Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise Site News
Techmeme
March 12, 2025, 10:45 AM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter

Top News

Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Niantic Labs says it is selling its video game division, including Pokémon Go, to Saudi Arabia-owned developer Scopely for $3.5B, subject to regulatory approval  —  The $3.5 billion Scopely deal could bring Niantic's AR gaming catalog under Saudi ownership.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google unveils Gemma 3, the “world's best single-accelerator model”, running on a single GPU, in 1B, 4B, 12B, and 27B sizes, and says it outperforms Llama-405B  —  Following version 1 in February 2024 and 2 in May, Google today announced Gemma 3 as its latest open model for developers.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Google updates Chrome's extension rules to ban affiliate link injection without user action or benefit, after Honey allegedly stole creators' affiliate revenue  —  Honey was accused of shadily swapping out affiliate links, and now Google has new rules for extensions targeting exactly that.
Reuters:
Sources: TSMC has pitched Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom, and Qualcomm about taking stakes in a JV to run Intel Foundry; TSMC would hold no more than a 50% stake  —  TSMC (2330.TW) has pitched U.S. chip designers Nvidia (NVDA.O), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O) and Broadcom (AVGO.O) …
Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:
Thoughts on using LLMs for coding, which can often be difficult and unintuitive, and why “vibe coding” is a fantastic way to explore the capabilities of LLMs  —  Online discussions about using Large Language Models to help write code inevitably produce comments from developers who's experiences have been disappointing.
Sam Altman / @sama:
Sam Altman says OpenAI trained an AI model that is good at creative writing and shares a short story it wrote; he's “not sure yet how/when it will get released”  —  we trained a new model that is good at creative writing (not sure yet how/when it will get released). this is the first time i have been really struck by something written by AI; it got the vibe of metafiction so right. PROMPT: Please write a metafictional literary short story
New York Times:
Filings: Google owns a 14% Anthropic stake but holds no voting rights, board seats, or board observer rights; Google aims to invest $750M more in September 2025  —  The internet giant owns 14% of the high-profile artificial intelligence company, according to legal filings obtained by The New York Times.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Google is in final talks to acquire AdHawk Microsystems, a Canadian maker of eye-tracking tech, for $115M, including $15M in performance-based payments  —  Alphabet Inc.'s Google is in final talks to acquire AdHawk Microsystems Inc., a maker of eye-tracking technology, part of a renewed push into headsets and smart glasses.
Stephen Totilo / Game File:
Mike Verdu, who joined Netflix in 2021 to launch its game offering and took on a new role as VP of Generative AI for games four months ago, has left the company  —  Plus: Some key changes for this year's Game Developers Conference  —  Mike Verdu, the executive who led Netflix's foray …
Chihiro Ishikawa / Nikkei Asia:
BeReal CEO Aymeric Roffe says Japan is now the photo sharing app's second-largest market with over 4.5M MAUs, 83% aged 14 to 27; BeReal has 40M users globally  —  TOKYO — BeReal is eager to expand in Japan's fast-growing and highly engaged market, said its CEO in an interview with Nikkei Asia.
Reuters:
Manus partners with Alibaba's Qwen to integrate Manus' AI agent functions with AI models and computing platforms in China and to collaborate on Qwen's AI models  —  China's Manus AI announced on Tuesday a strategic partnership with the team behind tech giant Alibaba's Qwen AI models …
Financial Times:
Amazon, Google, and Meta join a World Nuclear Association statement, alongside Occidental, Dow, and others, to triple capacity by 2050; Microsoft didn't sign  —  Tech giants join banks in calling for new power stations to meet growing energy demands and combat climate change
The Reporters' Collective:
A look at community apps like Kutumb mobilizing millions of Indians for politics, spreading disinformation, and inciting hate, beyond civil watchdogs' scrutiny  —  Away From Scrutiny, New Networking Apps Are Mobilising Millions of Indians For Politics, Disinformation and Hate.
Paul Sawers / TechCrunch:
Ditto, which aims to enable “resilient” edge device connectivity, raised an $82M Series B at a $462M post-money valuation, after a $45M Series A in April 2023  —  Ditto, a company that's setting out to bring “resilient” connectivity to edge devices, has raised $82 million …
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
India's largest telco Jio Platforms partners with SpaceX to offer Starlink in the country, just hours after rival Airtel announced a similar partnership  —  Jio Platforms, the subsidiary of India's conglomerate Reliance Industries and the country's largest telecom operator …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
OpenAI debuts a Responses API to help developers build agents that search the web, scan for files, and perform tasks on PCs, and an Agents SDK for orchestration  —  OpenAI's new Responses API comes with web search, the ability to look through files, and computer use out of the box.
The Information:
Sources: self-driving simulation software maker Applied Intuition is in talks to raise hundreds of millions at a $15B valuation, and reached $400M ARR in 2024  —  Applied Intuition, an eight-year-old developer of simulation software for training self-driving vehicles, is in talks with investors …

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.
Sponsor Techmeme

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.
Add your podcast here
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:45 AM ET, March 12, 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.

From Mediagazer

Kerry Flynn / Axios:
The Athletic hires six former Washington Post sports reporters, including Candace Buckner, after the Post dismantled its sports section earlier in February

Jill Goldsmith / Deadline:
WBD reports Q4 revenue fell 6% YoY to $9.46B, net loss narrowed 49% to $252M, streaming revenue rose 4% to $2.8B, and streaming subs hit 131.6M, up 3.5M from Q3

Committee to Protect Journalists:
A record 129 press members were killed in 2025, the second consecutive YoY record; Israel was responsible for two-thirds of killings in 2025 and 2024

More News

Anna Nicolaou / Financial Times:
Spotify says it paid $10B+ in royalties in 2024, “the largest in music history”, making up 60%+ of its $17.13B+ 2024 revenue, with ~1,500 artists earning $1M+
David McCabe / New York Times:
The Senate approves Gail Slater, President Trump's pick to lead the DOJ's antitrust unit, by a 78-19 vote; she has been critical of power in the tech industry

Earlier Picks

Krisztian Sandor / CoinDesk:
Mesh raised an $82M Series B, settled mostly in PayPal's PYUSD stablecoin and led by Paradigm, to expand its stablecoin-based payments settlement network
The Information:
Source: Anthropic's annualized revenue grew from $1B at the end of 2024 to $1.4B in early March; Manus uses tools including Claude 3.7 Sonnet to power its agent
Dave2D on YouTube:
Mac Studio with M3 Ultra and 512GB of unified memory review: opens up new workflows on a ~$10,000 desktop, like running a quantized version of DeepSeek R1 671B
Sander Lutz / Decrypt:
Senator Lummis unveils the Bitcoin Act in the US Senate, with five Republican co-sponsors, to codify a strategic Bitcoin reserve and let the US buy up to 1M BTC
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Waymo expands its operating area around Silicon Valley to a 27 square-mile region, including Mountain View, Palo Alto, Los Altos, and parts of Sunnyvale
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter