Techmeme
July 8, 2025, 1:30 PM

Top News

Financial Times:
Sources: OpenAI overhauled its security, adding biometric checks in its offices and isolating sensitive info, to protect IP such as model weights from espionage  —  Artificial intelligence group has added fingerprint scans and hired military experts to protect important data
Washington Post:
Sources: an impostor used AI to mimic Marco Rubio's voice and writing style and contacted foreign ministers, a US governor, and a member of Congress  —  The unknown individual contacted at least five government officials, including three foreign ministers, a U.S. governor and a member of Congress, according to a State Department cable.
Natasha Singer / New York Times:
The American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest US teachers' union, says it will open an AI training hub with $23M from Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic  —  The American Federation of Teachers said it would use the $23 million, including $500,000 from the A.I. start-up Anthropic, to create a national training center.
Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Bluesky rolls out Activity Notifications, letting users get push notifications about new posts and replies from specific accounts, as it doubles down on sports  —  A new update has also added much more control over which notifications users will see, and who can trigger them.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Ruoming Pang, the head of Apple's foundation models team, is leaving to join Meta, which offered a package worth tens of millions of dollars per year  —  Ruoming Pang, a distinguished engineer and manager in charge of the company's Apple foundation models team, is departing, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Financial Times:
Italy arrests Chinese citizen Xu Zewei; a source says Xu is linked to hacking group Hafnium that breached Microsoft in 2021 to steal COVID-19 vaccine secrets  —  Xu Zewei suspected of links to Beijing-backed group accused by Washington of stealing Covid-19 vaccine secrets
Laura Onita / Financial Times:
M&S Chair Archie Norman tells UK parliament that M&S used the FBI and UK agencies to combat the May cyberattack and says M&S believes DragonForce was behind it  —  Chair Archie Norman tells parliamentarians retailer believes Dragon Force was criminal gang behind attack
Stephen Nellis / Reuters:
IBM unveils Power11, its first major update to the chips since 2020, available from July 25, and says they can detect and respond to ransomware within a minute  —  International Business Machines (IBM.N) on Tuesday announced a new line of data center chips and servers that it says will be more power-efficient …
Swati Gupta / Bloomberg:
X says India ordered it to block 2,355 accounts, including two from Reuters, on July 3, but then told X to unblock the Reuters accounts after a “public outcry”  —  X raised serious concerns about India's media laws after the government ordered it to block thousands of accounts …
Spencer Soper / Bloomberg:
As Amazon Prime Day begins, some merchants say they can't afford to offer discounts due to Trump's tariffs; Adobe expects $23.8B in sales across the four days  —  Amazon.com Inc.'s Prime Day is slamming into President Donald Trump's trade war, with ever-shifting tariffs prompting some brands …
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Jack Ryan / Bloomberg:
El Salvador-based Tether says it holds nearly 80 tons of gold, worth ~$8B, in a vault in Switzerland; precious metals made up nearly 5% of its reserves in March  —  Tether Holdings SA, the issuer of the world's largest stablecoin, has its own vault in Switzerland to hold an $8 billion stockpile of gold …

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Earlier Picks

Reuters:
Kate Clark / Bloomberg:
Anthony Hughes / Bloomberg:
Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Dana Wollman / Bloomberg: