Despite banning TikTok on government devices, Taiwan isn't considering a US-style ban, saying the app is just one battle in a war against China's disinformation (New York Times)

New York Times:
Despite banning TikTok on government devices, Taiwan isn't considering a US-style ban, saying the app is just one battle in a war against China's disinformation  —  The island democracy was early to ban TikTok on government phones, and the ruling party refuses to use it.  But a U.S.-style ban is not under consideration.

Microsoft's partnership with Mistral AI will avoid a UK antitrust probe after the CMA finds Microsoft can't "materially influence" Mistral's commercial policy (Katharine Gemmell/Bloomberg)

Katharine Gemmell / Bloomberg:
Microsoft's partnership with Mistral AI will avoid a UK antitrust probe after the CMA finds Microsoft can't “materially influence” Mistral's commercial policy  —  - CMA said the tie-up does not qualify under merger rules  — Watchdog is looking into Big Tech AI startup investment

Kuo: Apple to use higher energy density battery cells for iPhone 16 Pro Max and stainless steel battery cases for better replaceability, an EU requirement (William Gallagher/AppleInsider)

William Gallagher / AppleInsider:
Kuo: Apple to use higher energy density battery cells for iPhone 16 Pro Max and stainless steel battery cases for better replaceability, an EU requirement  —  Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reports that the iPhone 16 Pro Max will get a new battery that has a greater energy density than before …

Baidu reports Q1 revenue up 1% YoY to ~$4.4B, above ~$4.35B est., the slowest growth in over a year, and net income down 6% YoY to ~$755M, above ~$554M est. (Zheping Huang/Bloomberg)

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:
Baidu reports Q1 revenue up 1% YoY to ~$4.4B, above ~$4.35B est., the slowest growth in over a year, and net income down 6% YoY to ~$755M, above ~$554M est.  —  Baidu Inc.'s revenue grew at the slowest pace in more than a year, as China's flagging economy put pressure on its core advertising business.

Ubisoft falls ~15% after warning that Q1 net bookings will be ~€275M, below €376M est., and reporting a €401M adjusted operating income in FY 2024 (Daniel Zuidijk/Bloomberg)

Daniel Zuidijk / Bloomberg:
Ubisoft falls ~15% after warning that Q1 net bookings will be ~€275M, below €376M est., and reporting a €401M adjusted operating income in FY 2024  —  Ubisoft Entertainment SA shares fell the most in 16 months on Thursday after the French video game publisher warned bookings …

Apple letting the new iPad Pro run macOS would require major tradeoffs and adding touch to Mac would lead to "a lot of flakey software that doesn't really work" (Steven Sinofsky/@stevesi)

Steven Sinofsky / @stevesi:
Apple letting the new iPad Pro run macOS would require major tradeoffs and adding touch to Mac would lead to “a lot of flakey software that doesn't really work”  —  It is not unusual for customers to want the best of all worlds. It is why Detroit invented convertibles and el caminos. But the idea of a “dual boot” device is just nuts. It is guaranteed the only reality is it is running the wrong OS all the time for whatever you want to do....

TSMC SVP Kevin Zhang says ASML's new machines, which cost €350M each, are too expensive, and the A16 node, due in late 2026, won't need to use the new machines (Cagan Koc/Bloomberg)

Cagan Koc / Bloomberg:
TSMC SVP Kevin Zhang says ASML's new machines, which cost €350M each, are too expensive, and the A16 node, due in late 2026, won't need to use the new machines  —  “The cost is very high,” TSMC Senior Vice President Kevin Zhang said at a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday …

Source: at a private event, Google demonstrated a Chromium OS build running in a virtual machine on a Pixel 8, but did not say if this build would ever ship (Mishaal Rahman/Android Authority)

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority:
Source: at a private event, Google demonstrated a Chromium OS build running in a virtual machine on a Pixel 8, but did not say if this build would ever ship  —  Google privately demoed this capability to other companies recently.  —  •  —  TL;DR  — Google has developed a method to run Chrome OS on its Pixel devices.

Intel announces another Foundry leadership change, naming Marvell executive Kevin O'Buckley as SVP, replacing longtime executive Stu Pann, in the role a year (Ian King/Bloomberg)

Ian King / Bloomberg:
Intel announces another Foundry leadership change, naming Marvell executive Kevin O'Buckley as SVP, replacing longtime executive Stu Pann, in the role a year  —  O'Buckley was named senior vice president and general manager of foundry services, the unit tasked with manufacturing chips for outside clients.

The US, the EU, and other superpowers have funneled nearly $81B towards supporting chip companies, the first wave of ~$380B earmarked by global governments (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
The US, the EU, and other superpowers have funneled nearly $81B towards supporting chip companies, the first wave of ~$380B earmarked by global governments  —  US and allies vie with China for superconductor supremacy, powered by wave of domestic investment

How GPS warfare is affecting civilian populations; an analysis finds ~40M people lived in areas with unreliable GPS for at least half of the past six months (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
How GPS warfare is affecting civilian populations; an analysis finds ~40M people lived in areas with unreliable GPS for at least half of the past six months  —  Military activity blamed for surge in jamming and spoofing incidents affecting smartphones, planes and ships

Following attempts to malign Signal as insecure by Telegram's CEO and Elon Musk, a look at why Signal is widely regarded by experts as more secure than Telegram (Matthew Green/@matthew_d_green)

Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green:
Following attempts to malign Signal as insecure by Telegram's CEO and Elon Musk, a look at why Signal is widely regarded by experts as more secure than Telegram  —  Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure, with assistance from Elon Musk. The goal seems to be to get activists to switch away from encrypted Signal to mostly-unencrypted Telegram. I want to talk about this a bit. 1/

A look at professor-led crypto projects EigenLayer and Babylon, which seek to generate yield from cryptocurrencies, as "professor coins" spur investor interest (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
A look at professor-led crypto projects EigenLayer and Babylon, which seek to generate yield from cryptocurrencies, as “professor coins” spur investor interest  —  - EigenLayer, Babylon restaking efforts spurs investor interest  — Both projects seek to generate yield from cryptocurrencies

A look at the potential successors to Apple's top executives across all of the company's major divisions (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
A look at the potential successors to Apple's top executives across all of the company's major divisions  —  Apple's management team is made up of longtime executives nearing the end of their tenures.  That means a broad shake-up is increasingly likely.

Q&A with Oracle CEO Safra Catz on generative AI's risks and impact, providing cloud infrastructure to TikTok, the importance of workplace diversity, and more (Keiichi Murayama/Nikkei Asia)

Keiichi Murayama / Nikkei Asia:
Q&A with Oracle CEO Safra Catz on generative AI's risks and impact, providing cloud infrastructure to TikTok, the importance of workplace diversity, and more  —  In interview, top executive highlights AI's potential and importance of diversity  —  Oracle CEO Safra Catz (Photo obtained by Nikkei)