Techmeme
February 19, 2025, 4:15 AM

Top News

Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
HP plans to acquire assets from Humane for $116M; Humane's Ai Pin business will be wound down, and Humane's team, including its founders, will join HP  —  - 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 on February 28, when all customer data will be deleted, and it will refund some customers  —  Humane is discontinuing the AI Pin and selling out to HP.  —  AI hardware startup Humane has given its users just ten (10!) days notice that their Pins will be disconnected.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Niantic is in talks to sell its games unit to Saudi Arabia-controlled Scopely for ~$3.5B; the deal would include Pokémon Go and 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.
Ina Fried / Axios:
Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati announces Thinking Machines Lab, a new AI startup that she's leading, 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 shares closed up 16.1% following a February 15 report that both Broadcom and TSMC are potentially weighing deals that could break the chipmaker in two  —  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%” …
James Titcomb / Telegraph:
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.
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  —  Looking at this thing, you might expect to see it propped up at an airport bar, in front of somebody talking into wireless headphones about Tim in Product.
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”  —  There's a new app on the App Store called Protector, which, as its advisor describes it, is “Uber with guns.”
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.
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Starting on February 19, Meta will store Facebook Live broadcasts for 30 days instead of storing them indefinitely and will remove videos older than 30 days  —  Facebook announced on Tuesday that live videos will now only be stored on the social network for 30 days, after which they will be deleted.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Fiverr unveils AI tools, including the Personal AI Creation Model, which lets gig workers configure an AI model trained on their work and set prices to use it  —  Gig marketplace Fiverr wants to let freelancers train AI on their bodies of work and use it to automate future jobs.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Meta says LlamaCon, its first developer conference dedicated to generative AI, will take place on April 29, and Meta Connect will be held on September 17 and 18  —  Meta on Tuesday announced that it'll host its first-ever dev conference dedicated to generative AI.

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Olga Kharif / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

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