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July 29, 2025, 4:00 PM
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Blake Brittain / Reuters:
Sony sues Tencent for copyright and trademark infringement in California federal court, accusing the Chinese tech giant of ripping off its Horizon game series  —  Sony Interactive (6758.T) has sued Tencent (0700.HK) for copyright and trademark infringement in California federal court …
Reece Rogers / Wired:
OpenAI launches study mode in ChatGPT, designed to encourage students to engage with learning material, available to logged-in Free, Plus, Pro, and Team users  —  OpenAI's new study mode for ChatGPT throws questions back at students, but the learning feature doesn't address generative AI's underlying disruption of education.
Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
Internal memo: Meta is piloting AI-enabled coding interviews, letting candidates use AI during the process, and asks for “mock AI-enabled interview” volunteers  —  “This is more representative of the developer environment that our future employees will work in.”
Financial Times:
Sources: Anthropic is nearing a deal to raise $5B in a funding round led by Iconiq, valuing it at $170B; Anthropic was valued at $61.5B in March  —  Deal would almost triple valuation of OpenAI's rival to $170bn  —  Iconiq Capital is set to lead a $5bn funding round for artificial intelligence start …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple loses a fourth AI researcher in a month to Meta's superintelligence team; the AFM team is in flux and Apple has marginally increased their pay  —  Apple Inc. has lost its fourth AI researcher in a month to Meta Platforms Inc., marking the latest setback to the iPhone maker's artificial intelligence efforts.
Lauren Thomas / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Palo Alto Networks is in talks to acquire Israeli cybersecurity company CyberArk Software; a typical premium could put the deal well above $20B  —  Deal for Israeli firm would be latest in big tech's cybersecurity consolidation  —  Palo Alto Networks is in talks to acquire …
Kylie Robison / Wired:
Source: over a dozen people at Thinking Machines Lab were approached by Meta; one offer was $1B+ over a multi-year span; not a single person has taken the offer  —  More than a dozen people at Mira Murati's 50-person startup, Thinking Machines Lab, have been approached or received offers from the tech giant.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Adobe rolls out new generative AI features for Photoshop to let users more easily add or remove people and objects, including “Harmonize” compositing, in beta  —  Generative AI is rapidly eroding the photo editing skill barrier. … Adobe is launching some new generative AI features …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Microsoft is in advanced talks to land a deal that could give it ongoing access to critical OpenAI tech even if OpenAI reaches its goal of building AGI  —  Microsoft Corp. is in advanced talks to land a deal that could give it ongoing access to critical OpenAI technology …
Dave Michaels / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: the US DOJ fired two of its most senior antitrust enforcers after disagreements related to defusing its lawsuit against HPE over its $14B Juniper deal  —  Dismissals come after disagreements over settling case against HPE, which hired allies of President Trump
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Apple plans to open the Apple Manufacturing Academy in Detroit in August, run by Michigan State University, as Trump ramps up pressure to invest in the US  —  Faced with intensifying pressure from President Donald Trump to bring more jobs to the U.S., Apple is opening a manufacturing program in downtown Detroit.
Ben Lovejoy / 9to5Mac:
Tea, which claims to make dating safer for women, is the #2 app in the US App Store, despite multiple security flaws exposing private chats, photo IDs, and more  —  Two major security vulnerabilities in the Tea app - which claims to make dating safer for women - have exposed the private chats …
Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media:
A second security breach at women's safety app Tea exposes 1.1M+ user messages, dating from early 2023 up to last week, many containing sensitive information
Katherine Sayre / Wall Street Journal:
Spotify reports Q2 revenue up 10% YoY to €4.2B, MAUs up 11% YoY to 696M, subscribers up 12% YoY to 276M, and an €86M net loss; SPOT drops 9%+ after missing est.  —  The audio streaming service added more listeners than it had forecast, but reported a net loss for the second quarter
Associated Press:
A survey of US adults: only ~40% report using AI for work and 60% say they use AI to find information at least some of the time, rising to 74% of under-30s  —  Most U.S. adults say they use artificial intelligence to search for information, but fewer are using it for work, drafting email or shopping.
More: Implicator.ai.  Bluesky: @karlbode.com and @childlesscatperson.  Mastodon: @koen_hufkens@mastodon.social.  Forums: Slashdot
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
Block-owned Cash App unveils Pools, a new peer-to-peer feature for group payments, and says users can accept contributions via Apple Pay or Google Pay, a first  —  Cash App is going on the offensive in peer-to-peer payments.  —  The Block-owned payments platform on Tuesday unveiled Pools …
Natalie Lung / Bloomberg:
Waymo plans to launch its robotaxi service in Dallas in 2026 with Avis as the fleet partner, a first after exclusively working with Uber in Austin and Atlanta  —  Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo plans to launch robotaxi service in Dallas next year in partnership with Avis Budget Group Inc. …
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
PayPal reports Q2 net revenue up 5% YoY to $8.3B, vs. $8.08B est., TPV up 6% YoY to $443.5B, transactions down 5% YoY to 6.2B, active accounts up 2% YoY to 438M  —  PayPal reported better-than-expected results for the second quarter but saw slowing growth in transaction margin dollars, a key measure of profitability.
AnnaMaria Andriotis / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: JPMorgan Chase is in advanced talks to take over Apple's credit-card program from Goldman Sachs, with Apple telling JPMorgan it is its preferred choice  —  Discussions between the country's biggest bank and Apple accelerated in recent months  —  JPMorgan Chase is in advanced talks …
Stephen Council / SFGATE:
Wag, the pet care tech company once valued at ~$650M following a $300M investment from SoftBank Vision Fund in 2018, has filed for bankruptcy  —  The pet care company Wag, as of Monday, was valued at less than $6 million  —  During the 2010s' boom in on-demand services such as Uber and DoorDash …
Bluesky: @carnage4life.  Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to.  X: @armchairatty.  Forums: r/technology, r/bayarea, and Slashdot
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Yelp is making AI videos about restaurants, using AI generated scripts and voice-overs based on reviews, incorporating pictures and videos posted by users  —  The AI-stitched videos generate a script and voice-over to tell a compelling story based on what Yelp reviews are saying, with pictures and videos people have posted.
More: PCWorld, AI News, and BGR.  Bluesky: @frydawolff

