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June 18, 2025, 8:10 PM
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MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
The DOJ announces the seizure of $225.3M in crypto linked to “pig butchering” scams, marking “the largest cryptocurrency seizure in US Secret Service history”  —  The Justice Department announced Wednesday the largest-ever U.S. seizure of cryptocurrency linked to so-called …
Bloomberg:
Texas Instruments plans to spend $60B+ on US semiconductor plants, including two new factories in Texas, and says its long-term spending plan remains unchanged  —  The company said its long-term capital spending plan remains unchanged.  The total includes amounts allotted to plants …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Microsoft plans to announce thousands of job cuts, particularly in sales, early next month after the end of its fiscal year  —  The cuts are expected to be announced early next month, following the end of Microsoft's fiscal year, according to people familiar with the matter.
Financial Times:
Sources: Microsoft is prepared to walk away from high-stakes talks with OpenAI if they cannot agree on critical issues, such as the size of Microsoft's stake  —  ChatGPT maker's plans to convert into a for-profit leads software giant to make contingency plans
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
At Cannes, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan says YouTube will integrate Veo 3 into Shorts later this summer and that AI tech “will push the limits of human creativity”  —  The Veo 3 video generator is capable of creating both videos and sound based on text prompts, with YouTube CEO Neal Mohan saying the …
Kayla Cobb / The Wrap:
Cannes Lions: YouTube CEO Neal Mohan says YouTube Shorts now averages 200B daily views, up 186% from the 70B average daily views YouTube reported in March 2024
Gian Volpicelli / Bloomberg:
The European Commission accuses Chinese marketplace AliExpress of failing to tackle the spread of illegal products on its platform, in preliminary DSA findings  —  The EU's executive arm on Wednesday unveiled a list of grievances against China-owned AliExpress, which had been under investigation …
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Midjourney launches V1, its first AI video generation model, letting subscribers animate images via its website; video jobs will cost ~8x more than image jobs  —  Popular AI image generation service Midjourney has launched its first AI video generation model V1, marking a pivotal shift …
Financial Times:
Sources: lobbyists for Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta back a campaign for a 10-year US state AI regulation ban, a move dividing the AI industry and the GOP  —  Call by Amazon, Google and Microsoft lobbyists for a ‘moratorium’ has split industry and the Republican party
Hayden Field / The Verge:
A look at California's 52-page California Report on Frontier Policy, which proposes an AI regulatory framework based on transparency, risk assessments, and more
Financial Times:
Netflix signs a landmark deal with France's TF1 to show linear TV for the first time; TF1 will broadcast all five of its channels, showing live sports and more  —  Deal will be closely watched by broadcasters, who are losing millions of viewers to streaming giants  —  Daniel Thomas and Hannah Murphy in Cannes
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Google rolls out the ability to have back-and-forth voice conversations with AI Mode, available in the Google app by tapping the Live button  —  Google is rolling out the ability for users to have a back-and-forth voice conversation with AI Mode, its experimental Search feature that lets users ask complex, multi-part questions.
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Waymo applied for a NYC permit to test its cars with safety drivers and plans to start collecting mapping data with manually driven cars in Manhattan in July  —  The company wants to change state law so it can operate vehicles without safety drivers.  That will be a challenge.
Washington Post:
The US State Department restarts student visa interviews and requires all applicants to make their social media accounts public for vetting by US embassies  —  The new requirements could affect hundreds of thousands of visa applications each year, raising concerns about staffing requirements.
The Information:
Source: Meta is in advanced talks to hire Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross to work on its AI efforts and possibly buy out part of their venture capital fund NFDG  —  Meta Platforms is in advanced talks to hire the prominent artificial intelligence investors Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross …
Vanessa Hand Orellana / CNET:
An interview with Samsung SVP Dr. Hon Pak on the Galaxy Watch getting a first-ever blood analysis feature, AI health tools, and a potential monthly subscription  —  With a first-ever blood analysis feature and four new AI-powered health tools, the Galaxy Watch is shaping up to be a smarter ally …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Meta is adding support for passkeys on Facebook's iOS and Android apps “soon”, and will begin rolling out passkeys to Messenger “in the coming months”  —  Using your device security instead of a password makes it harder to get tricked into giving up your Facebook account.
Sophie Shulman / CTech:
Wix acquires Base44, which lets users build apps from text prompts, for $80M; Base44 was founded by a solo entrepreneur six months ago and employs six people  —  31-year-old Maor Shlomo built the viral AI app-maker as a side project that began last year during a post-reserve trip.
Kristina Partsinevelos / CNBC:
AWS says Anthropic's Claude Opus 4 launched on its Trainium2 GPUs, and Project Rainier, AWS' supercomputer built for Anthropic, uses 500K+ Trainium2 chips  —  Amazon Web Services is set to announce an update to its Graviton4 chip that includes 600 gigabits per second of network bandwidth …
More: Benzinga and Cryptopolitan
Bluesky: @quinnypig.com and @sungkim
X: @ns123abc, @rohanpaul_ai, and @kristinaparts.  LinkedIn: Josh Larivee.  Forums: r/hardware
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
OpenAI details why “emergent misalignment”, where training on wrong answers in one area can lead to misalignment in others, happens and how it can be mitigated  —  OpenAI researchers say they've discovered hidden features inside AI models that correspond to misaligned “personas …
John Voorhees / MacStories:
Hands-on with Apple's new Speech framework components in the macOS Tahoe beta: the APIs deliver transcription speeds significantly faster than OpenAI's Whisper  —  Late last Tuesday night, after watching F1: The Movie at the Steve Jobs Theater, I was driving back from dropping Federico off at his hotel when I got a text:
Lisa Stiffler / GeekWire:
TerraPower, which develops small modular nuclear reactors, raised $650M from investors including Nvidia's NVentures and TerraPower co-founder Bill Gates  —  Sustainability: News about the rapidly growing climate tech sector and other areas of innovation to protect our planet.

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:10 PM ET, June 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.

From Mediagazer

Shane O'Neill / Washington Post:
Q&A with Christopher Anderson, who photographed Trump's inner circle for VF: “My job is to ... draw on my experience as a journalist and photograph what I see”

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
CBS News and The Free Press announce Things That Matter, a series of town halls and debates, starting in early 2026, with Sam Altman, J.D. Vance, and others

Anna Betts / The Guardian:
David Brooks, who wrote a NYT column last month decrying popular fixation on the Epstein story, appears in newly released photos of a 2011 event with Epstein

More News

Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
OpenAI says it's phasing out its work with Scale AI, into which Meta invested $14.3B, and that Scale AI accounted for a small fraction of its overall data needs

Earlier Picks

Michelle Kim / Rest of World:
Ten current and former Samsung semiconductor engineers say many are leaving for SK Hynix and other rivals due to long hours, heavy workloads, and lower bonuses
Wall Street Journal:
A look at the Catholic Church's decadelong dialogue with Silicon Valley on AI, as Pope Leo prepares to make AI's potential threat to humanity a signature issue
Matt Kapko / CyberScoop:
A cyberattack claimed by pro-Israel hacktivist group Predatory Sparrow has reportedly disrupted services at Iran's state-owned Bank Sepah, including its website
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