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Internal draft: UK's ICO says Google's Privacy Sandbox falls short and leaves gaps that can be exploited to undermine privacy of users who should be anonymous (Wall Street Journal)

Apple removes WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China, saying it was ordered to do so by China's cyberspace officials citing national security concerns (Raffaele Huang/Wall Street Journal)

Washington, DC-based Cape, which is developing a mobile service that doesn't ask for customers' personal data, raised a $40M Series B co-led by A-Star and a16z (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

Microsoft researchers introduce VASA-1, an AI model that creates a realistic talking face video from a portrait photo and an audio file, in research preview (Ryan Morrison/Tom's Guide)

Q&A with Mark Zuckerberg on Llama 3, buying H100 GPUs for Reels, AGI, energy constraints, dangers of open source, the metaverse, Meta's custom silicon, and more (Dwarkesh Patel/Dwarkesh Podcast)

Digital marketing software company Ibotta closes up 17% at $103.25 per share in its trading debut, after raising ~$577.3M in an IPO priced above marketed range (Bloomberg)

Google says it will consolidate teams that focus on building AI models across Research and DeepMind, and move its Responsible AI teams in Research to DeepMind (Zaheer Kachwala/Reuters)

Meta cuts the price of the base 128GB Quest 2 from $249 to $199, its second permanent price cut in four months, after a drop from $299 to $249 in January (Kris Holt/Engadget)

Netflix won't report subscriber numbers or Average Revenue per Membership starting in Q1 2025, saying time spent is its "best proxy for customer satisfaction" (Todd Spangler/Variety)

Netflix reports Q1 revenue up 15% YoY to $9.37B, vs. $9.28B est., paid users up 16% YoY to 269.6M, vs. 264.2M est., and net income $2.3B, up from $1.3B YoY (Sarah Whitten/CNBC)

Meta claims both Llama 3 models beat similarly sized models like Gemini, Mistral, and Claude 3 on certain benchmarks; humans marked Llama 3 higher than GPT-3.5 (Emilia David/The Verge)

A US jury finds Avraham Eisenberg, a crypto trader who stole $110M on the Mango Markets exchange in 2022, guilty of fraud despite his "code is law" claim (Crystal Kim/Axios)

Short-form video app Triller is merging with Hong Kong financial services company AGBA; Triller shareholders will own 80% of the combined company valued at $4B (Daniel Tencer/Music Business Worldwide)

DARPA reveals that an AI-controlled X-62A jet successfully faced a human pilot in an F-16 during an in-air dogfight test carried out in 2023 (Emma Roth/The Verge)

Meta rolls out real-time AI image generation, which changes the image as the user types a prompt, in beta on WhatsApp and Meta AI on the web in the US (Emma Roth/The Verge)

Sources: cloud security startup Wiz is in advanced talks to acquire competitor Lacework for $150M-$200M; Lacework raised $1.8B and was valued at $8.3B in 2021 (The Information)

Meta details Llama 3: 8B and 70B parameters models and a focus on reducing false refusals; an upcoming large model trained on 15T tokens and has 400B parameters (Alex Heath/The Verge)

Meta plans to add its Meta AI chatbot to Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Facebook in 12+ countries, expanding on the US, powered by its new Llama 3 models (New York Times)

TSMC says the April 3 Taiwan earthquake caused an estimated losses of $92.44M to the company in Q2; there were no power outages or structural damage to its fabs (Reuters)

Google unveils internal reorganizations, including an AI-focused Platforms and Devices group overseeing Pixel, Android, Chrome, and more, led by Rick Osterloh (David Pierce/The Verge)

US House Speaker plans to bundle the TikTok divestiture bill, with a revised proposal, in a Ukraine and Israel aid bill expected to clear the Senate on April 20 (Bloomberg)

Brave Search introduces Answer with AI, which shows answers synthesized from multiple sources for informational queries, appearing above organic search results (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

Intel Foundry completes the assembly of the first commercial High-NA EUV chipmaking tool, a day after ASML set an EUV system record by printing 10nm dense lines (Paul Alcorn/Tom's Hardware)

Spend management startup Ramp raised a $150M Series D extension at a $7.65B valuation, up from $5.8B after raising $300M in 2023 but down from $8.1B in 2022 (Mary Ann Azevedo/TechCrunch)

US court documents, mistakenly made public, reveal ByteDance and TikTok's complex origin story, spawning from GOP donor Jeff Yass' failed real estate venture (New York Times)

Europol, law enforcement in 19 countries, Microsoft, and others disrupt phishing-as-a-service platform LabHost in a year-long operation and make 37 arrests (Bill Toulas/BleepingComputer)

Nothing unveils the $149 Nothing Ear and $99 Nothing Ear (a), offering improved sound, personalization, and battery life; Nothing plans to integrate ChatGPT (Chris Welch/The Verge)

TSMC CEO CC Wei says the company plans to charge customers more for making chips outside of Taiwan, citing a "fragmented globalization environment" (Kathrin Hille/Financial Times)

A look at Apple's iPhone recycling, including shredding robots, and contractor GEEP, which Apple sued in 2020 for $22.6M in a case that has since been inactive (Austin Carr/Bloomberg)

Investigation: Amazon sells ~$1M per year in goods on eBay, Shopify, Walmart, and Amazon via its "Big River" arm, to get data on pricing, logistics, and more (Wall Street Journal)

Twitch plans to roll out its TikTok-style discovery feed later in April, letting users scroll clips and livestreams, after testing the feature for a year (Emma Roth/The Verge)

An interview with Reddit Chief Product Officer Pali Bhat on the company's roadmap: faster load times, new moderator and developer tools, and AI translation (Amanda Silberling/TechCrunch)

French B2B software company Planisware raised 278M in a Paris IPO; its shares jumped up to 33% to ~21 on its debut, giving Planisware a 1.1B valuation (Thyagaraju Adinarayan/Bloomberg)

Apple plans to spend $250M+ on its regional hub in Singapore, including expanding its campus later in 2024, as Tim Cook visits Vietnam and other Asian countries (Amanda Lee/Wall Street Journal)

Huawei releases its Pura 70 series, available for ~$760 to ~$1,380; reviewers show high-end models have a Kirin 9010 chip, an update to the Mate 60 Pro's 9000s (Bloomberg)

Document: Microsoft added 500+ megawatts of data center capacity since July 2023 and topped five gigawatts of total capacity in the H1 of its latest fiscal year (Eugene Kim/Business Insider)

How one author gained a limited copyright for the "selection, coordination, and arrangement of text" from AI, as the US Copyright Office wrestles with AI law (Kate Knibbs/Wired)

Crypto miners are stockpiling bitcoins ahead of April 20 halving; TheMinerMag: Marathon Digital, CleanSpark, and Bitfarms hoarded ~$2B worth of bitcoins (Scott Chipolina/Financial Times)

TSMC reports Q1 revenue up 16.5% YoY to NT$592.64B ($18.87B) vs. NT$582.94B est., profit up 8.9% YoY to NT$225.49B vs. NT$213.59B est., on strong AI chip demand (Sheila Chiang/CNBC)

An experiment with LLMs: the tools are helpful in mundane ways but you can't build a hundred-billion-dollar industry around a technology that's kind of useful (Molly White/Citation Needed)

Research suggests GPT-4 surpassed or achieved the same scores as all but top-scoring specialist medics in assessing ocular problems and suggesting treatments (Michael Peel/Financial Times)

Google fires 28 employees over their participation in a 10-hour sit-in at the company's New York and Sunnyvale offices to protest its business ties with Israel (Thomas Barrabi/New York Post)

AWS discontinues its Snowmobile service, an 18-wheeler truck introduced in 2016 to help customers transport large amounts of on-premises data to AWS facilities (CNBC)

Filing: 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki is seeking to take the company private after three years in public markets that saw its valuation collapse from a high of $6B (Rolfe Winkler/Wall Street Journal)

Walmart-backed digital marketing software company Ibotta raises ~$577.3M in its IPO at a share price of $88, giving it a market value of $2.67B (Amy Or/Bloomberg)

Sources: Micron could get $6B+ in chip grants from the US Commerce Department for domestic factory projects; the award could be announced as soon as next week (Mackenzie Hawkins/Bloomberg)

Intel unveils Hala Point, a large-scale neuromorphic system deployed at Sandia National Laboratories, with 1,152 Loihi 2 processors simulating 1M neurons each (Ryan Smith/AnandTech)

The US CFPB fines BloomTech, formerly Lambda School, and CEO Austen Allred $164K and bans it from lending for 10 years for deceiving students on loans, and more (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

The US NIST appoints as head of AI safety former OpenAI researcher Paul Christiano, who has been criticized for "AI doomer" views and ties to effective altruism (Ashley Belanger/Ars Technica)

TikTok starts rolling out TikTok Notes, its Instagram rival for sharing photo and text content, for limited testing in Australia and Canada on Android and iOS (Sheena Vasani/The Verge)

Boston Dynamics debuts an electric version of humanoid robot Atlas for commercial use, a day after retiring the hydraulic Atlas, with a pilot starting in 2025 (Brian Heater/TechCrunch)

Colorado Governor Jared Polis signs a bill that, for the first time in the US, expands the state's personal privacy law to include consumer "neural data" (Jonathan Moens/New York Times)

Worldcoin announces World Chain, a Layer 2 Ethereum blockchain designed to prioritize verified humans over bots, slated for release this summer (Sam Kessler/CoinDesk)

MTAC report: foreign malign influence from Russia, China, and Iran in the US presidential election got off to a slower start this year compared to 2016 and 2020 (Clint Watts/Microsoft On the Issues)

Third-party iOS app store AltStore PAL launches in the EU for 1.50 a year with two apps including game emulator Delta, which is also live on Apple's App Store (The Verge)

After Forbes found 120+ YouTube videos and 27 Google ads promoting AI deepfake porn tools and "nudifier" Telegram bots, Google took them down (Thomas Brewster/Forbes)

Startup-focused neobank Mercury expands to consumers with Mercury Personal, offering support for multiple users, access to up to $5M in FDIC insurance, and more (Mary Ann Azevedo/TechCrunch)

The US FTC announced a $7M fine against mental telehealth startup Cerebral, citing misleading data sharing and cancelation policies, misleading ads, and more (Wes Davis/The Verge)

Sources: German grocery delivery startup Flink raised another 100M from existing investors and has been in merger talks with rivals Getir and Just Eat Takeaway (Bloomberg)

The European Data Protection Board says large online platforms like Meta should give users an option to use their services for free without targeted advertising (Foo Yun Chee/Reuters)

Sources: the EU has decided that Microsoft's OpenAI deal doesn't merit a formal probe because it falls short of a takeover and Microsoft doesn't control OpenAI (Samuel Stolton/Bloomberg)

How Amazon developed Just Walk Out since the early 2010s, driven by Jeff Bezos, as the company removes the tech from stores while expanding third-party sales (Matt Day/Bloomberg)

Stability AI makes Stable Diffusion 3 available to developers via an API and a new Stable Assistant Beta content creation platform; the models remain in preview (The Verge)

A look at Spy Pet, a Discord scraping service that claims to get data from 14K+ servers and 600M users, available for as little as $5; Discord is investigating (Joseph Cox/404 Media)

Snap plans to add watermarks to AI-generated images on Snapchat; watermarks appear as a translucent version of the Snap logo with a sparkle emoji (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

How GitHub Copilot became responsible for a significant percentage of coding, despite its limitations; Stack Overflow: 54.8% of developers used Copilot in 2023 (Bloomberg)

ASML reports China represented 49% of its system sales in Q1, while sales from Taiwan more than halved and the US dropped five percentage points to 6% (Sarah Jacob/Bloomberg)

Bellwether, a new group inside Alphabet's X innovation lab, plans to offer AI tools to the US National Guard to analyze images of disaster areas in summer 2024 (Gerrit De Vynck/Washington Post)

Mandiant links hacktivist group Cyber Army of Russia, which claimed to target utilities in France, the US, and Poland, to Russia-linked hacking group Sandworm (Andy Greenberg/Wired)

US Senators Cynthia Lummis and Kirsten Gillibrand propose a bill to regulate stablecoins; House and Senate lawmakers are pushing to pass a bill as soon as May (Steven T. Dennis/Bloomberg)

How a network of repair ships helps maintain the estimated 800,000 miles of undersea internet cables; of the 77 cable ships, only 22 are designed for repairs (Josh Dzieza/The Verge)

How video games with immersive storylines and powerful, emotive writing offer some of the most thrilling fiction out there, overtaking books for some readers (Imogen West-Knights/Financial Times)

CIRP: Amazon Prime hit a new high of 180M US shoppers in March 2024, up 8% YoY, despite greater online competition; 75% of US shoppers have a Prime membership (Spencer Soper/Bloomberg)

Foxconn Chair Young Liu says the company implemented a rotating CEO system this month, aiming to nurture successors, choosing a leader from its six businesses (Yimou Lee/Reuters)

Activision cuts entry fees for teams in its professional Call of Duty League, and will return collected fees, as the esports industry faces financial challenges (Cecilia D'Anastasio/Bloomberg)

Emails: SpaceX cracks down on users who are connecting to its Starlink internet service from unauthorized countries, including Sudan, South Africa, and Zimbabwe (Wall Street Journal)

ASML reports Q1 net sales down 21.6% YoY to 5.29B, vs. 5.39B est., net income down 37.4% YoY to 1.22B, vs. 1.07B est., and net bookings down 4% YoY to 3.6B (Arjun Kharpal/CNBC)

Current and former T-Mobile and Verizon employees say they are receiving texts offering up to $300 to perform a SIM swap; T-Mobile says it is investigating (Sergiu Gatlan/BleepingComputer)

Tel Aviv-based Cynomi, which offers an AI-powered virtual CISO service for managed service providers, raised a $20M Series A led by Canaan (FinSMEs)

Herlev, Denmark-based Flatpay, which offers payment services to retail shops, restaurants, salons, and more, raised a 45 Series B led by Dawn Capital (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

Features Headlines Today
[Fri-19-Apr-2024]

1,200 tonnes of paper recycled daily in Ogun Commissioner - Daily Trust

2 victims escape after their abductors doze off in Kaduna - Daily Trust

3 people arrested in kidnap, torture case in San Jose: police - Yahoo

After 80 countries, London to Lagos, I intend to keep travelling 'Pelumi Nubi - Tribune

Another court restrains APC excos from taking further action against Ganduje - Premium Times

Apple Music announces Kaestyle as April's featured artiste for Rap life Africa - Tribune

Attorney General asks ex-governor Yahaya Bello to surrender self to EFCC - Premium Times

Benue: Volunteer guards parade 3 suspected diesel thieves - Daily Trust

Chicago man suspected of stealing $837 in alcohol from suburban Mariano's - Yahoo

Convenience store chain with hundreds of outlets in 6 states hit with discrimination lawsuit - Yahoo

Corruption In The Public Sector: Beyond The Symptoms (5) - Daily Independent

Court releases details of Little Rock's Immanuel Baptist Church volunteer's alleged sexual assault, investigation - Yahoo

Court remands task force official over alleged murder - Daily Trust

Daniel Riley sentenced for causing crash that cost teenager her legs - Yahoo

Day Yoruba Nation agitators invaded Oyo State secretariat - Tribune

DEVELOPING: Record-chasing Chess master, Tunde Onakoya completes 24 hours undefeated - Premium Times

Edo CJ frees inmate from detention 4 years after - Daily Trust

EFCC cell is big mans place, Cubana Chief Priest counsels invited suspects - Premium Times

Enact law for free sanitary pads, Taraba assembly urged - Daily Trust

Fact Check: People Are Claiming Trump Never Attended His Children's Graduations. Here's What We Found - Yahoo

Fake reverend sister arrested over trafficking 38 minors - Daily Trust

FG Seeks Higher Investments, Increased Trade From G-24 - New Telegraph

FG To Partner Akwa Ibom Govt To Develop Gas Sector - New Telegraph

FG trains 40 tour guides in Epe - Tribune

Four in 10 Nigerian children trapped in child labour NBS - Premium Times

George Santos Just Had to Admit How Much Money He Owes People. Oh Boy. - Yahoo

Governor Eno sets up committee to resolve feud over new traditional rulers law - Premium Times

Group asks APC to return chairmanship to North-central as Ganduje fights suspension - Premium Times

Gunmen kill Anambra traffic official in Awka - Daily Trust

Hear what Trump said minutes after jury was seated in hush money trial - Yahoo

Helping neonates communicate beyond crying - Tribune

How insecurity in the Middle Belt is fueling food crisis in Nigeria - Tribune

How to administer CPR to adults - Tribune

How to administer CPR to pregnant women - Tribune

Israeli missiles hit site in Iran, ABC News reports - Yahoo

Lagos-Coastal road: Over 100 displaced families resettled - Daily Trust

Makinde Demolishes Yoruba Nation Leaders Buildings In Ibadan - New Telegraph

Man arraigned for beating neighbour over loud music - Daily Trust

Man arrested for stealing pumping machine in Kwara - Daily Trust

Man charged with theft of N1.2m from dead mans bank account - Daily Trust

Man Stands on Motorcycle While Driving Over 100 MPH: Cops - Yahoo

Mariska Hargitay halts 'SVU' filming to help lost child who confused her for police officer - Yahoo

Maryland high school student arrested after authorities discovered a 129-page document detailing school shooting plan, police say - Yahoo

Minister visits, describes Ikogosi Warm Springs Resort as Nigeria's hidden gem - Tribune

Morning Bid: Blunt Powell signals rate cut plans on ice - Yahoo

Next Generation Squad Weapon and optic exceed soldiers' expectations - Yahoo

NGO Seeks Justice For Slain Ajiranland Youths Leader - New Telegraph

Nollywood actresses paid enough to live well ' Allwell Ademola - Tribune

NSIA Investments Hit N1.189trn In 11 Years - New Telegraph

Obasa Lauds Agboyi-Ketu LCDA Chairman For Providing Cash Support For Traders - New Telegraph

Online Sextortion: How it works and what to do if you're being sextorted - Tribune

PROFILE: Top 10 Nigerian women making waves in 2024 - Tribune

Reps Reject Increase In Electricity Tariff - New Telegraph

So-Safe arrests 3 suspected robbers in Ogun - Daily Trust

Step-by-step guide on how to administer CPR to infants - Tribune

Student Loan: CSOs raise concern over accountability, transparency - Premium Times

Supreme Court makes it easier to sue for job discrimination over forced transfers - Yahoo

The doctors are back in Borno - Tribune

These Ondo primary school children will no longer learn under trees - Tribune