The Brutalist Report

Techmeme

GitHub says it will use Copilot interaction data, including inputs, outputs, and code snippets, to train its AI models starting April 24, unless users opt out (Corbin Davenport/How-To Geek) [38d]
Google sets a 2029 deadline for its post-quantum cryptography migration, aiming to "secure the quantum era" as "frontiers may be closer than they appear" (Dan Goodin/Ars Technica) [38d]
Musk's lawyers ask a Delaware judge to step back from cases involving him, after her account "liked" a LinkedIn post celebrating his defeat in a California case (Sujeet Indap/Financial Times) [38d]
Singapore-based Startale, developer of the Strium blockchain for tokenized securities and JPYSC and USDSC stablecoins, raised a $63M Series A from SBI and Sony (Francisco Rodrigues/CoinDesk) [38d]
Source: Meta on Wednesday laid off around 700 employees in the Reality Labs unit, as well as some in recruiting, sales, and Facebook (Eli Tan/New York Times) [38d]
Nintendo says new first-party games exclusive to Switch 2 will have different prices for physical and digital versions in the US, beginning in May (Andy Robinson/Video Games Chronicle) [38d]
ARC Prize Foundation unveils ARC-AGI-3, an AI benchmark with simple video-game-like scenarios designed to measure on-the-fly reasoning rather than memory recall (Mark Sullivan/Fast Company) [38d]
Reddit says it will label automated accounts that provide a service to users and will require accounts suspected of being bots to verify they are human (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch) [38d]
The jury in LA's social media trial finds Meta and YouTube harmed a young user via addictive design features and orders them to pay her $3M; Meta will pay 70% (New York Times) [38d]
Social media addiction trial: a Los Angeles jury finds Meta and YouTube were negligent and failed to warn users about the dangers of using their platforms (Jonathan Vanian/CNBC) [38d]
Google launches Lyria 3 Pro music generation model, with better creative control and allowing users to create three-minute tracks, up from Lyria 3's 30 seconds (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch) [38d]
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez plan to introduce legislation to pause new data center construction until AI safeguards are in place (Maria Curi/Axios) [38d]
Sources: cloud provider Vultr is seeking to raise $1B+ to expand its AI computing capacity, after raising $333M at a $3.5B valuation in 2024 (The Information) [38d]
Epic Microsystems, which designs power delivery architecture for better thermal and efficiency management of AI data centers, raised a $21M Series A (Chris Metinko/Axios) [38d]
Source: as part of its Google deal, Apple has full access to the Gemini model in its own data centers and can use distillation to produce smaller models (The Information) [38d]
Charlotte-based Lucid Bots, which manufactures autonomous drones for cleaning windows, raised a $20M Series B co-led by Cubit and Idea Fund (Rebecca Szkutak/TechCrunch) [38d]
Google Research details TurboQuant, a quantization algorithm to enable massive compression of LLMs and vector search engines without sacrificing accuracy (Google Research) [38d]
SCOTUS rules unanimously that Cox could not be held liable for the piracy of thousands of songs online, after music labels sued the internet provider in 2018 (Ann E. Marimow/New York Times) [38d]
Glimpse, which uses AI agents to let 200+ brands automate financial deduction processes, raised a $35M Series A led by a16z, bringing its total raised to $52M (Dominic-Madori Davis/TechCrunch) [38d]
Notch, which is developing an OS designed for high-compliance sectors, raised a $30M Series A led by Headline, after pivoting from being a specialty insurer (Duncan Riley/SiliconANGLE) [38d]
Elon Musk says X will "pause" new creator monetization rules that would base payouts on engagement from a user's local audience, after criticism from creators (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch) [38d]
Meta confirms plans to lay off staff; sources say it impacts a few hundred people across Reality Labs, its social media teams, recruiting, and some sales roles (Jyoti Mann/The Information) [38d]
Normal Computing, which uses AI to help chip companies design chips more efficiently, raised $50M led by Samsung Catalyst and says it has 5+ top chip clients (Sharon Goldman/Fortune) [38d]
Legal AI company Harvey raised $200M led by GIC and Sequoia at an $11B valuation, up from $8B in December 2025, and reports 100K+ users at 1,300+ organizations (Ashley Capoot/CNBC) [38d]
Sources: AI science startup Periodic Labs, founded by ex-OpenAI VP Liam Fedus and DeepMind's Ekin Cubuk, aims to raise hundreds of millions at a ~$7B valuation (Bloomberg) [39d]
US official: Trump plans to name Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, and Jensen Huang to the Council of Advisors on Science and Tech, co-chaired by David Sacks (Wall Street Journal) [39d]
Apple rolls out mandatory UK age verification with iOS 26.4, requiring users to provide a credit card or ID, a first in Europe, after UK government pressure (Tim Bradshaw/Financial Times) [39d]
Temu owner PDD reports Q4 revenue up 12% YoY to ~$18B and net profit down 11% YoY to ~$3.56B, below ~$4B est., as it seeks to retain merchants on its platform (Tracy Qu/Wall Street Journal) [39d]
AI note taking startup Granola raised $125M led by Index Ventures at a $1.5B valuation, and plans Claude integrations and agentic AI features in the next year (Rebecca Torrence/Bloomberg) [39d]