Author: precious

Synology has confirmed plans to implement new restrictions on the use of third-party hard drives in its network attached storage (NAS) devices, starting with its 2025 model releases. “Synology-branded drives will be needed for use in the newly announced Plus series, with plans to update the Product Compatibility List as additional drives can be thoroughly vetted in Synology systems,” a Synology spokesperson told Ars Technica. Starting with Plus Series models, Synology, in their press release, says they will limit full functionality to Synology-branded or Synology-approved drives and/or those explicitly certified by the company. As such, users who are not using…

The first quarter of 2025 witnessed significant venture capital investment despite underlying market challenges. Of the $126.3 billion recorded in global VC funding in Q1’25, and representing a ten-quarter high of Q4’24 VC funding ($118.7 billion), startups in the U.S. accrued over 72%, recording and accounting for $91.5 billion of the total global investment. The U.S.’s large venture capital funding was especially driven by large AI-funding rounds, with OpenAI’s record-breaking $40 billion funding representing the largest VC funding round ever raised. This testifies to the VC funding landscape’s recent shift to strong investor selectivity, most especially in artificial intelligence (AI),…

Representatives from China and the United States announced a near breakthrough in their ongoing trade dispute this Monday, where both countries agreed to substantially reduce tariffs for a 90-day period. This was as a result of intensive talks and negotiations in Geneva, where both economic powerhouses consented and agreed to slash their respective tariff rates, with the U.S. lowering its imposition from 145% to 30%, and China reducing its rates from 125% to 10%. Inasmuch as this truce doesn’t necessarily mean to resolve the fundamental issues that ignited the trade hostilities, the agreement between the two countries makes an effort…

Amazon-backed Anthropic has introduced a new subscription plan named “Max” for its AI chatbot Claude, an access plan that directly challenges OpenAI’s $200 ChatGPT monthly plan. Anthropic, in their announcement post, says this access plan was “designed for those who collaborate with Claude extensively and need expanded access for their most important work.” In an increasingly competitive AI subscription market, these Generative AI companies seek and continue to monetize their advanced language models while purposefully serving power users and professionals. According to Anthropic, the Max plan comes in two usage tiers: In practical terms, this means Expanded Usage’s users ($100/month)…

Micron Technology, a leading memory chipmaker, announced the implementation of a tariff-related surcharge that began on April 9, 2025 on select products for its customers. This pricing move directly responds to U.S. President Trump’s recently imposed tariffs dubbed “Liberation Day,” affecting only memory modules and solid-state drives (SSDs) in Micron’s products, exempting semiconductors. The announced tariff-related surcharge comes shortly after the memory chipmaker had already notified customers in late March about upcoming price increases attributed to what the company described as “un-forecasted demand” for its products. According to Reuters, who cited four sources familiar with the matter, the company communicated…

Africa’s largest mobile network operator, MTN Group, has confirmed a cybersecurity breach that exposed customers’ personal data in select markets across its 19-country operational footprint. However, the Internet Service Provider (ISP) assured its stakeholders that its core network, billing services, and financial systems remain secure and fully operational. The cybersecurity breach, according to the company’s announcement, allowed for an unknown third-party to have access to data linked to part of the company’s core systems. But the company maintains that they have no information that indicates the compromising of customers’ accounts and wallets. As for what the telecom giant did after…

Bluesky has officially introduced a new verification system that features the familiar “user-friendly and easily recognizable” blue checkmarks, signaling a significant step in the social media platform’s evolution. The company’s blog post opens with, “Trust is everything. Social media has connected us in powerful ways, but it hasn’t always given us the tools to know who we’re interacting with or why we should trust them.”  As opposed to the subscription-based model implemented by X (fka Twitter), Bluesky’s verification approach is positioned as something to be earned based on notability and authenticity, rather than a purchased one. So, the decentralized social…

Founded by popular AI researcher Tamay Besiroglu, a new AI startup called Mechanize has quickly sparked intense debate about the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) work, economic implications, and the broader societal impacts. According to the Founder, Mechanize aims to create AI technology that is capable of replacing human labor across all sectors, beginning with white-collar roles, before potentially expanding to all other forms of manual labour work. “Mechanize will build virtual work environments, benchmarks, and training data to enable the full automation of all work,” said Besiroglu. These bold claims about creating vast economic abundance through complete AI streamlining…

Andreessen Horowitz (aka a16z) has expanded its team and media footprint by acquiring tech podcaster Erik Torenberg’s Turpentine podcast network and bringing him onboard as a general partner. The acquisition, announced on April 21, 2025, represents a strategic alignment of Torenberg’s network-building expertise with a16z’s media-centric approach to venture capital. Torenber’s Turpentin, founded in 2023, is a network of podcasts, newsletters, and other content covering technology, business culture, and future trends. At its core, the podcast focuses on interviewing VCs from different firms about their attitude and approach towards investing, as well as their strategies, with recent guests like Accel’s…

Popular social media platform and forum site Reddit experienced a major outage that affected hundreds of thousands of users worldwide for circa one hour. Over 112,400 users reported access issues, consisting of error messages, failed connections, and inability to load content. The incident, which began around 11:20 a.m. ET and was resolved by 12:21 p.m. ET, is the second outage for the social media platform in 2025. The outage began when users started experiencing various issues accessing the Reddit platform. By 11:39 a.m. ET, Downdetector.com, an application that tracks service outages by collecting user reports, recorded that more than 112,400…