, an issue Sam Altman promised to fix and that may be caused by OpenAI optimizing for engagement  —  GPT-4o tells you what it thinks you want to hear.  —  The results of this were rather ugly.  You get extreme sycophancy.  Absurd praise.
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Sources: Scattered Spider carried out a ransomware attack on UK retailer M&S, which employs 64K+ in 1,400 stores, that caused huge disruption starting April 22  —  Ongoing outages at British retail giant Marks & Spencer are caused by a ransomware attack believed to be conducted …

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:10 AM ET, April 29, 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

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Memo: Business Insider is cutting staff by 21% to “endure extreme traffic drops outside of our control” and “exiting the majority of our Commerce business”

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Paramount offers $15M to settle with President Trump, whose team wants $25M+, is seeking an apology from CBS News, and threatened another lawsuit

Nikita Mazurov / The Intercept:
PBS station WNET removed at least three educational TV episodes that discuss transgender identity and drag expression, following a DOGE subcommittee hearing

More News

Josh Richman / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Open letter: the EFF and top security experts urge the Trump administration to end its probe of ex-CISA chief Chris Krebs, calling it political and harmful

Earlier Picks

Prakhar Khanna / ZDNET:
Nothing announces the $279 CMF Phone 2 Pro, with a 6.77" 120Hz AMOLED display and three rear cameras, including a 50MP telephoto lens, plus three new earbuds
CNBC:
Temu adds “import charges” of between 130% and 150% “due to recent changes in global trade rules and tariffs”; Shein also hikes prices but without explicit fees
Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
Researchers say bots on Reddit posing as rape victims and more were effective at changing minds in over 1,000 posts, in an unauthorized AI persuasion experiment
Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media:
Kickstarter introduces a “Tariff Manager tool” that lets creators add extra charges for backers on projects that were already fully funded
More: The Verge, Engadget, and Gizmodo
Bluesky: @jasonkoebler, @emanuelmaiberg, and @josephcox.  Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to.  Forums: Slashdot
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