Techmeme
December 18, 2024, 10:00 PM

Top News

Melissa Quinn / CBS News:
SCOTUS says it will hear a challenge from TikTok, ByteDance, and TikTok users on January 10 to the law that could lead to the US banning the app on January 19  —  Washington — The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will take up a challenge to a new law that could lead to a ban on TikTok in the U.S.
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Apple says Meta has made 15 interoperability requests under the EU's DMA, more than any other company, and that these could affect users' privacy and security  —  Apple (AAPL.O) on Wednesday hit out at Meta Platforms (META.O), saying its numerous requests to access the iPhone maker's software tools …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: the US is investigating Chinese router maker TP-Link, which has a ~65% US market share in homes and SMBs, and could ban the sale of its routers in 2025  —  TP-Link is the bestselling router on Amazon—and has been linked to Chinese cyberattacks  —  U.S. authorities are investigating whether …
Hayden Field / CNBC:
OpenAI debuts a way to talk to ChatGPT by dialing 1-800-CHATGPT for 15 minutes of free access per month in the US or messaging the number via WhatsApp globally  —  OpenAI on Wednesday rolled out a new way to talk to its viral chatbot: 1-800-CHATGPT.  —  By dialing the U.S. number …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
GitHub offers Copilot in VS Code for free with 2,000 code completions and 50 chat messages per month; GitHub now has 150M developers, up from 100M in early 2023  —  Microsoft-owned GitHub today announced a free version of its popular Copilot code completion/AI pair programming tool …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple has halted work on a project to build an iPhone hardware subscription service, which had been in development since 2022 and set to launch then  —  - Much-delayed program had been in development since around 2022  — Company also shut down Pay Later offering earlier this year
Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg:
Source: Perplexity raised $500M led by Institutional Venture Partners at a $9B valuation earlier in December, up from a $3B valuation in June 2024  —  The company's valuation has tripled since June. … The round was led by Institutional Venture Partners and completed earlier this month …
Will Judd / Eurogamer.net:
Sony details the PS5 Pro's specs, including an AMD RDNA 2-based GPU with 16.7TF of performance and ray tracing improvements, and announces an AMD partnership  —  Plus: what this all means for future PlayStation hardware.  —  When Sony revealed the PlayStation 5 Pro, it did so in a very different manner …
Paul Alcorn / Tom's Hardware:
Intel announces the first updates to address Arrow Lake's gaming performance issues, fixing four of the five root causes, and plans a final update for January  —  Time to test.  —  Intel announced that its first wave of updates to address the gaming performance issues plaguing the Arrow Lake processors is now available.
Ian King / Bloomberg:
Micron reports Q1 revenue up 84% YoY to $8.71B, in line with est., Q2 revenue forecast below est. due to sluggish phone and PC demand; MU drops 15%+ after hours  —  - Strong AI growth isn't offsetting a slowdown elsewhere  — Micron CEO cites weakness in consumer-oriented markets
Harry McCracken / Fast Company:
Flipboard launches Surf, an app for creating custom feeds from Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, RSS, podcasts, and YouTube, in beta for Android, iOS, and iPadOS  —  Fourteen years ago, when the iPad was new and bursting with unfulfilled promise, an app called Flipboard debuted.
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Threads rolls out a way to reshare photos and videos without quote posting, but still crediting the original poster; users can turn off the resharing feature  —  Threads is rolling out a new feature that lets you share someone's photos and videos without including the original post.
Bloomberg:
Sources: neobank Chime confidentially files for a US IPO, aiming to go public in 2025; Chime had a $25B valuation in August 2021  —  - Fintech was last valued at $25 billion in 2021 tech boom  — Chime aims to disrupt banking with digital fee-free offering
Bloomberg:
SandboxAQ, which aims to apply quantum tech and techniques to AI, raised $300M+ from Alger, Yann LeCun, and others at a $5.6B+ valuation to hire more engineers  —  - Former Alphabet division focuses on quantum and AI tech  — CEO Jack Hidary staffing up with more Ph.D.s and engineers
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
After a rough year, Intel says its $250 Arc B580 “Battlemage” GPU, which received nigh-universal praise from reviewers, has already sold out at most retailers  —  While we haven't managed to review it ourselves due to a fluke issue, the $250 Arc B580 “Battlemage” …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Amazon delayed RTO dates for some staff in at least seven cities, like Austin, Dallas, and Phoenix, by up to four months, citing a lack of office space  —  - Company is struggling to find space in at least seven cities  — Start dates are being pushed back as much as four months
Financial Times:
Omdia estimates Microsoft bought 485K of Nvidia's Hopper GPUs in 2024, ByteDance and Tencent bought ~230K each, Meta bought 224K, and Tesla/xAI bought ~200K  —  OpenAI's biggest backer buys nearly half a million GPUs this year in global race to build artificial intelligence systems

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Deep analysis for deep questions  —  Introducing Superagent.  A new research product from Airtable: Subagents deeply interrogate your topic and turn it into boardroom-ready reports, slides, docs, or websites.
Clay:
Turn any GTM idea into reality  —  Clay helps GTM teams combine AI agents, enrichment, and intent data to move faster and turn insights into action.
Zoho:
Why navigation breaks down in unified software—and how QuickNav fixes it  —  In unified software environments, navigation stops being a convenience issue and becomes a structural one.When work spans CRM records …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

The Upstarts Podcast:
Valar Atomics' Isaiah Taylor: Solving AI's Energy Crisis With Nuclear 'Gigasites'
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Access:
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on surviving the AI slop-pocalypse
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Lenny's Podcast:
AI is critical for humanity's survival: Cisco president on the AI revolution | Jeetu Patel
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Cheeky Pint:
Reiner Pope of MatX on accelerating AI with transformer-optimized chips
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
Prediction Markets w/ Allan Loeb
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
His Excellency Khaldoon Al Mubarak: Investing in an AI-Driven World
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:00 PM ET, December 18, 2024.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

Jez Corden / Windows Central:
Myles McCormick / Financial Times:
Financial Times: