Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

SandboxAQ, which aims to apply quantum tech and techniques to AI, raised $300M from Alger, Yann LeCun, and others at a $5.6B valuation to recruit more engineers (Bloomberg)

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After a rough year, Intel says its $250 Arc B580 "Battlemage" GPU, which received near-universal praise from reviewers, has already sold out in most retailers (Sean Hollister/The Verge)

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Analysis: as uncertainty looms over Japan's China-dependent chipmaking stocks, Sony, Nintendo, and Capcom have seen double-digit returns since Trump's victory (Bloomberg)

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A look at Huawei subsidiary Yinwang, which sells hardware and software to carmakers, has a $16B valuation, and more than doubled its revenue to ~$655M in 2023 (Financial Times)

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Experts say national security and immigration policies could deprive US companies of AI talent from China, which had 47% of the top AI researchers in 2022 (Yvonne Lau/Rest of World)

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The UK Gambling Commission blocks eight illegal casinos using Roblox to lure children into online gambling, following a news investigation into the casinos (Sky News)

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A profile of 114-year-old Japanese conglomerate Hitachi, whose market cap recently hit $100B after becoming an industrial software and hardware provider (Financial Times)

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A profile of Tyler Denk, co-founder of newsletter platform Beehiiv, which raised a $33M Series B in April 2024 and generates $1.6M to $1.75M in monthly revenue (Ben Sherry/Inc)

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A look at Microsoft's risky Xbox strategy, where exclusives are the exception; sources say Microsoft is working on cross-platform Xbox interface Project Rainway (Jez Corden/Windows Central)

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Masayoshi Son's $100B AI investment pledge to Trump would require a massive fundraising effort, new debt, or selling some of SoftBank's holdings to raise cash (Eliot Brown/Wall Street Journal)

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A look at Reddit's growth in sports fan communities; internal data: Reddit recorded a 35% YoY increase in engagement in 1,000+ sports-themed Subreddits in 2024 (Sam Bradley/Digiday)

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MobiKwik's shares surged as much as 82% on their trading debut, after the Indian digital payments firm, which claims to have 161M users, raised $69M in its IPO (Manish Singh/TechCrunch)

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Kioxia's shares rose 6%+ on its first day of trading in Tokyo, giving the chipmaker a ~$5.2B market cap; a group led by Bain had paid $18B for Kioxia in 2018 (Financial Times)

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The NERC, overseen by the FERC, warns soaring US electricity demand from data centers to power AI could strain US and Canadian grids, risking blackouts (Myles McCormick/Financial Times)

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India's commerce minister says that Shein will operate in India purely as a tech partner, with Reliance Retail having full ownership and control of operations (Manish Singh/TechCrunch)

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Google introduces FACTS Grounding benchmark for evaluating the factuality of LLMs, and announces a leaderboard that ranks Gemini 2.0 Flash Experimental on top (Google DeepMind)

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Bluesky using domains to verify users has led to cybersquatting and impersonation, as domains don't offer enough social proof for the average person (Ernie Smith/Tedium)

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NYC-based Precision Neuroscience, a maker of brain-computer interfaces, raised a $102M Series C led by General Equity Holdings at a ~$500M post-money valuation (Richard Waters/Financial Times)

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Nvidia unveils Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit, a $249 compact AI development board that promises 67 TOPS, compared to 40 TOPS of the $499 last-gen kit (Avram Piltch/Tom's Hardware)

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Apple updates Apple Maps on the web to add support for Look Around, which is Apple's version of Google Street View (Filipe Espósito/9to5Mac)

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