Techmeme
May 15, 2025, 9:45 AM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Issie Lapowsky / Vanity Fair:
Q&A with the FT's Patrick McGee on his new book, Apple in China, which examines Apple's role in enabling China's rise; Apple says it is “full of inaccuracies”  —  In his new book, Apple in China, Patrick McGee examines how Tim Cook unwittingly led Apple right into the heart of Trump's trade war.
Niket Nishant / Reuters:
Coinbase says hackers accessed a “small subset” of users' data, but not credentials, expects to incur $180M to $400M in costs, and refuses to pay a $20M ransom  —  Coinbase (COIN.O) forecast a hit between $180 million and $400 million from a cyber attack that breached account data of a …
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
OpenAI releases GPT-4.1 in ChatGPT for Plus, Pro, and Team subscribers “by popular request”, and replaces GPT-4o mini with GPT-4.1 mini for all ChatGPT users  —  OpenAI is releasing its GPT-4.1 and GPT-4.1 mini AI models in ChatGPT, the company announced in a post on X Wednesday.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
OpenAI launches the “Safety evaluations hub”, a webpage showing how its models score on tests for harmful content generation, jailbreaks, and hallucinations  —  OpenAI is moving to publish the results of its internal AI model safety evaluations more regularly in what the outfit …
More: CNBC, OpenAI, Tom's Guide, and Tech in Asia
Bluesky: @sal19X: @haydenfield and @openaiLinkedIn: Jennifer EliasForums: Hacker News
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple rolls out CarPlay Ultra, the next generation of CarPlay, in new and existing Aston Martins in North America after months of delays, before a wider rollout  —  After months of delays, Apple today officially announced the launch of next-gen CarPlay, now with a new brand name of ‘CarPlay Ultra’.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Johnny Ryan / Irish Council for Civil Liberties:
The Belgian Court of Appeal rules that the Transparency & Consent Framework, used by Google, Microsoft, Amazon, X, and the ad industry, is illegal across Europe  —  Landmark court decision against “TCF” consent pop ups on 80% of the internet  —  Google, Microsoft, Amazon, X …
Paresh Dave / Wired:
Microsoft plans to shut down its Bing Search APIs on August 11; a source says the largest customers will retain access, and DuckDuckGo says it won't be affected  —  Microsoft is limiting access to tools that boosted its rivals, but larger customers like DuckDuckGo say they won't be affected.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Huione Guarantee, a Telegram-based black market for crypto scammers and money launderers that enabled $27B+ in transactions, shuts down after mass account bans  —  Following a WIRED inquiry, Telegram banned thousands of accounts used for crypto scam money laundering, including those of Haowang Guarantee …
Joe Tidy / BBC:
Hacking group DragonForce says it stole UK retailer Co-op's customer data and planned to deploy ransomware, but Co-op quickly shut down its systems, unlike M&S  —  Co-op narrowly averted being locked out of its computer systems during the cyber attack that saw customer data stolen …
Wired:
The CFPB cancels its plans to more tightly regulate US data brokers' ability to sell Americans' sensitive info, like financial data, credit history, and SSNs  —  Russell Vought, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has canceled plans to more tightly regulate the sale of Americans' sensitive personal data.
Bloomberg:
Documents: Microsoft's recent layoffs of 6,000 workers hit software engineers in Washington state hardest, making up 40%+ of the ~2,000 positions cut there  —  In Microsoft's home state of Washington, software engineering was by far the largest single job category to receive layoff notices …
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Epic submits a new version of Fortnite to the US App Store after pulling the one it submitted on May 9, citing an update with new content  —  On Friday, Epic Games submitted Fortnite to the U.S. App Store, and since then, we've been waiting to see if Apple would approve the game and allow it back on the iPhone and the iPad.
Reuters:
Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun unveils the XringO1, the company's first self-developed advanced phone chip, set to launch later in May, without giving any further details  —  Chinese smartphone and electric vehicle maker Xiaomi (1810.HK) said on Thursday it would launch a new self developed mobile phone chip, XringO1, in late May.
Bloomberg:
Analysis: Shein cut the average cost of 98 tracked products in the US by ~13% to $5.56 from a peak of $6.38 on May 7, and sent a price drop alert to US users  —  The average cost of 98 products consistently tracked by Bloomberg News on Shein's website was $5.56 on Wednesday, down about 13% from a May 7 peak of $6.38.
More: Tech in Asia

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: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26  —  Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Zoho:
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control  —  Picture this: It's Monday morning.  You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
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.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's 2026 Priority, Disney's AI Play, Datacenter Buildout Trouble
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:
Australia Kicks Kids Off Social Media + Is the A.I. Water Issue Fake? + Hard Fork Wrapped
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.
Access:
Why the next AI frontier is phone calls, with Beside CEO Maxime Germain
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Great Chat:
So what happens after AGI?
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.
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Lachlan Cartwright Started in Tabloids. Now He's a Must-Read Media Gossip.
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 9:45 AM ET, May 15, 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

Barbara Moens / Financial Times:
Bloomberg:
Steve Lohr / New York Times:
Newley Purnell / Bloomberg:
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch:
Jeremy Kahn / Fortune:

Earlier Picks

Sara Salinas / CNBC:
Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Richard Leadbetter / Eurogamer.net: