Techmeme
April 27, 2025, 11:30 AM

Top News

Jeff Horwitz / Wall Street Journal:
Test conversations with some Meta AI digital companions, including celebrity-voiced ones, show them engaging in sexual chats even when users identify as minors  —  Chatbots on Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp are empowered to engage in ‘romantic role-play’ that can turn explicit.
Furquan Ameen / Rest of World:
Experts say that India is behind China in deep tech innovation due to its historical focus on services, lower R&D investment, and a brain drain of AI talent  —  India's government urges the private sector to take the lead in tech innovation, while industry experts say it's complicated.
Financial Times:
Sources: ~300 London-based DeepMind staff have sought to unionize with the CWU in recent weeks, to challenge AI sales to defense groups and Google's Israel ties  —  Move by employees at Google's AI arm follows discontent after weapons and surveillance pledge is dropped
Leah Nylen / Bloomberg:
US v. Google: Chrome's GM testified that other companies cannot develop Chrome effectively, given the browser's “interdependencies” on other parts of Google  —  Google is the only company that can offer the level of features and functionality that its popular Chrome web browser has today …
Coco Feng / South China Morning Post:
Filing: China's leading flash memory chipmaker YMTC raised ~$219M from Hebei Yangyuan Zhihui Beverage Co. at a ~$22.1B valuation in December 2023  —  The deal was signed in December 2023 but was only announced on Friday as it ‘involved commercial secrets’, Yangyuan said

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
The central nervous system of your business  —  Used by 80% of Fortune 100 companies, Airtable combines AI with the scale of an infinitely flexible, no-code system.  With all your data in one place, it's like mission control for your company.
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:
Why work stalls before it begins—and how the Action Panel helps users orient  —  On most workdays, execution is not the hardest part.  The difficulty appears earlier, when people are trying to process what requires …
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

The Social Radars:
Peter Reinhardt, CEO & co-founder, Charm Industrial; CEO & co-founder, Segment
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
Subscribe to The Social Radars.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Garry Tan, Harj Taggar, and Jared Friedman from YC
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Acquired:
Formula 1
Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.
Subscribe to Acquired.
Big Technology Podcast:
Dario's Choice and Anthropic's Future, Apple's AI Devices, Netflix Loses WBD
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.
Lenny's Podcast:
The design process is dead. Here's what's replacing it. | Jenny Wen (head of design at Claude)
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.
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:30 AM ET, April 27, 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

Wall Street Journal:
Gabe Kaminsky / The Free Press: