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The web hosting platform is working with Cloudflare to integrate the company’s AI Crawl Control tool, which lets publishers choose how web crawlers can access their site. Publishers can use the tool to permit or block bots, or ask them to pay.
Cloudflare began blocking AI crawlers by default last year.
Google’s latest affordable phone launched in Japan today, more than a month after its release elsewhere. The wait might have been worth it though, since Japanese buyers can get the phone in an exclusive isai blue finish, designed in partnership with Heralbony, a creative company that works with artists with disabilities.
Android users can now watch videos as slowly as 0.25x or as fast as 2x, though Google hasn’t said when the option will roll out to iOS or the web. Tap the three dot menu on a video to find the new speed options.
[Google Photos Community]
Kozic will focus on infrastructure at the well-funded startup, which Bezos leads with former Google exec Vikram Bajaj, according to the FT. Project Prometheus is focused on using AI to improve manufacturing. Kozic’s defection is the latest in a broader wave of AI talent reshuffling.
Preliminary earnings suggest an eightfold increase in profit (57.2 trillion won estimated, or about $37.8 billion) from the same quarter in 2025, exceeding its entire profit for all of last year. The spike is likely due to strong demand for its memory chips, which have only increased in price as Big AI gobbles up all available inventory.
The crew of the Artemis II are now on a return trajectory to Earth, with an expected splash down off the coast of San Diego at approximately 8:07pm local time on Friday, April 10.
The billionaire investor is offering to take over the world’s biggest music company (and home to artists like Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar) through his hedge fund. The deal for UMG is valued at more than $50 billion and would install Hollywood superagent Michael Ovitz as chair.
The “multiple gigawatts of next-generation TPU capacity” are expected to come online beginning in 2027 to “power our frontier Claude models.” The company also says that its run-rate revenue has surpassed $30 billion.
After setting a new distance record and going behind the Moon, the Artemis II crew has now gone as far away from Earth as they will during the mission.
The team reached the milestone during a planned communications blackout, but they’ve made contact again.
Google AI Edge Eloquent is a new live AI transcription app that requires no subscription and has no usage limits. When you finish speaking, it will also filter out filler words like “um.” It’s currently only on iOS, but Google plans to bring the app to Android and macOS.
The iPhone maker plans to ask the Supreme Court to review a December 2025 ruling that found Apple in contempt by imposing a 27 percent fee on external in-app payments, according to a new legal filing. Apple also is asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to pause that ruling.
Outage reports have gone up and down on Downdetector today, and my feed occasionally hasn’t loaded. Bluesky says the issue, which it blamed on an upstream service provider, “appears” to have been fixed, but users have taken the problems as a chance to poke fun at unpopular comments from the Bluesky team about vibe coding.
Updates: Added Bluesky’s status updates.
According to the ruling, New Jersey regulators can’t ban Kalshi from allowing users in the state to bet on sporting events, as Reuters reports:
“A lower-court judge had sided with New York-based Kalshi and issued a preliminary injunction, prompting New Jersey to appeal. But a majority of the judges on the 3rd Circuit panel concluded the Commodity Exchange Act likely preempted state law.”
Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen have surpassed Apollo 13’s record for the greatest distance a human mission has traveled away from Earth at over 240,000 miles and counting, and they’ll continue stretching that out until about 7:07PM ET. Right now, they’re beginning to observe the Moon’s surface.
NASA Flight Director Brandon Lloyd, Capsule Communicator Amy Dill, and Command and Handling Data Officer Brandon Borter also marked a lighthearted milestone today by emailing the crew what is now assumed to be the longest person-to-person message ever sent in human history.
Meta will “eventually” offer open source versions of its new AI models Alexandr Wang is in charge of, but first, the company “wants to keep some pieces proprietary and to ensure they don’t add new levels of safety risk,” Axios reports.
The chip that was originally released 37 years ago in 1989 will no longer have kernel support on Linux 7.1, as Phoronix reports. Of course, anyone still hanging onto an i486 can always stick to a long-term support (LTS) Linux kernel version. Meanwhile, Microsoft no longer supports some CPUs from less than a decade ago.
The AI-powered compliance startup is no longer listed on YC’s directory after an anonymous report alleged Delve “fakes compliance” and leaked audit reports, as reported by TechCrunch. Delve responded by claiming a bad actor “maliciously exfiltrated data” as part of a “coordinated, targeted cyberattack.”
