Techmeme
March 18, 2025, 2:30 PM

Top News

The Verge:
Alphabet acquires NYC-based cybersecurity startup Wiz for $32B cash, its largest acquisition yet, pending approval; antitrust fears stalled a $23B deal in 2024  —  The acquisition is Alphabet's biggest yet, after a $23 billion takeover attempt stalled last year.
More: The Keyword, Google Cloud Blog, Wiz Blog, Bloomberg, The Guardian, Crunchbase News, Reuters, CTech, Silicon Valley Business …, CRN, Tech Monitor, 9to5Google, Financial Times, Semafor, Business Insider, The Standard, Financial Times, The Economic Times, Thurrott, SiliconANGLE, Yahoo Finance, Türkiye Today, Neowin, Associated Press, BGR, CSO, SC Media, Channel Futures, The Information, Reuters, Reuters, Pocketables, UPI, Analytics India Magazine, TechCrunch, Infosecurity, Constellation Research, TechRadar, TechCrunch, New York Times, CNBC, CSO, Proactive, CTech, BusinessLIVE, Verdict, Security Boulevard, Jerusalem Post, Patently Apple, TipRanks Financial, The Cyber Express, Yahoo Finance, en.ain.ua, Fortune, Wall Street Pit, Barron's Online, Channel NewsAsia, Reuters, StrictlyVC, CRN, The Times, Silicon Valley Business …, Capital Brief, Ynetnews, The Verge, Investor's Business Daily, CTech, TipRanks Financial, Tech in Asia, Financial Express, Benzinga, PYMNTS.com, Moneycontrol, TheCable, and Wall Street Journal
Andrew Martin / Bloomberg:
David Pierce / The Verge:
Eric Migicovsky unveils two Pebble smartwatches running its open-source OS, the $149 Core 2 Duo shipping July 2025 and $225 Core Time 2 shipping December 2025  —  Pebble's creator now runs a company called Core Devices, and it's getting ready to sell two new watches soon.
NVIDIA on YouTube:
A livestream of the Nvidia GTC 2025 keynote at the SAP Center in San Jose, California  —  Watch NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's GTC keynote to catch all the announcements on AI advances that are shaping our future.Dive into the announcements and discove...
Scharon Harding / Ars Technica:
Some owners of smart TVs and streaming sticks with Roku OS report seeing autoplaying video ads before they can use the home screen; Roku says it is just a test  —  Now, Roku is testing what it might look like if it took things a step further and forced people to watch a video ad play before getting to the Roku OS home screen.
Timmy Shen / The Block:
Solana deletes a social media video ad promoting its NYC conference in May 2025 after the crypto community criticized it for insensitivity towards gender issues  —  - Solana posted a video ad on social media on Monday to promote its upcoming conference, but it was removed hours later.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Mark Zuckerberg says Meta's Llama models have been downloaded 1B times since their 2023 debut, up from 650M downloads in early December 2024  —  In a brief message Tuesday morning on Threads, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company's “open” AI model family, Llama, hit 1 billion downloads.
New York Times:
Starlink is now accessible across the White House campus, which already has fiber cables, after SpaceX “donated” the service, as some cite security concerns  —  Trump administration officials said the company donated the internet service, saying the gift had been vetted …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Google updates its Gemini chatbot, adding Canvas, a space for users to create, refine, and share writing and coding projects, and Audio Overview from NotebookLM  —  They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and Google seems to agree.  —  On Tuesday, the company added a feature …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Google debuts new Search and Android health care features, including medical records APIs, and plans to release open AI models for drug discovery called TxGemma  —  Google on Tuesday announced new products and features aimed at healthcare use cases, including improved overviews in Google Search …
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Attackers are actively exploiting a critical Apache Tomcat RCE flaw to take over servers with a PUT request; Wallarm: the attack “requires no authentication”  —  A critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in Apache Tomcat tracked as CVE-2025-24813 is actively exploited in the wild …
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
CISA scrambles to contact 130+ fired employees after court rules the layoffs unlawful but says re-hired staff will immediately be placed on administrative leave  —  The U.S. government's cybersecurity agency is scrambling to contact more than 130 former employees after a federal court ruled …
More: CSO
Bloomberg:
Tencent releases five AI tools that turn text or images into 3D visuals and graphics, based on Hunyuan3D-2.0, and plans to integrate DeepSeek's R1 into WeChat  —  Tencent's five new 3D-content generators are built atop its Hunyuan3D-2.0 model, all of which it intends to open-source to users, the company said in a statement.
More: Reuters
New York Times:
Since Xi Jinping met DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng in February, Chinese officials have been racing to show they use its tech, like in courthouses and hospitals  —  Government bodies nationwide have been eager to show they are using DeepSeek's A.I. technology since the company's founder met with Xi Jinping, China's leader.
Bluesky: @hargreaves-s

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
App Spotlight: MessageWhiz SMS for Zoho CRM  —  App Spotlight brings you hand-picked solutions that enhance your Zoho apps and tools.  Visit Zoho Marketplace to explore all of our apps, integrations …
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:
Big Tech's Insane Hidden AI Spending, Ranking Anthropic vs. OpenAI, AI For Travel Debate
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.
Hard Fork:
OpenAI's Two-Week Pause + Jill Lepore on the Threat of the "Artificial State" + Train of Thought
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
The $12.5 Billion Lakers, the NFL's TV Fight, and Sports Media's Big Split
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.
Training Data:
Rich Sutton and Khurram Javed: Why AI Models Stop Learning, and How to Start It Again
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Invest Like the Best:
Ben Thompson on Big Tech, China, and the AI Boom Running Out of Money
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:30 PM ET, March 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

Bert Hubert's writings:

Earlier Picks

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Zhiye Liu / Tom's Hardware:
Andrew Liszewski / The Verge:
Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat: