Techmeme: Baidu overhauls its search engine with AI features and a voice function in its most sweeping revamp in years, and rolls out its first image-to-video model (Bloomberg)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

July 3, 2025, 2:00 AM

Top News

Eddie Makuch / GameSpot:

Microsoft cuts hundreds of Xbox jobs across studios, sources say including Halo Studios and King, and cancels games like Perfect Dark and Everwild — GameSpot may receive revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and from purchases through links.

More: Bloomberg, Blizzard News, Aftermath, Aftermath, IGN, Thurrott, Windows Central, The Verge, Digit, Pure Xbox, GamingBolt, Engadget, Game Rant, Press Start, Screen Rant, Stevivor, Neowin, Game Developer, Game Informer, Forbes, Comic Book, Push Square, TheGamer, Video Games Chronicle, KitGuru, TechRaptor, Gamereactor UK, Gameranx, VideoGamer, Game Sandwich, Kotaku, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, The Game Post, Polygon, and Dexerto

Bluesky: @jasonschreier, @zfighteramuro, @branzellan, @jonathancovey, @nhegelbagel, @banjotranso, @zfighteramuro, @jasonschreier, @headfallsoff.com, and @eplerjc

X: @charlieintel, @nsupergamerguy, @lusterly_, @rogersbase, @jptellsyou, @coopercooperco, @wario64, @legacykillahd, @_sikamikanico_, @wario64, @stealth40k, @tomwarren, @mr_rebs_, @eyyitsfranklin, @evankazoocovers, @tropicalmaku, @kelskiyt, and @cromwelp. LinkedIn: Adam Dolin

Forums: r/wow and r/gamesEcultura

Jordan Novet / CNBC:

Source: Microsoft plans to lay off ~9,000 employees, or less than 4% of its workforce, across teams and role types, after cutting ~6,000 in May and 300+ in June — Microsoft said Wednesday that it will lay off about 9,000 employees. The move will affect less than 4% of its global workforce …

More: Windows Central, Video Games Chronicle, The Verge, Variety, Windows Central, Bloomberg, IGN, The Verge, GeekWire, The Information, Variety, The Daily Upside, The Register, Associated Press, Thurrott, GamesIndustry.biz, Gizmodo, Digital Trends, Dallas Business Journal, AfroTech, UPI, MediaPost, MobileSyrup, Los Angeles Times, Cord Cutters News, CBC News, Plain Dealer, SiliconANGLE, Nintendo Life, Pure Xbox, PYMNTS.com, Fortune, Business Today, Seattle Business Journal, BBC, New York Times, Eurogamer.net, Türkiye Today, iPhone in Canada, Wall Street Journal, Neowin, Entrepreneur, Irish Independent, CNN, The Indian Express, Telegraph, Channel Futures, Techpresso, The Verge, Mashable, Aftermath, Cryptopolitan, New York Post, Capital Brief, CRN, Nairametrics, MarketWatch, San Francisco Business Times, Irish Independent, ITPro, The Wrap, WinBuzzer, Barron's Online, The Game Post, Gulf News, Daily Kos, and TechCrunch

Bluesky: @jasonschreier, @yeetkunedo, @lightningarts, @jamesdavismakes.com, @keithamus.social, @brandrick, @carnage4life, and @stephentotilo. Mastodon: @nixCraft@mastodon.social. Threads: @johncodezzz

X: @tomwarren, @synthpotato, @fuckyouiquit, @jezcorden, @dc_draino, @xmbgx, @ultraegyptian, @mr_rebs_, @dougmackeycase, @derenicbyrd, @destinlegarie, @_tom_henderson_, and @demickyd

LinkedIn: Noah Berkson, Ruwan Fernando, Marty Kahnle, and Jason Schreier

MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:

OpenAI says the tokenized OpenAI shares Robinhood has started offering are not equity: “We did not partner with Robinhood...and do not endorse it” — OpenAI is distancing itself from Robinhood's latest crypto push after the trading platform began offering tokenized shares of OpenAI and SpaceX to users in Europe.

More: Reuters, Decrypt, CoinJournal, The Crypto Times, Cointelegraph, CoinGape, The Block, TechCrunch, Crypto Briefing, Cryptopolitan, Benzinga, CoinDesk, CryptoSlate, and Wu Blockchain

Bluesky: @gidmk, @mattrosoff, and @edzitron.com

X: @openainewsroom, @s4mmyeth, @chatgpt21, @chooserich, @mikeisaac, @teslaart3, @waymoproblems, @merts_eth, @mikeisaac, and @mikeisaac. Forums: r/smallstreetbets

Bloomberg:

Sources: OpenAI will rent additional computing power from Oracle, totaling about 4.5 gigawatts of US data center power, as part of its Stargate initiative — The AI company will rent additional capacity from Oracle totaling about 4.5 gigawatts of data center power in the US …

More: The Information, Investor's Business Daily, WinBuzzer, The Verge, Financial Times, Cryptopolitan, and SemiAnalysis

Bluesky: @bwnash, @bwnash, @inspector-w, @onefeincat, @edzitron.com, and @edzitron.com

X: @marionawfal, @edludlow, @morqon, @edludlow, @prometheanaix, @andrewcurran_, and @rohanpaul_ai

Forums: r/artificial, r/OpenAI, and r/wallstreetbets

Vicky Ge Huang / Wall Street Journal:

Ripple has applied for a national banking license, which would place Ripple's dollar-backed stablecoin, RLUSD, under the US OCC's regulatory remit — A national banking charter would make the OCC a regulator of Ripple's stablecoin — Ripple has applied for a national banking license …

More: Reuters, crypto.news, Blockhead, Coinpedia Fintech News, ZyCrypto, Blockonomi, American Banker, Cryptopolitan, PYMNTS.com, CryptoSlate, Benzinga, CoinDesk, The Block, Watcher Guru, Decrypt, CoinGape, Crypto Briefing, BeInCrypto, and Cointelegraph

Bluesky: @grahamsteele. X: @bgarlinghouse, @diepsanh, @marionawfal, and @its_runtime

LinkedIn: Ryan Freeman and Todd H Baker

Forums: r/XRP and r/CryptoCurrency

Abbie Richards / Media Matters for America:

TikTok users are posting AI-generated videos, seemingly made with Google's Veo 3, depicting racist and antisemitic tropes that have garnered millions of views — Google's Veo AI video generator is seemingly being used to generate videos depicting racist and antisemitic tropes

More: Ars Technica, Tech Times, and The Verge

Bluesky: @smokeytejota, @carnage4life, @eliothiggins, @jasooooon, @benjaminjriley, @hypervisible, @amaramarasingam, @carlosmaza, @garymarcus, @shikhadalmia, and @abbierichards. X: @callmeechef

Forums: Hacker News, Beehaw, and Ars OpenForum

Bloomberg:

Analysis: crypto ventures have added at least $620M to President Trump's fortune in months, overshadowing traditional real estate licensing deals — The Trumps have used their name and connections to profit from digital assets at a quicker clip than from their traditional real estate business.

More: The Block, TheStreet, BeInCrypto, New York Post, crypto.news, Coinpedia Fintech News, Benzinga, and Cointelegraph

Bluesky: @jtsteine, @smullins3000, @zonecrypto, @spanglismexico, and @ronfilipkowski. Mastodon: @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social. X: @crewcrew

Bloomberg:

Baidu overhauls its search engine with AI features and a voice function in its most sweeping revamp in years, and rolls out its first image-to-video model — The Beijing-based company said it wants to make its mobile app more like an AI chatbot that can help users with writing, drawing and trip planning tasks.

More: Reuters, International Business Times, Stocktwits, MediaPost, and South China Morning Post

Thomas Seal / Bloomberg:

Uber drivers in British Columbia joined a union, seeking to negotiate Canada's first bargaining agreement for rideshare drivers; Uber has agreed to meet — Uber drivers in Greater Victoria, the province's capital, joined UFCW 1518 before they kick off talks with the San Francisco-based platform …

More: Global News

Boone Ashworth / Wired:

A look at the ~$377 TranscribeGlass smart glasses that use AI to subtitle conversations in nearly real time, built for the deaf or hard-of-hearing — TranscribeGlass can subtitle conversations in nearly real time and will soon be able to translate languages and tell you when the person you're talking …

More: TranscribeGlass and XR Today

Bluesky: @thiccreese and @wired.com. X: @transcribeglass

Peiyue Wu / Rest of World:

Some Chinese universities are using AI detection tools to screen papers, but false positives force students to “dumb down” content or pay for rewriting services — As Chinese universities crack down on AI use, some students report false positives — and a booming industry of work-around tools is emerging.

More: The Atlantic and Unite.AI

X: @peiyue_jess. LinkedIn: Peiyue Wu

Financial Times:

Sources: CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd said Bumble's “centre of gravity” would move to the US where the “talent pool is right now”; 70% of Bumble's staff are UK-based — CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd warns ‘dating apps are feeling like a thing of the past’

Bluesky: @davelee.me and @mims. LinkedIn: Kieran Smith

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:

Perplexity launches a $200/month Max plan with unlimited Labs access, early access to features like Comet browser, and priority use of models like o3-pro — Perplexity is launching a $200-per-month subscription plan for its power users, the company announced in a blog post Tuesday.

More: Perplexity, SiliconANGLE, Engadget, WinBuzzer, and The Verge

Bluesky: @hrbrmstr.dev, @edzitron.com, and @cptjinglepants

X: @aravsrinivas, @aravsrinivas, @aravsrinivas, @aravsrinivas, @prudent_ai, and @jowanza. Forums: r/technology

Molly Taft / Wired:

xAI has been granted a permit to operate 15 gas turbines at its Memphis campus until 2027, despite protests and a potential NAACP lawsuit over air pollution — xAI's gas turbines get official approval from Memphis, Tennessee, even as civil rights groups prepare to sue over alleged Clean Air Act violations.

