Techmeme
May 9, 2025, 5:30 PM

Top News

Tripp Mickle / New York Times:
How Apple's extraordinary measures to keep its App Store commissions after the Epic v. Apple trial led to a civil contempt ruling and weakened its credibility  —  Court documents show the company commissioned a sham report and lied on the stand to justify its actions, which will cast a shadow over future lawsuits.
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
Epic Games says it has submitted Fortnite to the US App Store for review  —  Update: Epic Games says it has submitted Fortnite to the U.S. App Store for review.  The ball is now in Apple's court to approve the app submission.  —  If Fortnite does return to the U.S. App Store this week, it won't be before Friday.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Whoop sparks a backlash after asking its subscribers to pay to upgrade to 5.0, despite earlier promises of free hardware upgrades after six months of membership  —  Whoop promised members who'd been around at least six months would get free next-gen hardware.  Now, you'll have to pay.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Whoop launches Whoop 5.0, its latest screenless wearable, including a medical grade version with Healthspan, showing users how they are aging physiologically  —  It's appealing to non-athletes with more affordable subscriptions and more advanced health features like EKGs.
Charles Rollet / TechCrunch:
Source: US DOL ended its probe into Scale AI's Fair Labor Standards Act compliance, after announcing a friendlier approach to classifying workers as contractors  —  The U.S. Department of Labor has dropped its investigation into Scale AI's compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act …
More: Reuters
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Rippling raised a $450M Series G at a $16.8B valuation, up from $13.4B during its $200M Series F in 2024; it is also conducting a $200M tender offer  —  HR tech startup Rippling has raised a $450 million Series G round at a $16.8 billion valuation, the company confirmed to TechCrunch.
MK Manoylov / The Block:
Coinbase Derivatives, the company's CFTC-regulated derivatives arm, launches 24/7 Bitcoin and Ethereum futures trading for retail and institutional users  —  - Coinbase Derivatives, the firm's CFTC-regulated derivatives arm, will provide round-the-clock futures contracts trading for retail and institutional users starting today.
David K. Li / NBC News:
A US judged sentenced an Arizona man to the maximum 10.5 years in prison after his deceased victim gave the court an impact statement via an AI-generated video  —  The defendant got the maximum of 10½ years for the 2021 murder.  His attorney called the presentation “inflammatory,” providing grounds for appeal.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Appfigures estimates Apple made $10.1B in revenue from US App Store commissions in 2024, up from $4.8B in 2020, $6.7B in 2021, $7.4B in 2022, and $8.8B in 2023  —  Over $10 billion — that's how much revenue Apple's U.S. App Store raked in last year, according to a new analysis by app intelligence provider Appfigures.
Emily Birnbaum / Bloomberg:
Tech companies warn they may pull back from US investment pledges if Congress doesn't fully reinstate the R&D tax deduction pared back in Trump's 2017 tax bill  —  Major tech companies lobbying to salvage a tax deduction for research and development are warning they may pull …
Forums: Slashdot
Olga Kharif / Bloomberg:
Brian Armstrong says Coinbase considered allocating 80% of its balance sheet into bitcoin but decided against the scheme as it was too risky  —  “There were definitely moments over the last 12 years where we thought, man, should we put 80% of our balance sheet into crypto — into Bitcoin specifically …
More: PYMNTS.com
Sri Muppidi / The Information:
Sources: Snowflake challenger ClickHouse is in talks to raise hundreds of millions led by Khosla Ventures at a $6B valuation, triple its valuation from 2021  —  Investors have reaped billions of dollars in gains from backing database software firms Snowflake and Databricks.

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
What will the next generation of developers do when AI writes the code?  —  Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon are betting that the junior devs we train today will be the senior engineers of tomorrow.
Will Reed:
The best sales leaders aren't job hunting.  Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach.  —  Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.
Zoho:
UK tax compliance with Zoho Books  —  The evolving tax landscape in the UK has added an additional responsibility to business owners, accountants, and bookkeepers to ensure their choice of accounting software supports compliance …
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:
Anthropic IPO Panic, A Spy At OpenAI?, The Great Food Slop 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.
Great Chat:
What happened to tech's backbone?
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.
The Upstarts Podcast:
The $7B Startup Mapping Your Health In Just One Hour | Neko's Hjalmar Nilsonne
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.
Cheeky Pint:
The company building underwater drones for $50,000
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
BG2 Pod:
Jensen Huang | Does AI Revenue Justify Capex, '27 AI Bottlenecks, Singularity, Open vs Closed & more
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
How to Run a Political Campaign in the TikTok Era (And How Not To)
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:30 PM ET, May 9, 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

Danai Nesta Kupemba / BBC:
Coco Feng / South China Morning Post:
Scharon Harding / Ars Technica:
Karissa Bell / Engadget:

Earlier Picks

Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:
More: The Decoder, WinBuzzer, arXiv.org, and The Drum
Bluesky: @soodoku.  Mastodon: @koen_hufkens@mastodon.social.  X: @_akhaliq.  LinkedIn: Derrick Mwiti.  Forums: r/baba and Slashdot
Chris Cameron / New York Times:
Reinhardt Krause / Investor's Business Daily:
Steven T. Dennis / Bloomberg:
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Victoria Kennedy / Eurogamer.net: