Techmeme

Chavie Lieber / Wall Street Journal : How Amazon's expansion into fashion helped Jeff Bezos enter fashion's inner circle, as he and Lauren Sánchez Bezos become underwriters for this year's Met Gala —  The Amazon founder and Lauren Sánchez Bezos have become front-row fixtures through business expansion and charitable giving

David Keohane / Financial Times : Nintendo's share price has fallen by ~45% since August 2025, as rising memory chip costs drive investor concerns over profit margins for the Switch 2 —  Higher memory chip costs fuel fears of price rise for Switch 2 and cast shadow over console's success  —  The latest Super Mario movie released …

Ben Cohen / Wall Street Journal : A profile of BlackBerry's QNX division, whose operating system controls safety features in 275M cars and accounts for half of BlackBerry's revenue —  John Wall has spent nearly his entire career working for the same company.  And when he tells people where he works, nobody has any clue what he's talking about.

NIST : An evaluation by NIST's CAISI says DeepSeek V4 Pro lags behind leading US AI models by about eight months and is the most capable Chinese AI model to date —  In April 2026, the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) evaluated the open-weight AI model DeepSeek V4 Pro ("DeepSeek V4").

Rachyl Jones / Semafor : A slew of top Boston Dynamics execs have left the Hyundai-owned company in recent months, as sources say it faces pressure to speed the delivery of humanoids —  In recent months, a slew of top executives at Boston Dynamics have left the company, which Hyundai bought a majority stake in back in 2021.

Georgia Wells / Wall Street Journal : Sources: OpenAI employees have raised alarms internally over failures to alert law enforcement when users describe plans for real-world violence to ChatGPT —  OpenAI's chatbot dispenses advice on weapons and role-plays mass shootings.  The carnage is raising scrutiny on when and how companies intervene.

The Economic Times : Palo Alto Networks agrees to acquire Portkey, which develops AI gateway tech to manage and secure AI agents; sources say the deal values Portkey at $120M-$140M —  Cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Networks is acquiring AI infrastructure startup Portkey to bolster its defences for autonomous AI systems.

Javi West Larrañaga / Reuters : Amadeus IT Group, which operates the world's largest travel booking system, plans to acquire French biometrics company Idemia Public Security, for €1.2B in cash —  Spanish travel technology firm Amadeus (AMA.MC) on Wednesday announced a plan to acquire French biometrics company Idemia Public Security …

Chase DiBenedetto / Mashable : Ask.com shutters, as its owner IAC “continues to sharpen its focus”; a dot-com era icon, Ask Jeeves launched in 1997, a year before Google —  “As IAC continues to sharpen its focus, we have made the decision to discontinue our search business, which includes Ask.com.

Sanya Mansoor / The Guardian : Maryland becomes the first US state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores, as other states including CO, CA, MA, IL, and NJ consider similar bills —  Critics say Maryland's new law banning rapidly change product costs based on consumer data is full of carveouts

Olga Kharif / Bloomberg : Analysis: after Trump's World Liberty raised $550M from investors, tokens worth hundreds of millions in USD were privately sold in “white glove” transactions —  The pitch was straightforward: Invest in the cryptocurrency venture of Donald Trump and his family …

Reuters : Investigation: Nobitex was founded by two brothers from Iran's elite Kharrazi family; the crypto exchange processed hundreds of millions beyond US sanctions —  Two brothers from the elite Kharrazi family, using an alternative surname, started up Nobitex in 2018.

Victor Swezey / Bloomberg : A Chinese court ruled that companies cannot terminate staff just to replace them with AI, following a similar ruling by another Chinese court in December 2025 —  A Chinese court ruled that companies cannot terminate employees just to replace them with artificial intelligence systems …

Robert Booth / The Guardian : Study: OpenAI's o1 correctly diagnosed 67% of emergency room patients using electronic records and a few sentences from nurses, vs. to 50-55% for triage doctors —  Researchers say results mark a ‘profound change in technology that will reshape medicine’  —  From George Clooney in ER …

Bloomberg : Sources: Nigerian mobile payments service OPay is preparing for a US IPO at a $4B valuation with Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, and JPMorgan Chase advising —  Opay Digital Services Ltd. is working with Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank AG, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. as the Nigeria-focused payments platform prepares …

The Information : Sources: Anthropic is in early talks to buy AI inference chips from UK-based Fractile when they become available in 2027 —  As Anthropic's sales explode, straining the servers it uses, the company is considering adding another source of AI server chips in addition to existing suppliers Google, Amazon and Nvidia.