Bluesky: @wired.com, @charleswlogan, @darthfos, @mollytaft.com, and @wired.com. Forums: r/TrueReddit

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:

Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning — SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds. Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.

Cape:

Most carriers track everything. Cape doesn't. — Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more. Switch today and get 29% off for life.

Equals:

Stop vibe coding analytics — Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards. Build once, iterate for years.

Zoho:

Zoho WorkDrive named a Leader in the Nucleus Research CSC Technology Value Matrix 2026 — Enterprise content management is evolving rapidly with about 80% of the data unstructured. The growing challenge is not about storing information anymore.

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.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:

OpenAI's Bots Break Containment and Hack Hugging Face Autonomously — With Alex Stamos

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:

Too big to laugh: how tech lost its sense of humor

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.

Channels with Peter Kafka:

Substack Wants To Become A Social Network; Beehiiv Wants To Stay Invisible

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.

Training Data:

Factory's Matan Grinberg: The Coming 'Dark Factory' Where Software Builds Itself

Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.

Subscribe to Training Data.

Invest Like the Best:

Matthew Smith — Natural Gas: The Next Bottleneck

The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin

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.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:00 AM ET, July 3, 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

Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg:

The European Commission grants conditional approval for Paramount's WBD acquisition as long as Paramount ends its EU distribution deal with Universal Pictures

Todd Spangler / Variety:

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr says ABC's decision to not carry Trump's July 16 speech about elections live will be part of its review for ABC-owned station licenses

Josh Gerstein / Politico:

A US judge rules that Trump must turn over detailed financial information of 400+ companies owned by a family trust in his defamation suit against the BBC

Upcoming Tech Events

Jul 22

Samsung Galaxy Unpacked media event

Earnings: INTC, SAP, MBLY

Jul 28

Earnings: PYPL, NXPI

Jul 29

Earnings: MSFT, META, QCOM, HOOD, ARM

Jul 30

Earnings: AAPL, AMZN, COIN, Samsung Electronics, RDDT, LG Electronics, RBLX

Earnings: SPCX, SPOT, PINS, BKNG, AMD, MTCH, TOST

Aug 5

Earnings: DASH, UBER, SHOP, APP, XYZ, EBAY, CRCL, GFS

Aug 6

Earnings: ABNB, TWLO, LYFT, NTDOY, U, NET, CART

Made By Google "The next generation of Pixel" media event

New York

Aug 16-19

WordCamp US ***Use promo code “techmeme” for 50% off*** REGISTER NOW

Phoenix

Aug 25-27

VIRTUAL: The Six Five Summit: AI Unleashed 2026 Featuring Marc Benioff & Enterprise AI Leaders REGISTER FOR FREE

Abstract by Convex REGISTER NOW

WSJ Tech Live California

More News

Mackenzie Hawkins / Bloomberg:

Siemens says it has restored full access to its chip design software for its Chinese clients after the Trump admin lifted export curbs, initially imposed in May

More: Nikkei Asia, South China Morning Post, CNBC, Reuters, Synopsys, and Bloomberg Law. Bluesky: @garyrlundberg

Jessica Toonkel / Wall Street Journal:

Sources: Netflix has held talks with Spotify about partnering on projects such as a music awards show, as it adds content that was core to the cable bundle

More: BMI, The Information, Barron's Online, Adweek, CNBC, The Olympian, Digital Music News, Investing.com, The Verge, What's on Netflix, and Proactive. LinkedIn: Adi T.

Earlier Picks

Johana Bhuiyan / The Guardian:

A report finds Google undercounted its carbon emissions, which rose 65% from 2019 to 2024, not 51% as claimed; the largest YoY jump was 26%, from 2023 to 2024

More: AI News, The Keyword, ESG Dive, WinBuzzer, and SupplyChainBrain

Bluesky: @tega, @climateone.org, @tamigraph, and @jmbooyah

X: @shanumathew93 and @ben_inskeep. Forums: Slashdot

Bloomberg:

Sources: Foxconn recalled 300+ Chinese engineers from its Indian iPhone factories over the past two months, a blow for Apple as it ramps up iPhone 17 production

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:

A US judge rules that Huawei must face criminal charges in an indictment alleging racketeering, stealing trade secrets, and bank fraud tied to Iran sanctions

More: PhoneArena, American Banker, JURISTnews, The Register, TelecomTV, and Associated Press

Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:

X says it will start to publish Community Notes written by AI agents and developers will soon be able to submit their own AI agents for the company to review

More: The Guardian, Adweek, Ars Technica, MediaPost, eWeek, Gizmodo, Tom's Guide, Moneycontrol, KnowTechie, PCMag, Livemint, and arXiv.org

Bluesky: @mantzarlis.com, @quinnypig.com, @mantzarlis.com, and @mantzarlis.com

Threads: @cult_papa, @renee.diresta, and @renee.diresta

X: @communitynotes, @nomadxx333, @_jaybaxter_, @_jaybaxter_, @_jaybaxter_, @rejuvenatedrex, @kcoleman, @lindayax, and @communitynotes. LinkedIn: Kendra Barnett. Forums: r/technology