Omnibus Week Of 04/28

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The big cultural event of maybe the decade is going to take a little while longer to get here. Earnings from Apple and Amazon. More signs of the impending death of the password. More signs of self-driving rapidly becoming reality. And in the longreads, what happens when AI completely changes your field? The AI researchers were the first to experience it.

Links:

• Grand Theft Auto VI release delayed to May 2026 (The Verge)
• Amazon Says Operating Profits May Decline Amid Economic Uncertainty (NYTimes)
• Microsoft goes passwordless by default on new accounts (The Verge)
• Temu Blocks US Shoppers From Seeing Products Shipped From China (Wired)
• Aurora’s driverless trucks are making deliveries in Texas (The Verge)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• When ChatGPT Broke an Entire Field: An Oral History (Quanta Magazine)
• The Life of the Most-Used Citi Bike in New York City (Bloomberg)

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Apple basically got held in contempt of court in the Epic case. Rumors about Elon staying at Tesla. Meta and Microsoft earnings. Xbox price increases. Would you wear a smart ring that proves you’re not cheating on your significant other?

Links:

• Apple Dealt Stinging Court Defeat on App Store Sales Commissions (Bloomberg)
• Tesla Board Opened Search for a CEO to Succeed Elon Musk (WSJ)
• Microsoft is raising prices on Xbox consoles, controllers, and games worldwide (The Verge)
• Meta tightens privacy policy around Ray-Ban glasses to boost AI training (The Verge)
• Would you wear a smart ring that proves you’re not a cheater? (The Verge)

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Meta has launched a standalone competitor to ChatGPT. But is ChatGPT bending too far backwards in an attempt to please you? Even OpenAI thinks so. Waymo and Toyota cut a deal. And concerns about sovereign tech stacks rear their head again.

Sponsors:

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Links:

• Meta’s ChatGPT competitor shows how your friends use AI (The Verge)
• Microsoft CEO says up to 30% of the company’s code was written by AI (TechCrunch)
• OpenAI rolls back update that made ChatGPT ‘too sycophant-y’ (TechCrunch)
• Waymo, Toyota strike partnership to bring self-driving tech to personal vehicles (CNBC)
• Google Play sees 47% decline in apps since start of last year (TechCrunch)
• EU views break from US as ‘unrealistic’ amid global tech race (Politico)
• Microsoft vows to protect European operations from Donald Trump (Financial Times)

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Is Amazon about to start showing tariff prices in listings? Armageddon has finally come for Temu and Shein. Is OpenAI getting into the shopping game because their web search usage is exploding? And Project Kuiper finally gets off the ground in a literal and meaningful way.

Links:

• 042925 (PunchBowl News AM)
• Kickstarter Introduces ‘Tariff Manager Tool’ to Add Charges to Already Fully Funded Projects (404 Media)
• Temu adds ‘import charges’ of about 145% after Trump tariffs, more than doubling price of many items (CNBC)
• Congress passes bill to fight deepfake nudes, revenge porn (Washington Post)
• Alibaba unveils Qwen3, a family of ‘hybrid’ AI reasoning models (TechCrunch)
• OpenAI Adds Shopping to ChatGPT in a Challenge to Google (Wired)
• Duolingo will replace contract workers with AI (The Verge)
• Amazon launches first Kuiper internet satellites, taking on Starlink (Reuters)

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Is Apple’s 20th Anniversary iPhone the reason they can’t quit China just yet? That Chinese AI Manus just raised a big round. Is Prompt Engineer the job title that never was? And what really goes on in those powerful, behind the scenes Silicon Valley group chats?

Sponsors:

• Freshbooks.com

Links:

• Apple Begins Breaking Up Its AI Team With Robotics, Siri Changes (Bloomberg)
• Why Trump can’t build iPhones in the US (FT)
• The Future of Gadgets: Fewer Updates, More Subscriptions, Bigger Price Tags (WSJ)
• Google is killing software support for early Nest Thermostats (The Verge)
• Chinese AI Startup Manus Scores Funding at $500 Million Value (Bloomberg)
• The Hottest AI Job of 2023 Is Already Obsolete (WSJ)
• The group chats that changed America (Semafor)

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Alphabet earnings. Intel earnings. Apple is making moves to make sure all iPhones heading to the US are no longer manufactured in China. Zuck seems bound and determined to revive his original baby. Sexy looking new Motorola Razr phones. And, of course the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

Links:

• Alphabet shares rise on stronger-than-expected revenue growth (CNBC)
• Intel offers weak forecast amid trade tensions as CEO talks to TSMC (Reuters)
• Apple aims to source all US iPhones from India in pivot away from China (Financial Times)
• Publisher of PCMag and Mashable Sues OpenAI (NYTimes)
• Facebook cracks down on spammy content by cutting reach and monetization (TechCrunch)
• Mark Zuckerberg once considered deleting all your Facebook friends (TechCrunch)
• Motorola’s new Razr Ultra brings the wood back panel back (The Verge)
• Netflix rolls out dialogue-only subtitles (The Verge)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

• The Apple Watch Just Turned 10. Here’s How Far It’s Come (Wired)
• The Race to Fix Aging Computer Systems Heats Up With AI’s Help (Bloomberg)

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More fallout from those EU fines yesterday. A whole slew of self driving car news. The AI Coding Wars have officially begun. The back to the office wars continue. Is Chrome worth $50 billion? And let me tell you about the AI app that wants to help you cheat at everything.

Links:

• Apple and Meta Are First to Be Hit by E.U. Digital Competition Law (NYTimes)
• Uber, Volkswagen pair up to launch robotaxi service in US with self-driving, electric microbuses (TechCrunch)
• Windsurf slashes prices as competition with Cursor heats up (TechCrunch)
• Google Chrome Worth ‘Upwards of $50 Billion,’ Browser Rival Says (Bloomberg)
• Google forcing some remote workers to come back 3 days a week or lose their jobs (CNBC)
• Columbia student suspended over interview cheating tool raises $5.3M to ‘cheat on everything’ (TechCrunch)

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