Reading List

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

Apple unveils the $549 AirPods Max 2, with an H2 chip, up to 1.5x more effective ANC, studio-quality audio recording, and camera remote, shipping in early April (Apple)

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Chip cooling startup Frore, which designs channels that conduct liquid coolant in 3D shapes unique to each chip, raised $143M led by MVP at a $1.64B valuation (Dina Bass/Bloomberg)

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GovAI and Brookings: many of the people most at risk if AI transforms work are also the best placed to find new jobs, as researchers disagree over AI's impact (Washington Post)

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Memo: Alibaba unveils Alibaba Token Hub, a new AI unit that consolidates research, consumer-facing apps, AI products, and more, as it focuses on monetizing AI (Luz Ding/Bloomberg)

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Sources: OpenAI faced intense backlash from its advisory council over a planned ChatGPT "adult mode", delayed earlier in March due to technical and other issues (Wall Street Journal)

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How tech billionaires are turning on the Giving Pledge, promoted by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett; Peter Thiel says he privately told ~12 signers to undo it (Theodore Schleifer/New York Times)

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Nebius says Meta plans to spend up to $27B over the next five years to access AI infrastructure, starting with $12B of capacity in early 2027; NBIS jumps 12%+ (Kurt Wagner/Bloomberg)

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Foxconn reports Q4 revenue up 22% YoY to ~$81B, net profit down 2% YoY to ~$1.4B, below ~$1.9B est., due to a higher tax expense, and a 5.9% gross profit margin (Sherry Qin/Wall Street Journal)

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Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra review: Privacy Display works well, meaningful camera upgrades, and sleeker than the S25 Ultra, but still big, expensive, and lacks Qi2 (Allison Johnson/The Verge)

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Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Meta, Amazon, OpenAI, Adobe, and Match sign a voluntary pledge to share threat intelligence about how scammers abuse their services (Sam Sabin/Axios)

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How competition between Brazilian delivery app iFood and Meituan's Keeta in Brazil has descended into accusations of corporate espionage and shady tactics (Financial Times)

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As AI models commodify, Apple's plans to spend just $14B on 2026 capex, far below hyperscalers' combined $650B, or 90%+ of their cash flow, may be a genius move (Horace Dediu/Asymco)

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Sources: Hua Hong is readying a 7nm process at its Shanghai fab with Huawei's help, which would make it China's second chipmaker with such tech, after SMIC (Fanny Potkin/Reuters)

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Sources: Alibaba may unveil a Qwen-based AI agent for enterprises as soon as this week, and plans to gradually integrate the agent into its services like Alipay (Luz Ding/Bloomberg)

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Spotify announces Taste Profile editing in beta, the first time it lets users fine-tune the recommendation algorithm, starting with Premium users in New Zealand (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

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Sources: Microsoft cut plans to add some Copilot AI features to Windows 11 and shipped some tools without the Copilot branding, to reduce AI bloat in the OS (Zac Bowden/Windows Central)

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Reliz, which operates crypto lender BlockFills, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, reporting $50M to $100M in estimated assets and $100M to $500M in liabilities (Timmy Shen/The Block)

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Google and Accel's joint AI startup accelerator Atoms picks five Indian startups from 4,000+ applications, saying ~70% of rejected applicants were AI "wrappers" (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)

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President Trump accuses Iran of using AI as a "disinformation weapon" to make fake images of wartime successes against the US, saying "AI can be very dangerous" (Kenrick Cai/Reuters)

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Micron completes the $1.8B acquisition of Powerchip's DRAM fab in Taiwan, and plans a second fab of similar scale with construction starting by the end of FY26 (Wen-Yee Lee/Reuters)

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