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:00 PM ET, July 29, 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

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
Sky agrees to acquire ITV's TV business for £1.6B, uniting the UK's two largest commercial broadcasters; ITV says shareholders will receive £950M from the deal

Alex Ritman / Variety:
AI-focused studio Particle 6 plans a full-length feature film to be led by the AI “actor” Tilly Norwood, as a hybrid production using film and TV professionals

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Sources: Netflix is studying its data to see why viewers quit its shows after S1, with some shows seeing a 30%-70% S2 drop, as it faces a quarter without hits

More News

Anthony Hughes / Bloomberg:
Sources: Figma's IPO, which could raise as much as $1.2B after Figma raised its range to $30 to $32 per share on July 28, is approaching 40 times oversubscribed
Brunella Tipismana Urbano / Bloomberg:
Ambience Healthcare, which uses AI to automate administrative tasks for medical professionals, raised $243M led by a16z and Oak HC/FT at a $1B+ valuation
Financial Times:
Athens-based defense tech startup Delian Alliance Industries, which makes its own hardware, software, and sensor fusion systems, raised a $14M Series A
Reuters:
Sources: Nvidia ordered 300K H20 chips from TSMC last week, adding to its 600K to 700K inventory, amid strong China demand after the US cleared H20 chip sales

Earlier Picks

Marina Temkin / TechCrunch:
Julius AI, which acts like a data scientist by analyzing data and running predictive models from natural language prompts, raised a $10M seed led by Bessemer
Zoe Kleinman / BBC:
Google will roll out AI Mode in the UK in the coming days after launching in the US and India; the optional feature will appear as a tab and in the search box
Pankaj Mishra / Livemint:
Sources: Coinbase is in advanced talks to acquire CoinDCX, potentially valuing the Indian crypto exchange at less than $1B, below its $2.15B valuation in 2022
Zac Bowden / Windows Central:
Microsoft Edge adds Copilot Mode, an experimental feature that tries to make browsing an agentic AI experience, even anticipating links to click, free for now
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