Techmeme
July 25, 2025, 7:20 PM

Top News

Sara Fischer / Axios:
Meta will no longer accept political, election, or social issue ads in the EU from October, like Google, with both citing incoming regulation  —  Meta on Friday said starting in October it will no longer accept political, election or social issue ads in the European Union …
NBC News:
Tea says hackers accessed a database from more than two years ago, leaking 72,000 images, including 13,000 verification photos and images of government IDs  —  The viral app requires new users to take selfies, which it says it deletes after review.  —  Hackers have breached the Tea app …
Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media:
Angela Yang / NBC News:
Reuters:
Michael Acton / Financial Times:
Reuters:
Bloomberg:
Sources: Microsoft is investigating whether a leak in its early alert system for cybersecurity companies let Chinese hackers exploit SharePoint flaws  —  A program to share information with cybersecurity companies may have exposed unpatched flaws in the company's SharePoint service.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Google is testing a vibe-coding tool called Opal that lets users create mini web apps using text prompts or remix existing apps, available in the US via Labs  —  AI-powered coding tools have become so popular over the past few months that almost every major tech company is either using one or making its own.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft previews Copilot Appearance, a virtual character with real-time expressions, voice, and conversational memory, for some users in the US, UK, Canada  —  Microsoft has a new Copilot Appearance virtual character that responds with real-time expressions.
Ina Fried / Axios:
Mark Zuckerberg names Shengjia Zhao, the former OpenAI researcher who co-created ChatGPT, as chief scientist at Meta's new superintelligence lab  —  Shengjia Zhao — formerly of OpenAI — will be chief scientist at Meta's new Superintelligence Lab, Mark Zuckerberg announced on Threads on Friday.
Morgan Sung / KQED:
Sen. Alex Padilla grants the Internet Archive federal depository status, making it a part of a network of over 1,100 libraries that archive government documents  —  The San Francisco-based Internet Archive now has federal depository status, joining a network of over 1,100 libraries …
Financial Times:
More: FlowingDataBluesky: @shlead, @mims, @dannygroner, and @jessefelderLinkedIn: Benjamin SteveninForums: Slashdot
The Information:
Sources: Ramp is in talks to raise $350M led by Iconiq at a ~$21B valuation, after raising $200M at a $16B valuation in June  —  Ramp, a six-year-old corporate card and expense management startup, is in discussions with investors to raise $350 million at a valuation of about $21 billion with the investment …
Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information:
Sources: GPT-5 shows improved performance in coding, particularly in practical software engineering tasks, outperforming prior OpenAI models and Claude Sonnet 4  —  GPT-5 is almost here, and we're hearing good things.  The early reaction from at least one person who's used the unreleased version was extremely positive.

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Featured Podcasts

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Father of the iPod and iPhone on building taste, judgment, and creativity in the AI era | Tony Fadell
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Hard Fork:
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The Upstarts Podcast:
Vanta's Christina Cacioppo: The Underdog Turning 'Nonsense' Compliance Into A $4.2B Security Standout
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI
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.
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More News

Lauren Goode / Wired:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Reuters:

Earlier Picks

Meir Orbach / CTech:
Jonathan Greig / The Record:
Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: