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Here are the apps battling to be become the ‘TikTok for Bluesky’

TikTok’s potential U.S. ban has sparked a flurry of development within the open social web community. Several new applications are being built that could one day serve as a TikTok replacement for those who favor the open source, decentralized social network Bluesky and the technology that powers it, the AT Protocol. Though the TikTok ban […]

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Venture debt lenders will play a big role in fire sales and startup shutdown this year, experts say

When accounting startup Bench abruptly failed last month, the shutdown was forced when the company’s lenders called in the startup’s loan. In late 2023, the digital freight company Convoy faced financial challenges, leading venture lending firm Hercules Capital to assume control of the company to recover its investments. Divvy Homes, which sold for about $1 […]

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How to delete X and move on with your life

As Elon Musk’s X sees a decline in daily active users, some people are deciding to ditch the social network entirely, whether that’s for Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, or perhaps, better yet, nothing at all. Since the Tesla and SpaceX CEO bought Twitter in 2022, numerous alternatives have cropped up, seeking to ensnare people who are […]

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AI agents could birth the first one-person unicorn — but at what societal cost?

Thanks to the advent of cloud computing and distributed digital infrastructure, the one-person micro-enterprise is far from a novel concept. Cheap on-demand compute, remote collaboration, payment processing APIs, social media, and e-commerce marketplaces have all made it easier to “go it alone” as an entrepreneur. But what about scaling that one-person business into something meatier […]

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India pledges fresh billion for startups

India announced a new $1.15 billion Fund of Funds for startups on Saturday while unveiling sweeping regulatory reforms and an ambitious nuclear energy program, as New Delhi seeks to boost tech innovation and clean energy in the world’s fifth-largest economy. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, presenting the federal budget for 2025-26, said the fund builds on […]

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Autonomous vehicle testing in California dropped 50%. Here’s why.

Tech companies developing self-driving vehicle technology have tapped the brakes on testing on California’s public roads, according to new data from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. The agency reported Friday a total of 4.5 million autonomous vehicle test miles were logged in 2024, a 50% drop from the previous year. That figure covers two […]

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OpenAI used this subreddit to test AI persuasion

OpenAI used the subreddit, r/ChangeMyView, to create a test for measuring the persuasive abilities of its AI reasoning models. The company revealed this in a system card — a document outlining how an AI system works — that was released along with its new “reasoning” model, o3-mini, on Friday. Millions of Reddit users are members […]

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Sam Altman: OpenAI has been on the ‘wrong side of history’ concerning open source

To cap off a day of product releases, OpenAI researchers, engineers, and executives, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, answered questions in a wide-ranging Reddit AMA on Friday. OpenAI finds itself in a bit of a precarious position. It’s battling the perception that it’s ceding ground in the AI race to Chinese companies like DeepSeek, which […]

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MLCommons and Hugging Face team up to release massive speech dataset for AI research

MLCommons, a nonprofit AI safety working group, has teamed up with AI dev platform Hugging Face to release one of the world’s largest collections of public domain voice recordings for AI research. The dataset, called Unsupervised People’s Speech, contains more than a million hours of audio spanning at least 89 languages. MLCommons says it was […]

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Elon Musk is reportedly taking control of the inner workings of US government agencies

People working for, or with, Elon Musk are reportedly taking over the inner workings of multiple government agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management, the Treasury Department, and the General Services Administration. The Washington Post reported Friday that the highest-ranking career official at Treasury is leaving the department after “a clash” with people working for […]

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Guo’s Conviction Partners adds Mike Vernal as GP, raises $230M fund

When in mid-2022 Sarah Guo left Greylock to launch her own AI-focused fund, Conviction Partners, she indicated that she was tagging the word “Partners” to the firm’s name because she would eventually bring on other GPs. Now, more than two years later, Guo is being joined by Mike Vernal, who was a partner at Sequoia […]

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Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is trying to duck a deposition in an OpenAI copyright lawsuit

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is trying to avoid being deposed in a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI, according to new court filings. In response, lawyers for the plaintiff — the Authors Guild — have filed a motion to compel testimony from Amodei and his Anthropic co-founder, Benjamin Mann. Authors Guild’s lawyers claim that Amodei and Mann, […]

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CFPB fines fintech Wise, alleging it charged deceptive fees

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has hit U.K.-based remittance company Wise with about a $2 million fine for what it described as “a series of illegal actions.” Those actions include advertising inaccurate fees and failing to properly disclose exchange rates and other costs, the CFPB alleges. Specifically, the agency claims that the fintech company […]

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Apple will pay $20M to settle Watch battery swelling suit, ‘denies wrongdoing’

Apple has agreed to pay $20 million to resolve a class-action lawsuit over battery swelling on the Apple Watch. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in 2019, the suit alleges that the problem affected the first four Apple Watch models. Battery swelling is pretty much what it sounds like: […]

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Stablecoins are finding product-market fit in emerging markets

Five years ago, SpaceX launched Starlink, which has since grown into its biggest revenue driver, expanding to more than 100 countries. But as Starlink scaled, it faced a major hurdle: accepting payments in developing markets, where traditional banking infrastructure is unreliable, slow, and prone to blocking transactions. Many local banks across Africa, Latin America, and […]

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This investor wants you to sign an NDA to build Legos together

Investor, former GitHub CEO, and all-around Tech Guy™ Nat Friedman has posted a strangely enticing offer on X. His post reads, “Need volunteers to come to my office in Palo Alto today to construct a 5000 piece Lego set. Will provide pizza. Have to sign NDA. Please DM.” Thanks to the investigative reporting of my […]

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Sam Altman’s ousting from OpenAI has entered the cultural zeitgeist

The lights dimmed as five actors took their places around a table on a makeshift stage in a New York City art gallery turned theater for the night. Wine and water flowed through the intimate space as the house — packed with media — sat to witness the premiere of “Doomers,” Matthew Gasda’s latest play […]

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