Techmeme
May 19, 2025, 11:40 PM

Top News

Emma Roth / The Verge:
GitHub announces an AI coding agent for GitHub Copilot that can fix bugs, add features, improve docs, and more, and open-sources GitHub Copilot in VS Code  —  The AI coding agent will start working once a developer assigns it a task. … GitHub is launching an AI coding agent that can do things …
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Microsoft open-sources the Windows Subsystem for Linux, launched in 2016, and makes it available on GitHub, except for a few Windows-specific components  —  Microsoft has open-sourced the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), making its source code available on GitHub, except for a few components that are part of Windows.
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Kimberley Kao / Wall Street Journal:
Bloomberg:
Lauren Feiner / The Verge:
Trump signs the Take It Down Act, criminalizing the distribution of nonconsensual intimate content and requiring platforms to promptly remove it when notified  —  The bill sailed through Congress with a focus on deepfakes and other nonconsensual intimate images.
Washington Post:
Investigation: New Orleans police secretly scanned city streets with 200+ facial recognition cameras for two years, seemingly defying a 2022 city ordinance  —  Following records requests from The Post, officials paused the first known, widespread live facial recognition program used by police in the United States.
Clare Duffy / CNN:
The US House Budget Committee advances a budget bill that would ban US states from enforcing any law regulating AI for 10 years; the bill now goes to the House  —  New York CNN —  —  More than 100 organizations are raising alarms about a provision in the House's sweeping tax …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft adds Grok 3 and Grok 3 mini to its Azure AI Foundry service; sources: Satya Nadella had been pushing for Microsoft to host Grok  —  Grok 3 and Grok 3 mini are both coming to Microsoft's Azure AI Foundry service. … I reported in my Notepad newsletter earlier this month that Microsoft …
Todd Spangler / Variety:
SAG-AFTRA files an NLRB unfair labor practice charge against Epic's Llama Productions for using AI to recreate James Earl Jones' Darth Vader voice in Fortnite  —  The actors union said Epic-owned Llama Productions “chose to replace the work of human performers with AI technology” …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Microsoft introduces Foundry Local, a service coming to Windows AI Foundry as well as macOS, to run AI models and tools on-device, using ONXX Runtime  —  Microsoft wants to make it easier for developers to build AI-powered apps on Windows devices.  —  On Monday during its Build 2025 conference …
More: Microsoft
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Dean Seal / Wall Street Journal:
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals says it will acquire 23andMe's assets, including its Personal Genome Service, for $256M, set to close in Q3, in the bankruptcy auction  —  Regeneron Pharmaceuticals said it will acquire substantially all of 23andMe's assets  —  Regeneron Pharmaceuticals …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google releases the NotebookLM app for Android and iOS, allowing users to listen to Audio Overviews offline, interact with the AI hosts, add sources, and more  —  As previewed earlier this month, Google today released the NotebookLM app for Android and iOS ahead of I/O 2025.
Ryan Gallagher / Bloomberg:
The UK says hackers breached its Legal Aid Agency to steal a “significant amount of personal data” from people who received legal aid across England and Wales  —  Hackers have stolen a “significant amount of personal data” from people who received legal aid across England and Wales, the UK's Ministry of Justice said.
Luisa Beltran / Fortune:
Sources: Circle recently engaged in informal talks to sell itself to Coinbase or Ripple, seeking at least $5B, the valuation it is targeting in a potential IPO  —  Brian Armstrong is cofounder and CEO of Coinbase  —  Circle Internet Financial, the issuer of the crypto stablecoin USDC …
Steven T. Dennis / Bloomberg:
GENIUS Act, a stablecoin bill, advances in the US Senate after a group of Democrats dropped their opposition, marking a major win for the crypto industry  —  Stablecoin legislation overcame a procedural blockade in the US Senate, marking a major victory for the crypto industry after a group of Democrats dropped their opposition Monday.
Isaac Schultz / Gizmodo:
Researchers: GPT-4 was 64.4% more persuasive than humans in one-on-one debates when given basic personal information about the person it was trying to persuade  —  A new study shows LLMs like Chat GPT win more debates than humans when it gets a little personal.

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