Bloomberg : A look at casino-style games, considered gambling in some US states, where player “whales” spend tens of thousands via IAP on Apple, Google, and Meta platforms —  “please remove this game from my computer ..thank you,” read the email to a customer service representative for High 5 Casino …

Wall Street Journal : A profile of OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar, who sources say helped keep OpenAI's Microsoft deal on track and has privately suggested waiting until 2027 for an IPO —  The chief financial officer is managing Sam Altman—and ambitions for one of the biggest IPOs ever.  She has pulled off impossible ones before.

New York Times : Ripple Labs investor and exec Chris Larsen plans to spend $3.5M to help Alex Bores, a NY congressional candidate at the center of a proxy war over AI regulation —  Chris Larsen, who hails from California, plans to spend $3.5 million to help Alex Bores, a New York congressional candidate …

Lauren Thomas / Wall Street Journal : Sources: GameStop is preparing to make an offer for eBay after quietly building a stake; GameStop had a market cap of ~$11B as of May 1, while eBay had ~$45B —  Retailer's CEO Ryan Cohen has been eyeing a major deal, in part to clinch a huge payday  —  GameStop is preparing to make an offer for eBay …

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica : Servers operated by Ubuntu and its parent company Canonical have been down for more than a day, following a “sustained, cross-border attack” —  Servers operated by Ubuntu and its parent company Canonical were knocked offline on Thursday morning and have remained down ever since …

Joe Rossignol / MacRumors : Apple has stopped offering a 256GB storage option for the Mac mini globally; Mac mini now starts at 512GB for $799 in the US —  Apple this week stopped offering a 256GB storage option for the Mac mini worldwide.  As a result, the desktop computer now has a higher starting price.

Lisa Richwine / Reuters : The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences issues new rules saying acting and writing must be performed by humans and not AI to be eligible for Oscars —  Academy Awards organizers issued new rules on Friday to clarify that acting and writing must be performed by humans …

Bloomberg : Sources: Cerebras is seeking to raise as much as $4B in its IPO and is targeting a valuation of about $40B —  Cerebras Systems Inc. is seeking to raise as much as $4 billion in its initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter, as demand for the artificial intelligence chipmaker …

Taylor Lorenz / Wired : How influencers boosting US-based AI and opposing Chinese AI are paid with money tied to Leading the Future, funded by execs from OpenAI, Palantir, a16z, others —  Build American AI, a nonprofit linked to a super PAC bankrolled by executives at OpenAI and Andreessen Horowitz …

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg : “Podslop” is flooding listening platforms like Spotify; Podcast Index: of ~11K new podcast feeds in a recent 9-day span, ~39% were likely for AI content shows —  Over the past nine days, 39% of new podcasts were likely AI-generated, according to the Podcast Index.  —  Welcome back to Soundbite.

Ben Shimkus / Business Insider : Pushing back on AI job loss fears, AWS CEO Matt Garman says Amazon plans to hire 11,000 software engineering interns in 2026, a figure in line with recent years —  - AWS's CEO, Matt Garman, said Amazon sees demand for hiring new software engineers “accelerating.”

Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg : Some retail traders are training AI agents to buy and sell assets on their behalf, as exchanges like Polymarket and Bybit roll out agent-friendly interfaces —  Jake Nesler's AI trading bot got one big decision right in its first week.  It ignored the chase.

Greg Otto / CyberScoop : The US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand publish guidance on orgs' use of agentic AI systems, saying many give AI more access than can be safely monitored —  The guidance warns that agents capable of taking real-world actions on networks are already inside critical infrastructure …

Issie Lapowsky / Bloomberg : The gender gap in AI use may be a matter of visibility more than usage, as data suggests women face more judgment for using AI and are less likely to admit it —  Women are using artificial intelligence at lower rates than men.  But are they being “left behind”?