Tech Meme

Jess Weatherbed / The Verge: Google is offering its Google One AI Premium plan for free to US college students until spring 2026; students have until June 30, 2025, to sign up  —  That’s more than a year of free access to Gemini tools.  —  Google is the latest AI service provider to court users in higher education. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Rachel Metz / Bloomberg: LMArena says it’s starting a company, whose corporate name will be Arena Intelligence, with plans to raise money, and releases a new beta version of its website  —  Chatbot Arena, an academic research project whose website has become a popular place for visitors to try out new artificial intelligence models, is turning into a company. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Washington Post: Sources: Tim Cook spoke to the US Commerce Secretary last week about how tariffs could affect iPhone prices before Trump exempted products from Apple and others  —  Apple’s CEO Tim Cook spoke to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick last week about the potential impact of the tariffs on iPhone prices. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Janko Roettgers / Lowpass: Sources: Amazon plans to release its first TV streaming device with its Vega OS, used in some Echo devices, in 2025 and is courting publishers to add their apps  —  Also: AI for VR … Amazon continues to pursue a transition away from Android for its TV hardware: The company plans to release … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Justin Ling / Wired: New Jersey’s AG sues Discord, alleging the platform’s features to keep children under 13 safe from sexual predators and harmful content are inadequate  —  The New Jersey attorney general claims Discord’s features to keep children under 13 safe from sexual predators and harmful content are inadequate. Lees verder op Tech Meme

@newsfromgoogle: Google says “we won half of this case and we will appeal the other half” of the US antitrust ruling, and “we disagree” with the decision on its publisher tools  —  “We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half. The Court found that our advertiser tools and our acquisitions, such as DoubleClick, don’t harm competition. We disagree with the Court’s decision regarding our publisher tools. Publishers have many options and they Lees verder op Tech Meme

Bloomberg: In her ruling, Judge Brinkema says Google did not meet the monopoly definition for tools used to buy display ads, but did for ad exchanges and website ad tools  —  Google was found by a federal judge to have illegally monopolized some online advertising technology markets in a blow to a key part of the company’s business. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch: Instagram launches Blend, an invite-only, personalized Reels feed for users and their friends in a group chat with new content everyday  —  Instagram on Thursday announced that it’s rolling out Blend, a new feature that lets you create a custom, personalized reels feed for you and your friends. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Axios: The DOJ and 17 US states that brought the antitrust case seek to force Google to sell off its “network” ad business, which is ~12% of Alphabet’s total revenue  —  Google’s dominance of the online advertising and ad-tech markets violates U.S. antitrust laws, a federal court ruled Thursday … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Rocket Drew / The Information: Goodfire, which works on decoding the inner workings of AI models, raised $50M led by Menlo; source: Anthropic invested $1M, its first startup investment  —  Anthropic has made its first investment in another startup, putting $1 million into Goodfire, a one-year-old startup … Lees verder op Tech Meme