Watch: A black eye and a gold key - Musk's last day at Doge

The tech mogul, whose time as a special government employee has ended, attributed the bruise to rough-housing with his five-year-old son.

from BBC News https://ift.tt/pW8jyCQ

Sources: Trump administration plans to expand Entity List restrictions to cover subsidiaries of Chinese companies, aiming to block workarounds via new offshoots (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Sources: Trump administration plans to expand Entity List restrictions to cover subsidiaries of Chinese companies, aiming to block workarounds via new offshoots  —  The Trump administration plans to broaden restrictions on China's tech sector with new regulations to capture subsidiaries of companies under US curbs.

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Macron warns the West could lose credibility over Ukraine and Gaza wars

The French president spoke at the Shangri-la Dialogue, a high-level Asia defence summit in Singapore.

from BBC News https://ift.tt/DKpmEP1

Stargate's financing and future are far from straightforward, with ~$50B in commitments to date, far below the $500B touted by President Trump and Sam Altman (Tabby Kinder/Financial Times)

Tabby Kinder / Financial Times:
Stargate's financing and future are far from straightforward, with ~$50B in commitments to date, far below the $500B touted by President Trump and Sam Altman  —  The financing and future of Stargate hailed by Trump are far from straightforward  —  Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT …

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Judge blocks Trump's effort to restrict foreign students at Harvard - for now

The case pits the government's power over student visas against Harvard's free speech rights

from BBC News https://ift.tt/GciCNf2

Job postings: Amazon has a new ZeroOne team focused on inventing "breakthrough" consumer products, and led by former Microsoft executive J Allard (Annie Palmer/CNBC)

Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Job postings: Amazon has a new ZeroOne team focused on inventing “breakthrough” consumer products, and led by former Microsoft executive J Allard  —  Amazon's devices unit has a new team tasked with inventing “breakthrough” consumer products that's being led by a former Microsoft executive who helped create the Xbox.

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Sources: Apple's next operating systems will be called iOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26, and more, as it plans a rebrand with numbers based on the upcoming year (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple's next operating systems will be called iOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26, and more, as it plans a rebrand with numbers based on the upcoming year  —  Apple Inc. is planning the most sweeping change yet to its operating system names, part of a software overhaul that extends to all its devices.

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Giant of African literature Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o dies aged 87

The Kenyan author sent shockwaves through African literature by refusing to write in English.

from BBC News https://ift.tt/UDOB5MH

Rillet raised a $25M Sequoia-led Series A and has added ~200 customers, including Windsurf, since debuting an AI tool in 2024 to automate general ledger systems (Marina Temkin/TechCrunch)

Marina Temkin / TechCrunch:
Rillet raised a $25M Sequoia-led Series A and has added ~200 customers, including Windsurf, since debuting an AI tool in 2024 to automate general ledger systems  —  For accounting departments, no software is more important than the general ledger system.  It's the central hub that summarizes …

from Techmeme https://ift.tt/B2oNJD7

Amazon and Stellantis say their deal, announced in 2022, to create in-car software and bring Fire TV to in-car entertainment systems, is "winding down" (Reuters)

Reuters:
Amazon and Stellantis say their deal, announced in 2022, to create in-car software and bring Fire TV to in-car entertainment systems, is “winding down”  —  Amazon's deal with Stellantis to create in-car software that the companies hoped would transform the driving experience …

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Russia's advance in Ukraine's north east may be bid to create 'buffer zone'

The advance may be linked to Moscow's attempts to create "buffer zones" along the border, Ukrainian regional authorities say.

from BBC News https://ift.tt/a6nTpJZ

Texas enacts an online child-safety bill requiring app stores verify users' ages and secure parental approval before minors can get most apps or make IAPs (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Texas enacts an online child-safety bill requiring app stores verify users' ages and secure parental approval before minors can get most apps or make IAPs  —  Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed an online child safety bill, bucking a lobbying push from big tech companies that included …

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Sources: Neuralink raised $600M at a $9B pre-money valuation; PitchBook: the company was valued at $3.5B in late 2023 (Liz Hoffman/Semafor)

Liz Hoffman / Semafor:
Sources: Neuralink raised $600M at a $9B pre-money valuation; PitchBook: the company was valued at $3.5B in late 2023  —  THE SCOOP  —  Elon Musk's Neuralink raised $600 million in a deal that values the brain-mapping company at $9 billion before the new cash, people familiar with the matter said.

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People are using ChatGPT for unsparing assessments of their looks, with many also asking the chatbot to create plans to "glow up" their appearance (Tatum Hunter/Washington Post)

Tatum Hunter / Washington Post:
People are using ChatGPT for unsparing assessments of their looks, with many also asking the chatbot to create plans to “glow up” their appearance  —  Friends want to protect your feelings.  AI isn't pulling any punches.  —  Ania Rucinski was feeling down on herself.

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Far-right marchers attack Palestinians as Israel marks taking of Jerusalem

Israeli opposition leaders condemned attacks on Palestinians as "racist" and a disgrace to Judaism.

from BBC News https://ift.tt/Lvti2dM

The EU says Shein's practices breach rules against false discounts, deceptive product labels, and more, and warn that it could face fines if it doesn't comply (Edith Hancock/Wall Street Journal)

Edith Hancock / Wall Street Journal:
The EU says Shein's practices breach rules against false discounts, deceptive product labels, and more, and warn that it could face fines if it doesn't comply  —  European Union regulators said China-founded e-commerce platform Shein's sales tactics fall foul of EU law and that the company …

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Iran summons French envoy over 'insulting' Cannes remarks

Iranian officials say the remarks are “blatant interference” in the country’s internal affairs.

from BBC News https://ift.tt/qfpahCx

A profile of Zach Witkoff, World Liberty Financial co-founder and son of Trump's Middle East envoy, who is pursuing crypto deals with countries like Pakistan (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
A profile of Zach Witkoff, World Liberty Financial co-founder and son of Trump's Middle East envoy, who is pursuing crypto deals with countries like Pakistan  —  While Steve Witkoff travels the world as Middle East envoy, his son Zach is pitching foreign deals for his cryptocurrency venture with the Trumps

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Schumacher's 2001 Grand Prix-winning Ferrari sold for £13.43m

The Ferrari driven to victory by Formula One legend Michael Schumacher at the 2001 Monaco Grand Prix is sold for £13.43m at auction.

from BBC News https://ift.tt/jBAmlxb

Watch: Suspected sabotage causes Cannes power cut 'meltdown'

The prestigious film festival was disrupted, about 160,000 homes were without power and businesses were left without power.

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Sam Altman and Jony Ive's awkward io video feels like empty hype until a compelling device is released, especially given Ive's post-Jobs design missteps (Jason Snell/Six Colors)

Jason Snell / Six Colors:
Sam Altman and Jony Ive's awkward io video feels like empty hype until a compelling device is released, especially given Ive's post-Jobs design missteps  —  Ever since OpenAI announced a couple of days ago that it's integrating Jony Ive's hardware startup, I've been struggling with what to write about it.

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Despite Google's guardrails, Veo 3 users are generating realistic clips of news, disasters, and fictional events, some with dialogue not included in the prompt (Allison Johnson/The Verge)

Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Despite Google's guardrails, Veo 3 users are generating realistic clips of news, disasters, and fictional events, some with dialogue not included in the prompt  —  Cursed AI-generated videos come with very convincing audio now. … Even at first glance, there's something off about the body on the street.

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OpenAI says Operator, its AI agent that can use the web to perform tasks, will soon use a model based on o3 after previously using a custom version of GPT-4o (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
OpenAI says Operator, its AI agent that can use the web to perform tasks, will soon use a model based on o3 after previously using a custom version of GPT-4o  —  OpenAI is updating the AI model powering Operator, its AI agent that can autonomously browse the web and use certain software within a cloud-hosted virtual machine.

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As Israel faces diplomatic 'tsunami', Trump is staying quiet

This has been a tumultuous week for the Jewish state, the BBC's Paul Adams writes.

from BBC News https://ift.tt/0Obeh5o

Monarch, which makes a personal finance app, raised a $75M Series B at a $850M valuation, says its subscribers grew by 20x since Intuit closed Mint in 2023 (Hugh Son/CNBC)

Hugh Son / CNBC:
Monarch, which makes a personal finance app, raised a $75M Series B at a $850M valuation, says its subscribers grew by 20x since Intuit closed Mint in 2023  —  The personal finance startup Monarch has raised $75 million to accelerate subscriber growth that took off last year when budgeting tool Mint was shut down, CNBC has learned.

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Anthropic adds "thinking summaries" to both Claude 4 models and is making its Claude Code agentic command-line tool generally available (Jess Weatherbed/The Verge)

Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Anthropic adds “thinking summaries” to both Claude 4 models and is making its Claude Code agentic command-line tool generally available  —  Anthropic says Claude 4 worked autonomously for seven hours in customer tests. … Anthropic has introduced Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4 …

from Techmeme https://ift.tt/9pCu6MW

World Network raised $135M in a token sale to a16z and Bain Capital Crypto "to meet increasing demand for Orb-verified World IDs"; WLD jumped 14% on the news (Margaux Nijkerk/CoinDesk)

Margaux Nijkerk / CoinDesk:
World Network raised $135M in a token sale to a16z and Bain Capital Crypto “to meet increasing demand for Orb-verified World IDs”; WLD jumped 14% on the news  —  Funds from the venture capital giants will be used for the network's expansion.  —  What to know:

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Sources: Sam Altman and LoveFrom have been working for two years on a new device to move consumers beyond screens, including headphones and devices with cameras (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Sam Altman and LoveFrom have been working for two years on a new device to move consumers beyond screens, including headphones and devices with cameras  —  OpenAI to buy Ive's startup in $6.5 billion deal, as Ive and CEO Sam Altman work on new generation of devices and other AI products

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Civitai will "pause" credit card payments starting May 23, as its current payment processor won't "support platforms that allow AI-generated explicit content" (Emanuel Maiberg/404 Media)

Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media:
Civitai will “pause” credit card payments starting May 23, as its current payment processor won't “support platforms that allow AI-generated explicit content”  —  Civitai, an AI model sharing site backed by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) that 404 Media has repeatedly shown …

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Q&A with Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott on AI agents and MCP, web search, NLWeb, the relationship with OpenAI, how new hardware and optimizations benefit AI, more (Nilay Patel/The Verge)

Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Q&A with Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott on AI agents and MCP, web search, NLWeb, the relationship with OpenAI, how new hardware and optimizations benefit AI, more  —  Today, I'm talking with Kevin Scott, the chief technology officer of Microsoft and one of the company's AI leaders.

from Techmeme https://ift.tt/P3HJndZ

Jamie Dimon says JPMorgan will now let clients buy bitcoin, adding "We're not going to custody it. We're going to put it in statements for clients." (CNBC)

CNBC:
Jamie Dimon says JPMorgan will now let clients buy bitcoin, adding “We're not going to custody it. We're going to put it in statements for clients.”  —  JPMorgan Chase is finally allowing clients to buy bitcoin.  But CEO Jamie Dimon is still a skeptic.

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Warsaw's liberal mayor leads Polish presidential vote – exit poll

Rafal Trzaskowski is set to face conservative historian Karol Nawrocki in a second round run-off.

from BBC News https://ift.tt/90O1GUz

US officials investigating fatal Mexican Navy ship crash

Authorities are examining the site in New York to determine how the collision, which killed two, occurred.

from BBC News https://ift.tt/dJvkXT6

An interview with GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke and CPO Mario Rodriguez on the year of SWE agents, Copilot phase two, Project Padawan, programming's future, and more (Frederic Lardinois/The New Stack)

Frederic Lardinois / The New Stack:
An interview with GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke and CPO Mario Rodriguez on the year of SWE agents, Copilot phase two, Project Padawan, programming's future, and more  —  GitHub first introduced its now ubiquitous Copilot back in 2021.  At the time, the Microsoft-owned company described it as …

from Techmeme https://ift.tt/PmR80YH

How rapid advances in AI are helping Harvard's Galileo Project and other UFO research efforts process huge amounts of data in real time from multiple sources (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
How rapid advances in AI are helping Harvard's Galileo Project and other UFO research efforts process huge amounts of data in real time from multiple sources  —  Harvard's Galileo Project has brought high-end academic research to a once-fringe pursuit, and the Pentagon is watching.

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Five killed after helicopters collide in Finland

Police have not confirmed the number of deaths but said there were five people on board in total.

from BBC News https://ift.tt/NDqZvbl

A look at EA's attempts to shut down "anti-DEI" mods for The Sims 4, including one that changes LGBT and Black NPCs to straight and white (Alana Yzola/Wired)

Alana Yzola / Wired:
A look at EA's attempts to shut down “anti-DEI” mods for The Sims 4, including one that changes LGBT and Black NPCs to straight and white  —  The download automatically changed Black NPCs to white, trans NPCs to cis-gendered, and gay NPCs to straight.  And it's just the beginning.

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What to expect at Google I/O 2025: an updated Gemini Ultra model, updates for Android 16, Project Astra AI assistant, and Project Mariner AI agents, and more (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
What to expect at Google I/O 2025: an updated Gemini Ultra model, updates for Android 16, Project Astra AI assistant, and Project Mariner AI agents, and more  —  Google I/O, Google's biggest developer conference of the year, is nearly upon us.  —  Scheduled for May 20 to 21 …

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Shock in Sweden at death of diplomat questioned for spying

The man, described as a high-ranking diplomat, was arrested on Sunday and released on Wednesday.

from BBC News https://ift.tt/tqHQBje

The FCC approves Verizon's $9.6B acquisition of Frontier Communications after Verizon agreed to pare back what Brendan Carr called "invidious" DEI practices (Kelcee Griffis/Bloomberg)

Kelcee Griffis / Bloomberg:
The FCC approves Verizon's $9.6B acquisition of Frontier Communications after Verizon agreed to pare back what Brendan Carr called “invidious” DEI practices  —  The deal “will unleash billions of dollars in new infrastructure builds in communities across the country …

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