While Tencent and Jared Kushner’s private equity firm are no longer contributing to Paramount’s $110 billion bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, The Wall Street Journal reports that $24 billion of the proposed deal is still being provided by sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi.
[The Wall Street Journal]
JerryRigEverything tore down LG’s unreleased rollable smartphone, and seeing the insides of this phone and how it works is just awesome. The teardown proper starts at about 4 minutes and 20 seconds.
In a recent Optimizer, I wrote about how influencers use viral trends to undermine trust in medical science and profit. Well, here’s an example of the consequences in this STAT op-ed penned by a doctor: people are starting to trust untested peptides peddled online over drugs with decades of evidence.
The channel, La7, reportedly used the DLSS 5 footage in a segment about the upscaling tech. It seemingly issued takedown requests for videos using the same clips, including the original trailer from Nvidia and videos from creators covering DLSS 5’s launch.
Steam’s hardware and software survey says Linux users more than doubled from 2.23 percent in February, jumping to a record high of 5.33 percent of Steam users. Linux has been steadily gaining popularity on Steam over the past several months, previously peaking at 3.58 percent in December.
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The app will no longer be available on devices with Android 12 or newer in July 2026, according to an update on Samsung’s website. Samsung is encouraging users to switch to Google Messages, which it began shipping as the default messaging app on flagship Galaxy devices in 2024.
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NASA shared this photo taken by the Artemis II crew today, showing the Orientale basin in its entirety for the first time. The far side is also becoming visible as the mission approaches its destination.
There are few things that Polymarket seems to think are too controversial to allow betting on. But apparently, the potential capture or death of an American service member is one of them. The prediction market is already facing pressure from several states and Democrats in Congress. According to CoinDesk:
A Polymarket spokesperson said the listing did not meet its integrity standards [and it was] removed shortly after it appeared. The company added that it is reviewing how the market passed internal safeguards.
Murphy Campbell’s nightmare isn’t over yet. Distributor Vydia has rescinded its claims to her YouTube videos. But her Facebook and Instagram posts about the incident have been removed for copyright infringement. Neither Meta nor Vydia have responded to a request for comment, but it’s unclear what could possibly have been infringing in this video (reposted by United Musicians & Allied Workers).
We’re still grappling with the impact chatbots are having on younger people. But most of the attention is on higher-profile models like ChatGPT, Claude, and good ol’ MechaHitler. But there’s a whole world of role-playing chatbots like Character.ai that have quietly exploded in popularity. According to the New York Times:
He [Quentin] enjoyed harassing the bots with “funny violence,” he said, like running them over with a lawn mower, inflicting harm in an environment with no actual victims. He also created elaborate story lines in which he fought or flirted with his favorite characters. Occasionally, he would indulge in what he called “devious acts” on a platform now called PolyBuzz that offered more sexually explicit chatbots.
Artemis II’s astronauts are carrying iPhones, but it’s not to post on Instagram or check email. They can’t even connect to the internet. They’re mostly there for taking photos and videos. According to the New York Times:
The mission is one of the first times that NASA has allowed astronauts to fly with smartphones. NASA gave each astronaut an iPhone during the crew’s quarantine, which started in March, the agency said. But there was no sneaking in a video call on FaceTime or a round of Candy Crush before entering orbit. The phones can’t connect to the internet or use Bluetooth, NASA said. They are primarily for taking photos and videos.
The contract still needs to be ratified by union members, but it reportedly includes increases to funding for the WGA’s health plan and pension, as well as increases on residuals for streaming. It also bolsters protections against works being used to train AI.
[The Hollywood Reporter]
The crew is on track to fly by the Moon on Monday, April 6th, and posting updates along the way, including this stunning pair of photos of the astronauts looking back at Earth. If you want to follow along with every tiny detail, there is a livestream on YouTube.
After liftoff, there was an issue with Outlook running on the mission’s Surface Pro. That left some wondering why NASA was still using such old tech. Well, devices need to be tested and certified. To save money, they went with tech that was already approved. Then the launch date got pushed back… repeatedly. Check out this thread from NASA’s Jason Hutt for the full breakdown.
