The Verge’s latest insights into the ideas shaping the future of work, finance, and innovation. Here you’ll find scoops, analysis, and reporting across some of the most influential companies in the world. Our coverage also includes interviews with innovators and policy makers at the frontiers of business and technology on Editor-in-Chief Nilay Patel’s Decoder; a behind-the-curtain look at Silicon Valley with Alex Heath’s Command Line; and exclusive reporting on Microsoft’s strategy in Tom Warren’s Notepad.
Incredible kicker from FT Alphaville, on top of some truly bizarre memes from Deutsche Bank. We love our blogging brethren.
[Financial Times]
The Chinese chatbot and OpenAI’s new data center venture present a stark contrast for the future of AI.
Trump Media is launching Truth.Fi as part of its “financial services and financial technology strategy,” but there still aren’t many details about what it will actually do. The company also plans to invest $250 million into customized exchange-traded funds, along with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
This comes just one day after Elon Musk’s X announced that it’s partnering with Visa to launch its X Money service this year.
According to Bloomberg and user reports, T-Mobile’s list of eligible devices for beta testing Starlink direct-to-cell connections now includes iPhones. While only a few Samsung Galaxy devices were supported at first, now iPhone owners with the most recent update can reportedly connect, as well as some people with Android 15 devices.
That gives those owners an alternative to Apple’s Globalstar-connected service while off the grid that works without pointing their phone at the sky first.
As of April 1st, Hideaki Nishino will become the president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, the company behind the PlayStation brand. This comes nearly a year after he and Herman Hulst were appointed co-CEOs of the PlayStation business, splitting responsibilities for leading the platform business and games following the retirement of Jim Ryan.
Hulst will continue leading development of PlayStation content for consoles, PC, film, and TV but will now report to Nishino.
Nishino:
We will continue to grow the PlayStation community in new ways, such as IP expansion, while also delivering the best in technology innovation.
As Chinese AI startup DeepSeek draws attention for open-source AI models that it says are cheaper than the competition while providing similar or better performance, AI chip king Nvidia’s stock price dropped today.
CNBC said that after closing at $118.58, down 17 percent, this was “the biggest drop ever for a U.S. company.”
One of the biggest tech companies you’ve never heard of is helping you listen to this podcast.
New executive order just dropped from the crypto-owned administration. A fun little committee will decide if we should have a strategic crypto reserve. Also, the government should make it easier for crypto companies to get bank accounts — because that ended so well last time.
The game “engaged approximately 1.5 million players during the quarter, down nearly 50% from the company’s expectations,” EA says in a pre-announcement of its preliminary Q3 earnings results. That’s a shame, because the game is pretty good.
“Global Football” — aka the EA Sports FC franchise — also didn’t do as well as EA thought it would.
Our tech overlords all have problems, and they want to buy the solutions.
The Washington Post, fresh off of losing 250,000 subscribers after its presidential non-endorsement, has a new internal slogan: “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.”
The Post should represent “interests across the country,” and “provide a forum for viewpoints, expert perspectives and conversation,” according to an internal presentation. The New York Times reports that The Post owner Jeff Bezos has made similar comments to staff in recent years.
[The New York Times]
The legendary short-selling firm, which took down EV company Nikola’s founder and launched several other investigations, will wind down. Its founder, Nate Anderson, plans to invest in index funds. “I’ve spent most of the last eight years either in a fight or preparing for the next one,” he told the WSJ. Now he wants to do something else.
[Hindenburg Research]
The ultra cheap retailer giving Amazon a run for its money is piloting an ads system for merchants, The Information reports. Similar to Amazon’s system, sellers can pay for increased visibility in search results as well as display ads on Temu’s site.
[The Information]
The covid pandemic saga of Razer’s RGB-lit Zephyr face mask is probably ending now that checks and PayPal payments are giving money back to the 6,764 buyers.
Last year, the FTC settled with Razer over its misleading statements and “N95-grade” filtering claims made without evidence or testing, leading to refunds and a $100k civil penalty.
AWS chief Matt Garman says Amazon is already seeing the benefits of its massive AI investments.
You wanna go down a rabbit hole? The corporate structure alone is bizarre:
Why would a Cayman Islands–registered metaverse company use a proxy to establish first an Ohio subsidiary and then a boutique record label, and then have the record label strike up a concert deal with a different subsidiary, located on an entirely different continent?
The farther you go, the more questions you have.
Kwon has been extradited to this US to face fraud charges. The charges contain a description of the overlapping network of allegedly fraudulent entities Kwon juggled before Terra / Luna came crashing to Earth.
Starting today, Spotify is paying creators in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada based on how much engagement their videos receive from paid subscribers, similar to platforms like YouTube.
We don’t know how much video creators will earn, but there’s plenty of interest in the program — according to Spotify, almost 60 percent of eligible shows and networks have enrolled since it was announced last month.
”All access” subscriptions get you into Jim Cramer’s investing club, CNBC streaming, plus access to CNBC’s “Pro” membership that gives you stock ratings, price targets, and portfolio monitoring.
Otherwise, CNBC Plus will start at $14.99 a month, with a limited-time offer of $99.99 per year. The service’s launch follows Comcast’s plans to spin off its NBCUniversal television channels.
If the phrase “Hawk Tuah girl” means nothing to you, I urge you to continue in blissful ignorance. If “Hawk Tuah shitcoin scam” resonates, you’ll enjoy Katie Baker’s rundown of what, exactly, happened.
[www.theringer.com]
Netflix filed the lawsuit in Califonia federal court Monday, claiming Broadcom subsidiary VMware has cloud software that infringes on five Netflix patents. As reported by Reuters, Netflix says VMware’s vSphere platform for deploying and managing virtual machines infringes on Netflix patents related to virtual-machine communications.
