Techmeme: Bumble rolls out new ID verification in the US, the UK, Australia, France, India, and six other markets, as founder Whitney Wolfe Herd returns as its CEO (Natalie Lung/Bloomberg)

Top News

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

Open letter: ~100 EU companies urge EU lawmakers to take “radical action” to shrink the reliance on foreign infrastructure by fostering a so-called “Euro stack” — A broad coalition drawn from across the ranks of Europe's tech industry is calling for “radical action” …

More: The Register, How-To Geek, TechRadar, Politico, Tech.eu, Werd I/O, Reuters, and Digital Trends

Bluesky: @metacurity.com and @mathver

Mastodon: @alexlunaview@mastodon.social and @remixtures@tldr.nettime.org

Forums: r/eutech, r/BuyFromEU, and r/europe

New York Times:

HR service Rippling sues Deel, accusing its rival of hiring a mole in its Dublin office to comb through trade secrets, uncovered via a “honeypot” Slack channel — A lawsuit by Rippling accuses a top competitor, Deel, of placing a mole in its ranks — which it uncovered via a “honeypot” trap on Slack.

More: San Francisco Business Times, Axios, and The Information

Bluesky: @iainmartin and @utkan.com

X: @jsawadd, @haroonmeer, @tomdavenport, @m_delamerced, @parkerconrad, @parkerconrad, @parkerconrad, and @m_delamerced

Jason Koebler / 404 Media:

AI slop, shared by thousands of prolific accounts, is brute forcing virality, and platforms like Meta embrace it; some AI videos get 350M+ views — Generative AI spammers are brute forcing the internet, and it is working. — Consider, for a moment, that this AI-generated video …

Bluesky: @carlivelocci.com, @samleecole, @josephcox, @robhorning, and @jasonkoebler. X: @jason_koebler

Jay Peters / The Verge:

Roblox open sources Cube 3D, the first version of its AI foundation model for generating 3D objects, trained on licensed and public datasets and its own data — The model, Cube 3D, creates 3D models from a text prompt. … Roblox is launching and open-sourcing Cube 3D …

More: Roblox Corporate, Game Developer, VentureBeat, Axios, TechCrunch, WinBuzzer, Gameranx, and Roblox Corporate

Stephen Morris / Financial Times:

Alphabet spins off laser-based internet company Taara from its X “moonshot” incubator; Taara, which raised new funding, has its origins in Loon, closed in 2021 — Taara start-up aims to compete with Elon Musk's Starlink to connect remote areas to the internet using light beams

More: Engadget, DatacenterDynamics, Sherwood News, The Verge, and WinBuzzer. Mastodon: @1br0wn@eupolicy.social

Natalie Lung / Bloomberg:

Bumble rolls out new ID verification in the US, the UK, Australia, France, India, and six other markets, as founder Whitney Wolfe Herd returns as its CEO — Bumble Inc. is adding ID verification to its dating app alongside other new features, an attempt to court safety-conscious younger users …

More: TechCrunch and Digital Trends. X: @natlungfy

Sean Michael Kerner / VentureBeat:

Zoom unveils AI Companion 2.0, which adds agentic AI features, including calendar management, meeting tools, and document creation, rolling out by July 2025 — Zoom became a household name during the pandemic as remote work became the norm nearly overnight.

More: The Verge, ZDNET, Zoom, Zoom, Constellation Research, WinBuzzer, Techstrong.ai, and diginomica

Max A. Cherney / Reuters:

Sources: Intel's new CEO Lip-Bu Tan has considered restructuring Intel's AI approach and cutting staff to address a slow and bloated middle management layer — Intel's incoming CEO Lip-Bu Tan has considered significant changes to its chip manufacturing methods and artificial intelligence strategies ahead …

More: Capital Brief, WinBuzzer, Barron's Online, Benzinga, and Tech in Asia

Forums: r/hardware and r/intelstock

Jay Peters / The Verge:

Discord launches a Social SDK to let developers offer friends lists, cross-platform messaging, voice, and more, with console and mobile support “coming soon” — An easier way to connect with Discord friends. … Discord is launching a way for developers to directly integrate …

More: PC Gamer, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Digital Trends, and Developer Tech News

Nick Robins-Early / The Guardian:

How Elon Musk targeted 18F, as former employees say the GSA group focused on increasing bureaucratic efficiency through tech, similar to what DOGE claims to do — Rightwing campaign propelled by tech billionaire accuses General Services Administration's 18F of being a far-left cell

Bluesky: @montgomery, @angelacolter, @ronbronson.com, @metacurity.com, and @galenstone. X: @blakersdozen

Forums: r/NewsOfTheStupid and r/politics

Sidhartha Shukla / Bloomberg:

Crypto exchange OKX says it has “temporarily” suspended its DEX aggregator services, used to launder the $1.5B Bybit hack, after reported EU scrutiny under MiCA — Digital-asset exchange OKX has suspended a service used by hackers to launder proceeds from a $1.5 billion heist …

More: OKX, DL News, Yahoo Finance, CryptoNinjas, Blockonomi, Coinpedia Fintech News, Decrypt, CoinGape, crypto.news, The Block, CryptoPotato, Cointelegraph, CryptoSlate, and CoinDesk

Austin Carr / Bloomberg:

An interview with Snap CEO Evan Spiegel on Snap's fifth-generation smart glasses, unveiled in September 2024, competing with Apple and Meta, Snap OS, and more — The new Spectacles can project augmented-reality imagery onto the lenses. — Evan Spiegel sees something others don't …

More: TechCrunch, Road to VR, AR Insider, and Snap Newsroom

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

Some developers say licenses for “open” AI models like Google's Gemma and Meta's Llama have limits that restrict commercial use without fear of legal reprisal — This week, Google released a family of open AI models, Gemma 3, that quickly garnered praise for their impressive efficiency.

More: Entrepreneur. Bluesky: @mikebutcher. X: @xlr8harder, @natolambert, and @hanchunglee

Sponsor Posts

Google:

Try Gemini 3 Pro — Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life

Shopify:

Shopify's new AI commerce stack — Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI and tech.

Zoho:

Connecting, collaborating, and growing: Zoho Mail 2025 wrap-up — Your inbox has been home to a lot this year—quick updates, long threads, approvals, reminders, and the occasional late-night draft you weren't sure about.

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box 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

BG2 Pod:

AI Enterprise - Databricks & Glean

Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.

Subscribe to BG2 Pod.

Great Chat:

The stories we told ourselves in 2025

A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.

Subscribe to Great Chat.

Grit:

How Brands Stay Visible When AI Decides | Profound CEO James Cadwallader

Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.

Subscribe to Grit.

Lenny's Podcast:

The coming AI security crisis (and what to do about it) | Sander Schulhoff

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.

Big Technology Podcast:

OpenAI's Potential, Google's Speedy Model, Copilot Hits Turbulence

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.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling

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 12:16 PM ET, March 17, 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.