Techmeme
February 18, 2025, 6:50 AM

Top News

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
xAI launches Grok3 beta and Grok3 mini, its latest AI models with reasoning capabilities, trained on “10x” more compute than Grok2, for X Premium+ subscribers  —  Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, late on Monday released its latest flagship AI model, Grok 3, and unveiled new capabilities for the Grok iOS and web apps.
Amy Thomson / Bloomberg:
xAI unveils DeepSearch, a reasoning chatbot that explains its thought process for queries and is capable of doing research, brainstorming, and data analysis  —  Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI showed off the updated Grok-3 model, showcasing a version of the chatbot technology …
Andrej Karpathy / @karpathy:
Grok3 hands-on: its thinking capability feels state of the art and rivals OpenAI's o1 pro models, DeepSearch offers a blend of search and reasoning, and more  —  I was given early access to Grok 3 earlier today, making me I think one of the first few who could run a quick vibe check.
Kate Clark / Bloomberg:
Source: Ilya Sutskever's startup Safe Superintelligence is raising $1B+ at a $30B+ valuation led by Greenoaks Capital, which plans to invest $500M  —  - SSI raising more than $1 billion, including from Greenoaks  — Former OpenAI chief scientist left the company last year
Bloomberg:
President Xi meets Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, and others, signaling Beijing's support for the long-marginalized private sector  —  - Meeting signals a more supportive stance toward private firms  — Xi promises relief from excessive fines, level playing field
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Chase plans to stop users making Zelle payments deemed “as originating from contact through social media”; the CFPB had claimed Zelle lacked adequate safeguards  —  JPMorgan Chase Bank (Chase) will soon start blocking Zelle payments to social media contacts to combat a significant rise …
Forums: Slashdot
Financial Times:
Surj, the sporting arm of Saudi Arabia's PIF, plans to invest $1B in DAZN and a new joint venture with the sports streamer; source: Surj will take a <5% stake  —  Surj Sports Investment will take stake in DAZN and help fund a Middle East broadcasting joint venture
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
An interview with Shuhei Yoshida, who led PlayStation Studios from 2008-2019 and left Sony on January 15, on his 31 years at PlayStation, early days, and more  —  Shu Yoshida has graduated.  He just completed 38 years at Sony, including 31 years at PlayStation, and he completed …
Matt Binder / disruptionist:
X shows error messages when trying to share Signal's Signal.me links in DMs, posts, and profile pages, and a warning page if users click on already posted links  —  Signal has been a primary method of communication for federal workers looking to blow the whistle on DOGE.

Sponsor Posts

ElevenLabs:
ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs  —  You know us for voice.  Now meet ElevenAgents — featuring Expressive Mode, our most human-sounding AI voice technology in 70+ languages with ultra-low latency.  Hear it for yourself.
Intel:
5G's most deployed platform  —  Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN.  That's the power of Intel Inside®
Zoho:
WorkDrive 6.0: Advancing toward intelligent enterprise content management (Phase 1)  —  Artificial intelligence is redefining how enterprises process data.  Large language models can understand context …
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

Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI President Greg Brockman: AI Self-Improvement, The Superapp Bet, Path To AGI, Scaling Compute
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Brad Lightcap from OpenAI
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Why We Need to Pay Attention to Elon Musk Again
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Cheeky Pint:
Compliance at scale and why TAM is a distraction with Christina Cacioppo of Vanta
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ryan Roslansky: Turning AI Anxiety into Skills for the Future of Work
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.
Invest Like the Best:
Sergey Levine - Building LLMs for the Physical World
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:50 AM ET, February 18, 2025.

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

Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Namanyay Goel / N's Blog:
David Barnett / The Guardian: