Reading List

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

Adobe launches Firefly Custom Models in public beta, letting users train AI image generators on their own assets; the custom models are private by default (Jess Weatherbed/The Verge)

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OpenAI agrees to acquire Astral, which makes Python tools for developers, to integrate its team into Codex, and says Codex has 2M+ users, up 3x since January (Agnee Ghosh/Bloomberg)

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The UK CMA launches an investigation into Adobe, saying early membership cancellation fees for certain products might be in breach of consumer protection laws (Mauro Orru/Wall Street Journal)

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Google co-founder Sergey Brin raises his total contribution to $45M for the Building a Better California Super PAC, which opposes a proposed 5% billionaire tax (Dara Kerr/The Guardian)

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Deeptune, which builds high-fidelity reinforcement learning environments that simulate professional workflows for AI agents, raised a $43M Series A led by a16z (Lily Mae Lazarus/Fortune)

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Uber plans to invest $1.25B in Rivian through 2031, contingent on meeting autonomy milestones, starting with $300M at signing, to deploy 50K Level 4 robotaxis (Andrew J. Hawkins/The Verge)

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The US NHTSA escalates its investigation into Tesla's FSD to an "engineering analysis", which could result in a recall campaign or other enforcement action (Ryan Felton/Wall Street Journal)

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Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek says the company cut ~12% of its workforce, or ~180 roles, saying the layoffs target roles that "do not adapt" as it integrates AI (Brian Danga/The Block)

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DHL Supply Chain says it will open 10 warehouses in 2026 across North America to serve data center operators and component suppliers, totaling 7M+ square feet (Liz Young/Wall Street Journal)

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Ofcom fines 4chan £520K for OSA violations, including £450K for not complying with age check requirements, and gives it until April 2 to implement age assurance (Mizy Clifton/Politico)

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The UN-backed World Happiness Report says passively consuming algorithmic social media hurts teens' mental health and heavy use disproportionately affects girls (Kati Pohjanpalo/Bloomberg)

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TechInsights: chip manufacturing emissions will climb ~33% to 247M metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030, roughly the same as Algeria's 2024 volume (Aaron Clark/Bloomberg)

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Alibaba reports Q3 revenue up 2% YoY ~$41.3B, vs. ~$42B est., and net income down 67% YoY to ~$2.4B, as it seeks to monetize AI to help offset e-commerce losses (Bloomberg)

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An analysis of a NYT article load finds 422 network requests totaling 49MB, triggering a sprawling programmatic ad auction, an example of "hostile architecture" (Shubham Bose)

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CISA warns US companies to follow Microsoft's recommendations for fortifying Intune, a tool that manages staff access, after a cyberattack on Stryker last week (Margi Murphy/Bloomberg)

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Filing: Samsung says it plans to spend ~$73.3B on capital expenditure and research in 2026, up from ~$60B in 2025, and pay ~$6.5B in regular dividends (Reuters)

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Sources: European chip importers are tapping backup stores and paying higher air freight costs as the US-led Iran war disrupts Middle Eastern cargo routes (Kai Nicol-Schwarz/CNBC)

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Paris-based Parallel, which develops AI agents for hospitals and is initially focused on medical coding workflows, raised a $20M Series A led by Index Ventures (Tamara Djurickovic/Tech.eu)

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Edra, which says it helps companies automate workflows by turning their operational data into a living knowledge base, raised a $30M Series A led by Sequoia (Connie Loizos/TechCrunch)

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Chinese cities are offering free apartments and office space to attract and incubate "one-person companies", startups run by a single founder with AI's help (Viola Zhou/Rest of World)

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