The Brutalist Report

Techmeme

• NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani allows city agencies to use TikTok, with some restrictions, reversing a 2023 ban his predecessor enacted over data security concerns (Chris Sommerfeldt/Politico) [31d]
• Salesforce announces over 30 new features for Slack, including a meeting transcription feature and an operator mode to complete multi-step tasks on the desktop (Sabrina Ortiz/The Deep View) [31d]
• Sources: AT&T agreed last week to a deal worth up to $2B to upgrade the FirstNet emergency cellular network it runs for the Commerce Department (Patience Haggin/Wall Street Journal) [31d]
• Letters to Sen. Ed Markey: six autonomous vehicle companies say remote assistants don't directly control vehicles; Tesla says its operators are allowed to do so (Aarian Marshall/Wired) [31d]
• Sources: Microsoft is in talks with Chevron and investment fund Engine No. 1 over a $7B Texas power plant that would initially generate 2.5 GW of electricity (Bloomberg) [31d]
• Sources: threat actors stole Cisco source code by breaching its internal development environment using credentials from a recent Trivy supply chain attack (Lawrence Abrams/BleepingComputer) [31d]
• An excerpt from the book The Infinity Machine details how DeepMind's early governance battles with Google changed Demis Hassabis from an idealist into a realist (Sebastian Mallaby/Colossus) [31d]
• Samsung launches Hearapy, a free Android app to mitigate motion sickness by playing a 100Hz sine wave tone; a 60-second session can provide two hours of relief (Andrew Liszewski/The Verge) [31d]
• Austin-based Saronic, which builds military autonomous ships, raised a $1.75B Series D led by Kleiner Perkins at a $9.25B valuation, up from $4B in Feb. 2025 (Samantha Subin/CNBC) [31d]
• Sequoia says Doug Leone is returning in a newly created role of chairman, after he announced his retirement in 2022 from his role as "senior steward" (Iain Martin/Forbes) [31d]
• Anthropic confirms it leaked parts of Claude Code's source code, saying the leak was "a release packaging issue caused by human error, not a security breach" (Ashley Capoot/CNBC) [31d]
• Snap shares climbed 14% on Tuesday after activist investor Irenic suggested changes to boost the stock's value 7x, such as cutting staff by 21% and ending Specs (Lola Murti/CNBC) [31d]
• Yupp, which raised a $33M seed led by a16z crypto in 2024 for a crowdsourced AI model picker, shuts down, saying it didn't reach strong product-market fit (Julie Bort/TechCrunch) [31d]
• Microsoft stock plunged 23% in Q1, a steeper drop than any of its tech peers or the Nasdaq, and its steepest quarterly drop since the 2008 financial crisis (Jordan Novet/CNBC) [31d]
• OpenAI has tapped retail investors for the first time, raising $3B+ as part of its $122B round, through a trio of banks and ETFs managed by ARK Invest (George Hammond/Financial Times) [31d]
• OpenAI closed a record-breaking $122B funding round led by SoftBank, a16z, and others at a post-money valuation of $852B (Ashley Capoot/CNBC) [31d]
• PrismML, which says its 1-bit LLM achieves radical compression without sacrificing performance, comes out of stealth with $16.25M in SAFE and seed funding (Steven Rosenbush/Wall Street Journal) [31d]
• Iranian media: Iran arrested 46 people allegedly in a network selling Starlink terminals and seized 139 terminals; there are an estimated 50K terminals in Iran (Bloomberg) [31d]
• Monzo is shuttering its US operations to focus on scaling in the UK and Europe; source: it will lay off ~50 employees and close clients' accounts in June (Aisha S Gani/Bloomberg) [31d]
• Google launches Veo 3.1 Lite, costing <50% of Veo 3.1 Fast and meant for "high-volume video applications", and affirms its commitment to video generation tools (Abner Li/9to5Google) [31d]
• Iran says it will start targeting US tech companies like Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla in the Middle East starting 8PM local time on April 1 (Julia Shapero/The Hill) [31d]
• Google researchers warn that quantum computers may crack elliptic-curve cryptography, which helps secure crypto wallets, with 20x fewer resources than expected (Bloomberg) [31d]
• Sources: Apple is testing letting Siri process multiple requests in a single query in iOS 27, and explored a Grammarly-like keyboard that expands autocorrect (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg) [31d]
• A global WTO ban on taxing digital streaming and downloads across national borders expired on March 30; negotiations are set to continue in Geneva this spring (Ana Swanson/New York Times) [31d]
• Sources: Oracle is cutting thousands of jobs in its latest layoffs as the company continues to ramp AI spending; as of May 2025, Oracle employed 162,000 people (Jordan Novet/CNBC) [31d]
• Claude Code's source code appears to have leaked via a misconfigured npm package, revealing internal codenames, a "Self-Healing Memory" architecture, and more (Carl Franzen/VentureBeat) [31d]
• A researcher finds that Anthropic's Claude Code CLI tool has had its full TypeScript source code inadvertently exposed through a misconfigured npm package (Guru Baran/Cyber Security News) [31d]
• Google says all users in the US can now change their Google Account username; users are restricted to one username change every 12 months (Kris Holt/Engadget) [31d]
• Runway launches a $10M fund to invest in early-stage startups building across AI, media, and world simulation and a Builders program offering free API credits (Rebecca Bellan/TechCrunch) [31d]
• Meta unveils the $499 Ray-Ban Meta Blayzer Optics and Scriber Optics, offering slimmer frames, swappable nosepads, and adjustable temple tips, on sale April 14 (Karissa Bell/Engadget) [31d]
• Amazon replaces Amex with US Bancorp as the issuer for its Prime Business and Amazon Business credit cards that it is relaunching in the coming months (Yizhu Wang/Bloomberg) [31d]
• OpenFX, an FX market-making and remittance startup launched by a FalconX co-founder, raised $94M led by Accel and others, a source says at a ~$500M valuation (Reuters) [31d]
• New York-based Linx Security, whose Autopilot agent proactively maps and remediates identity-related failures, raised a $50M Series B from Index and others (Ben Bergman/Business Insider) [31d]
• Micromobility delivery startup Also, a Rivian spinoff, raised $200M led by Greenoaks at a $1B valuation and enters a multiyear partnership with DoorDash (Edward Ludlow/Bloomberg) [31d]
• AirPods Max 2 review: comfortable, excellent sound quality, and lots of new features, but retains the same design, pricey, and only one hearing health feature (Billy Steele/Engadget) [31d]
• Instagram reaches an agreement with the MPA to cease using the PG-13 trademark in its Teen Accounts marketing, after a C&D letter, and will add a disclaimer (New York Times) [31d]
• Samsung rolls out blood pressure monitoring for Galaxy Watch 4 and newer models in the US, requiring a traditional upper-arm blood pressure cuff and a new app (Vanessa Hand Orellana/CNET) [31d]
• Nvidia launches DLSS 4.5, including a 6x Multi Frame Generation feature exclusive to RTX 50-series GPUs that utilizes a second-gen transformer AI model (Jess Weatherbed/The Verge) [31d]
• TCL agrees to buy a 51% stake in Sony's global home entertainment business for ~$472M, as the Chinese company seeks to expand overseas; Sony retains a 49% stake (Bloomberg) [31d]
• Sources: Tether cuts two senior precious metals traders who joined from HSBC just months ago in its push to build "the best trading floor for gold in the world" (Bloomberg) [31d]
• Nvidia invests $2B in chipmaker Marvell and says the two companies plan to work on silicon photonics tech, enabling high-speed data transmission; MRVL jumps 9%+ (Dana Wollman/Bloomberg) [31d]
• Huawei reports 2025 revenue up 2.2% YoY to ~$127.5B, net profit up 8.7% YoY to ~$9.8B, and R&D spend up 7% YoY to ~$27.8B, as it invests in chip networking tech (Peter Landers/Wall Street Journal) [31d]
• CoreWeave raised an $8.5B loan from banks and investors to expand its cloud computing capacity, in what it says is the largest chip-backed debt deal of its kind (Bloomberg) [31d]
• Sarasota-based Tenex, which offers an AI-enabled managed cybersecurity detection and response service, raised $250M led by Crosspoint at a $1B+ valuation (Dina Bass/Bloomberg) [31d]
