Techmeme
April 21, 2025, 6:55 AM

Top News

Every:
A comparison of OpenAI's o3, o4-mini, and GPT-4.1; Aaron Levie says o3 nailed a multi-step financial modeling task; Scale AI CEO says o3 is “a big breakthrough”  —  Our take on what's powerful, what's practical, and what's still TBD … If you've been following AI news this week …
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
Paul Graham likened Palantir's ICE work to “infrastructure of the police state”; a Palantir exec said Paul's view is like Google's when it killed Project Maven  —  One of the founders of startup accelerator Y Combinator offered unsparing criticism this weekend …
Financial Times:
A look at the race to turn brainwaves into fluent speech, as researchers at universities in California and companies use brain implants and AI to make advances  —  Californian researchers and groups such as Precision Neuroscience use implants and AI to make advances in ‘voice prosthesis’
Knight First Amendment Institute:
A deep dive into AI as a normal technology vs. a humanlike intelligence and how major public policy based on controlling superintelligence may make things worse  —  An alternative to the vision of AI as a potential superintelligence  —  We articulate a vision of artificial intelligence (AI) as normal technology.
Ben Weiss / Fortune:
Coinbase faces pump-and-dump accusations after its subsidiary Base launched a “content coin” on Zora; Coinbase clarifies that Base will never sell the tokens  —  Jesse Pollak is the creator of Base, a new blockchain from Coinbase.  —  Winni Wintermeyer for Fortune
Wall Street Journal:
A half-marathon in Beijing featured a road race with human runners and 21 Chinese humanoid robots, highlighting both the progress and limitations of such robots  —  A half-marathon in Beijing featured a road race between human runners and 21 robot models—and showed how far robots still are from mimicking people.
Tom Wiggins / Wired:
A look at the tactile devices from OneCourt, Field of Vision, and Touch2See that help visually impaired spectators follow live sports with their fingers  —  These three companies have developed tactile devices that help visually impaired spectators follow the live action playing out on the field.
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Q&A with Dan Kim and Hassan Khan, former officials at the CHIPS Program Office, on subsidizing supply versus coercing demand, the program's future, and more  —  An interview with Dan Kim and Hassan Khan about their work distributing CHIPS program money, and why they are optimistic about U.S. industrial policy going forward.
Ruth Reader / Politico:
After lobbying US Congress to shelve the Senate-passed KOSA bill in 2024, Meta has now made headway in lobbying for an app store age-verification bill  —  The Facebook founder is lobbying Congress to leave his firm alone — and making headway.  —  To protect kids online …
Mark Bergen / Bloomberg:
How YouTube is adapting to the AI era; a VP expects that in five years, every video uploaded to YouTube could be dubbed automatically into every spoken language  —  The video giant, turning 20, tries to keep the content spigot flowing while appeasing its army of broadcasters and copyright holders.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
Zoho:
Zoho Books now enables direct VAT filing with EmaraTax  —  We're excited to announce that Zoho Books is now recognised as a Digital Tax Integrator by the Federal Tax Authority, enabling direct VAT return filing from within your favorite accounting software.
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.

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Tim Apple's Very Bad Week
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Jeffrey Katzenberg & Sujay Jaswa (WndrCo) on What Startup Founders Can Steal From Hollywood
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
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Hard Fork:
Google DeepMind C.E.O. Demis Hassabis on Living in an A.I. Future
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Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley.
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More News

Christopher Grimes / Financial Times:
Krishnapriya V.S. / The India Forum:

Earlier Picks

Jowi Morales / Tom's Hardware:
New York Times:
Ananya Bhattacharya / Rest of World: