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June 26, 2025, 2:45 PM
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Joseph Cox / 404 Media:
Internal emails: ICE is using Mobile Fortify, an app that uses facial recognition and fingerprint scanning via phone cameras to identify people in the field  —  Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is using a new mobile phone app that can identify someone based on their fingerprints …
Meghan Bobrowsky / Wall Street Journal:
Meta has poached three researchers from OpenAI's Zurich office, Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai, for its superintelligence efforts  —  Social-media giant has hired Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov and Xiaohua Zhai for its superintelligence effort
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall, a Google Ad Manager tool to help publishers generate revenue beyond ads, including via micropayments  —  Google's AI search features are killing traffic to publishers, so now the company is proposing a possible solution.
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Source: Meta has hired highly influential OpenAI researcher Trapit Bansal to work on its AI reasoning models under the company's new AI superintelligence unit  —  Meta has hired a highly influential OpenAI researcher, Trapit Bansal, to work on its AI reasoning models under the company's …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft plans to replace the Blue Screen of Death in Windows 11 with a simplified black screen “providing better information” in an update “later this summer”  —  Microsoft is saying hello to the Black Screen of Death error message instead.
Brian Merchant / Blood in the Machine:
Workers at Google, TikTok, Adobe, Dropbox, CrowdStrike, and other tech firms recount how managers used AI to justify firing them, speed up their work, and more  —  “What will AI mean for jobs?” may be the single most-asked question about the technology category that dominates Silicon Valley, pop culture, and our politics.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Creative Commons debuts CC Signals, a framework that lets dataset holders detail how machines can or cannot reuse their content, such as for training AI models  —  Nonprofit Creative Commons, which spearheaded the licensing movement that allows creators to share their works while retaining copyright, is now preparing for the AI era.
Anthony Robledo / USA Today:
The Trump Organization replaces T1 Phone's “made in America” language on Trump Mobile's site with “brought to life right here in the USA” and “proudly American”  —  President Donald Trump's newly launched cellular service is defending its claims …
Bloomberg:
Marc Benioff says “AI is doing 30% to 50% of the work at Salesforce”, like software engineering and customer service, and its AI product has hit ~93% accuracy  —  Salesforce Inc. Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff said his company has automated a significant chunk of work with AI …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Apple execs have discussed starting a theatrical distribution unit; Warner Bros. is distributing the F1 movie and getting a share of box office revenue  —  Six years after getting into entertainment, Apple lags behind its rivals in streaming subscribers and mainstream appeal, despite lavish spending on A-list stars
Callan Quinn / Decrypt:
Kraken secures a MiCA license from the Central Bank of Ireland to offer crypto services across the EU, following Coinbase's approval in Luxembourg last week  —  Approval from Ireland's central bank gives Kraken the ability to operate across 27 EU states as it races to catch up to rival Coinbase.
Greg Bensinger / Reuters:
Amazon's VP of Generative AI Vasi Philomin left for another company; VP of Amazon Elastic Block Store Rajesh Sheth assumed some of Philomin's responsibilities  —  Amazon's (AMZN.O) AWS recently lost its vice president overseeing generative artificial intelligence development, as the competition for talent heats up.
More: GeekWire
Chris Dolmetsch / Bloomberg:
US prosecutors charge Kai West, a UK man known as IntelBroker who was arrested in February in France, with conspiring to steal data from dozens of companies  —  A 25-year-old British man known as “IntelBroker” was accused by US authorities of conspiring to steal data from dozens of companies …
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Report: on June 23, French police arrested hackers ShinyHunters, Hollow, Noct, and Depressed, allegedly involved in operating the BreachForums cybercrime forum
Stephen Totilo / Game File:
Sony says its PlayStation Plus three-tier overhaul has “surpassed our expectations” and that the $160/year Premium tier has grown 18% in the past 12 months  —  Sony kicks off PS Plus' 15th anniversary by chatting with Game File about the past, present and future …
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
A federal judge rejects a joint motion by Ripple Labs and the US SEC to approve a reduced $50M fine to settle a lawsuit over XRP sales, and chastises both sides  —  A federal judge on Thursday rejected an unusual joint motion by Ripple Labs and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission …
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
FHFA Director William Pulte orders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to consider crypto as an asset in single-family mortgage applications without liquidating to USD  —  In a landmark shift for the U.S. housing finance system, the Federal Housing Finance Agency has issued a directive ordering Fannie Mae …
Ian Allison / CoinDesk:
Kraken launches Krak, a payments app that lets users send funds P2P across 110 countries using 300+ assets, including crypto, stablecoins, and fiat currencies  —  The Krak app allows users to instantly transact across borders for almost no cost, while earning competitive rewards on their account balances.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: CoreWeave is in talks to acquire bitcoin miner Core Scientific, which has a market value of ~$3.7B; Core Scientific rejected CoreWeave's bid in 2024  —  A bid last year was rejected by Core Scientific as too low  —  CoreWeave is in talks to acquire Core Scientific …
Amber Neely / AppleInsider:
US senators reintroduce the bipartisan Open App Markets Act to try to break Apple's and Google's app store dominance; the 2021 version never came up for a vote  —  Big Tech's grip on the app economy is under fire again as lawmakers reintroduce the bipartisan “Open App Markets Act” …
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
YouTube launches an AI Overviews-like carousel for searches related to shopping, places, and things to do in a specific place, for Premium users in the US  —  YouTube is rolling out new AI-powered features to help users find content and information more easily, the company announced on Thursday.

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:45 PM ET, June 26, 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

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Arkansas PBS severs ties with the PBS network, the first state public TV system to do so since Congress cut CPB funds, citing the annual $2M+ membership cost

Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:
Disney's Zootopia 2 surpasses $1B at the global box office, the fastest PG-rated film to do so after just 17 days in release

Sam Roberts / New York Times:
Arthur L. Carter, who started a Connecticut newspaper in 1981, bought and sold The Nation, and founded the New York Observer in 1987, has died at 93

More News

Earlier Picks

Berber Jin / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Microsoft is pushing to remove the AGI clause from its OpenAI contract, which lets OpenAI limit Microsoft's access to its IP once its systems reach AGI
Blake Brittain / Reuters:
A group of authors sue Microsoft in a NY federal court, claiming the company used nearly 200,000 pirated books without permission to train its Megatron AI model
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Anthropic now lets Claude app users build, host, and share AI-powered apps directly in Claude via Artifacts, available in beta to Free, Pro, and Max users
Isaiah Poritz / Bloomberg Law:
A US judge rules that Meta's use of books to train Llama is protected by fair use but says his opinion is more a reflection of the plaintiffs' poor arguments
Kate Clark / Bloomberg:
Kalshi raised $185M led by Paradigm at a $2B valuation; sources: Polymarket is completing a $200M+ investment led by Founders Fund at a ~$1B pre-money valuation
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Google launches Gemini CLI, an agentic AI tool that lets developers make natural language requests in terminals by connecting Gemini models to local codebases
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