• Netflix feels comfortable raising prices knowing customers can downgrade to its ad tier; in 2026, Netflix is on track to double 2025's $1.5B+ in ad sales (Lucas Shaw/Bloomberg) [31d]
• Sources: South Korean memory chipmakers have sufficient helium stocks until at least June, and a South Korean minister ruled out supply disruptions in H1 2026 (Reuters) [31d]
• US CTO Ethan Klein plans to urge the UK and its allies to help "shore up" quantum computing supply chains at a London meeting, after a US-UK tech deal standoff (Joe Miller/Financial Times) [31d]
• Analysis: in 2025, Vietnam surpassed China as the leading supplier of laptops and game consoles to the US for the first time, despite President Trump's tariffs (Bloomberg) [31d]
• Amazon strikes a deal to provide internet access on Delta flights via its Leo satellite business, starting with 500 aircraft in 2028, without disclosing terms (Alison Sider/Wall Street Journal) [31d]
• The UK CMA launches an investigation into Microsoft's business software unit to assess whether it should be designated with "strategic market status" (Financial Times) [32d]
• Beijing-based AI company Z.ai reports 2025 revenue of ~$105M, below ~$109M est., and net loss up 60% YoY to ~$680M, vs. ~$545M est., amid aggressive spending (Bloomberg) [32d]
• Alibaba's new Qwen3.5-Omni multimodal model, which processes text, audio, images, and video, is proprietary, marking a shift away from its open-source strategy (Juro Osawa/The Information) [32d]
• London-based 9fin, which offers AI tools to help credit traders and investors originate new business efficiently, raised a $170M Series C at a $1.3B valuation (Ryan Gould/Bloomberg) [32d]
• The US' GPS Next-Generation Operational Control System, developed by RTX for $8B+, remains non-operational nine months after the Space Force took ownership (Stephen Clark/Ars Technica) [32d]
• Iran mobilizes its hackers to sow chaos, gather intel, and find targets; ex-CISA Director Chris Krebs says Iran is "throwing everything they have at this" (Financial Times) [32d]
• SpaceX says it lost contact with a Starlink satellite after suffering an "anomaly", following a similar incident in December; the satellite likely exploded (Thomas Ricker/The Verge) [32d]
• UK accountancy regulator FRC says auditors can't blame AI for audit failures, after it published what it called the world's first guidance on auditor AI usage (Ellesheva Kissin/Financial Times) [32d]
• Amsterdam-based Nebius announces a $10B, 310MW data center in Lappeenranta, Finland, built by developer Polarnode and set to begin phased operations in 2027 (Reuters) [32d]
• Wearable maker Whoop raised $575M led by Collaborative Fund at a $10.1B valuation and says it hit $1B in ARR by 2025's end; 60% of its 2025 sales were non-US (Niko Gallogly/New York Times) [32d]
• Raspberry Pi reports 2025 revenue up 25% YoY to $323.2M, driven primarily by demand in the US and China, and says it sold more chips than computers, a first (Bloomberg) [32d]
• A supply chain attack compromises HTTP client Axios, which has 100M weekly npm downloads, introducing a malicious dependency and deploying a multi-stage payload (Socket) [32d]
• Official data shows India's smartphone exports hit $11B in H1 FY2026, up 55% YoY; analysts warn the Iran war could trigger a 22% to 25% drop in the coming weeks (Quratulain Rehbar/Nikkei Asia) [32d]
• Sources: London-based chip startup Fractile is in talks to raise over $200M from Accel and others at a $1B valuation; Fractile raised a $15M seed round in 2024 (Financial Times) [32d]
• A look at Babel Audio, which pairs anonymous strangers to record their conversations, starting at $17/hour, and bundles those recordings into AI training data (Issie Lapowsky/Bloomberg) [32d]
• AI coding agents will drastically alter both the practice and the economics of exploit development, automating the discovery of zero-day vulnerabilities (Thomas H. Ptacek/sockpuppet.org) [32d]
• California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs a first-of-its-kind executive order requiring safety and privacy guardrails from AI companies that contract with the state (Cecilia Kang/New York Times) [32d]