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February 19, 2025, 11:05 AM
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Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
HP plans to acquire assets from Humane for $116M, wind down Humane's Ai Pin business, and add Humane's team, including its founders, as an AI-focused division  —  - Humane's Ai pin business to be wound down after rocky launch  — New unit at HP will focus on implementation of AI in devices
Aaron Souppouris / Engadget:
Humane says Ai Pin's online features will stop working at 12PM PT on February 28, when it will delete all customer data, and it will refund some newer customers  —  Humane is discontinuing the AI Pin and selling out to HP.  —  AI hardware startup Humane has given its users just ten (10!) …
VentureBeat:
Sources: Chinese game publisher NetEase has been directed to divest its overseas holdings, starting with hit game Marvel Rivals, which laid off its Seattle team  —  Chinese game publisher NetEase raised fears with recent moves that it is unloading as much as all of its overseas holdings …
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Signal updates its app with phishing protections after Google warned Russia-linked hackers are using fake QR codes for group invites to trick Ukrainian soldiers  —  Google warns that hackers tied to Russia are tricking Ukrainian soldiers with fake QR codes for Signal group invites that let spies steal their messages.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Niantic is in talks to sell its video games unit to Saudi Arabia-owned Scopely for ~$3.5B; the deal would include Pokémon Go and its other mobile games  —  A deal could be announced in coming weeks.  The price being discussed is about $3.5 billion, according to one of the people.
Danny Nelson / CoinDesk:
Source: in text messages, Libra co-creator Hayden Davis bragged he could “control” Argentine President Javier Milei by making payments to Milei's sister, Karina  —  A key player behind the Libra token bragged about buying access to Argentine President Javier Milei's inner circle months …
Olga Kharif / Bloomberg:
Solana has lost ~25% of its market value, or ~$20B, since February 14, after Argentine President Javier Milei drew criticism for promoting Solana memecoin Libra
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
Sources: X is in talks to raise funds at a $44B valuation, matching the price Elon Musk paid for Twitter in 2022, as his proximity to Trump alters X's prospects  —  - Valuation is the same as Musk's 2022 Twitter acquisition  — Billionaire has recently tapped private markets for big sums
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple unveils the $599+ iPhone 16e, with an A18 chip, a 48MP camera, Apple Intelligence, and an Apple-designed 5G cellular modem, the C1, shipping February 28  —  Apple has officially taken the wraps off of the all-new iPhone 16e.  The device features an all-new design paired with the A18 chip inside …
Emilia David / VentureBeat:
OpenAI researchers build the SWE-Lancer benchmark and find that real-world freelance software engineering work remains challenging for frontier language models  —  Large language models (LLMs) may have changed software development, but enterprises will need to think twice …
Erik Larson / Bloomberg:
TMTG and Rumble sue a Brazilian Supreme Court Justice in Florida for allegedly illegally suppressing the US social media activity of conservative Brazilians  —  - Suit, joined by Rumble, accusing the judge of stifling speech  — Brazilian judge has long attacked ‘fake news,’ disinformation
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
French privacy startup Murena unveils the €539 Murena Pixel Tablet, running its open-source, forked /e/OS, after releasing a “deGoogled” smartphone in 2023  —  Murena, the French privacy firm that's forked Android to deliver so-called deGoogled smartphones, has repeated the trick with a tablet.
Ina Fried / Axios:
Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati unveils AI startup Thinking Machines Lab, which she's leading as CEO, with Barret Zoph as CTO and John Schulman as chief scientist  —  - “Instead of focusing solely on making fully autonomous AI systems, we are excited to build multimodal systems that work …
Samantha Subin / CNBC:
Intel's stock closed up 16.1% days after a February 15 report that Broadcom and TSMC are potentially weighing independent deals that could split the chipmaker  —  Intel shares rallied 16.1% on Tuesday following a Wall Street Journal report that both Broadcom and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing …
Reuters:
President Trump says tariffs on semiconductors would start at “25% or higher” and that he planned to provide some time for chip makers to set up US factories  —  U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he intends to impose auto tariffs “in the neighborhood of 25%” …
Bloomberg:
Internal documents, emails, and federal data suggest Indian IT giant TCS has used L-1A manager visas in ways that raise concerns about undercutting US workers  —  New data show how TCS makes heavy use of employment visas reserved for managers.  Ex-staffers say it was to get around H-1B rules.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google Play Books for iOS now lets users complete their e-book or audiobook purchase on the Google Play website, under Apple's “reader apps” exception  —  Google has gained permission to sell its e-books and audiobooks directly to customers through its iOS app, Google Play Books.

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From Mediagazer

Financial Times:
Sources: WBD's board wanted a proposal it could sign immediately, and Netflix was the only bidder whose paperwork was fully executable the night of December 4

Isabella Simonetti / Wall Street Journal:
Vanity Fair and Olivia Nuzzi agree to part ways and let her contract expire at the end of the year, following new allegations about her affair with RFK Jr.

Oliver Darcy / Status:
Sources: David Ellison's interference in WBD's failed summer talks to extend HBO Max's South Park licensing deal left David Zaslav distrustful of Ellison

More News

Earlier Picks

Kevin Purdy / Ars Technica:
Asus ROG Flow Z13 review: the ~$2,300 convertible tablet's integrated GPU in its AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip offers performance comparable to a GeForce RTX 4060
José Adorno / BGR:
Protector, an iOS app that offers on-demand personal security, including armed agents, debuts in NYC and LA; adviser Nikita Bier calls it “Uber with guns”
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