Reading List

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

NetBlocks and Kentik: Iran further restricted what little internet connectivity remained to curb VPNs, possibly to forestall protests during Festival of Fire (Bloomberg)

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Arizona sues Kalshi for allegedly operating an illegal gambling business and unlawfully facilitating betting on elections; Kalshi faces a similar suit in Nevada (Anna Washenko/Engadget)

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OpenAI launches GPT-5.4 mini and nano, aimed at agents, coding, and multi-modal workflows, and offering near GPT-5.4-level performance at a much lower cost (David Gewirtz/ZDNET)

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Google expands Personal Intelligence, which lets Gemini tailor its responses by connecting to Gmail and other Google services, from paid users to all US users (Aisha Malik/TechCrunch)

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Intel unveils the Core Ultra 200HX Plus CPUs for high-end gaming laptops, offering an Intel Binary Optimization Tool to improve native performance in some games (Antonio G. Di Benedetto/The Verge)

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Tel Aviv- and Seattle-based Native, which helps companies monitor security across cloud providers, emerges from stealth with an $11M seed and a $31M Series A (Chris Metinko/Axios)

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Memo: Satya Nadella says ex-Snap executive Jacob Andreou will lead Copilot for commercial and consumer clients; Mustafa Suleyman will focus on new AI models (Jordan Novet/CNBC)

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World launches AgentKit, a software development tool that enables sites to verify that a real human is behind the purchasing decisions of AI shopping agents (Lucas Ropek/TechCrunch)

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Crypto trading firm GSR says it is acquiring Autonomous and Architech for $57M, expanding into token advisory and capital markets services (Krisztian Sandor/CoinDesk)

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Sources: OpenAI signed a deal with AWS to sell its AI services to US government agencies for both classified and unclassified work, amid the Anthropic-DOD spat (The Information)

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Baidu is integrating OpenClaw with its Xiaodu devices to work as voice-controlled remotes, joining Tencent and Alibaba in racing to capitalize on agentic AI (Bloomberg)

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IBM closes its $11B deal for data streaming company Confluent; IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says he expects IBM will maintain or grow its head count over five years (Belle Lin/Wall Street Journal)

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Qualcomm says it plans to buy back another $20B worth of shares and is raising its quarterly cash dividend, after unveiling a $15B buyback in November 2024 (Lynn Doan/Bloomberg)

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Q&A with Kalshi co-founders Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara on suing the US government, solving market making, agentic and insider trading, ethics, and more (John Collison/Cheeky Pint)

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PayPal expands access to its PYUSD stablecoin from the US and the UK to 70 countries in total, including Colombia, Panama, Peru, Singapore, Uganda, and Malawi (Ben Weiss/Fortune)

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Mastercard agrees to acquire London-based stablecoin payments infra startup BVNK for up to $1.8B, including $300M in contingent payments, set to close in 2026 (Reuters)

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Enterprise AI automation startup Standard Template Labs raised a $49M seed co-led by Iconiq and CRV, a source says at a $300M post-money valuation (Natasha Mascarenhas/Bloomberg)

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Darton Commodities: the global cobalt shortage is set to persist through 2030, after Congo limited exports in 2025; the DRC accounts for 70%+ of global supply (Annie Lee/Bloomberg)

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Agentic cybersecurity startup Surf AI, which helps teams read signals from identity, cloud, and other tools, emerges from stealth with $57M in seed and Series A (Chris Metinko/Axios)

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Amsterdam-based Nebius plans to raise ~$3.75B in convertible debt to fund its data center expansion and to purchase customized AI chips, after its Meta deal (Mark Bergen/Bloomberg)

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