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August 1, 2025, 4:55 PM
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Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Google rolls out Gemini 2.5 Deep Think, its most advanced reasoning model, which considers multiple ideas simultaneously, to its $250/month Ultra subscription  —  Google DeepMind is rolling out Gemini 2.5 Deep Think, which, the company says, is its most advanced AI reasoning model …
Washington Post:
A US jury finds Tesla partially liable for Autopilot's role in a fatal 2019 crash in Florida, and orders the company to pay $243M in damages  —  The outcome is a stunning rebuke for Tesla, which for years has fought to absolve itself of responsibility when its technology is involved in a crash.
Bloomberg:
Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon have collectively spent ~$90B on capex in their most recent quarters and are expected to spend over $344B for the year  —  If there's any lesson to take from the spending plans issued by the world's largest technology companies over the past two weeks …
New York Times:
Source: OpenAI raised $8.3B led by Dragoneer at a $300B valuation, months ahead of schedule and part of a $40B goal for 2025; 5M business users pay for ChatGPT  —  The venture capital round values the ChatGPT maker at $300 billion, and underscores the fierceness of the A.I. money race.
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
OpenAI removes a ChatGPT feature that let users make their conversations discoverable by Google and other search engines, calling it a “short-lived experiment”  —  Update 7/31/25 4:10pm PT: Hours after this article was published, OpenAI said it removed the feature from ChatGPT …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Reddit wants to become “a go-to search engine” for users; its core search has 70M+ weekly active unique users and its AI tool Reddit Answers has 6M weekly users  —  CEO Steve Huffman says the company is focused on making the platform a ‘go-to search engine.’
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Nintendo Q1: revenue up 132% YoY to ~$3.8B, operating profit up 4.4% to ~$378M; it sold 5.82M Switch 2 units in the first month, more than double the original  —  Nintendo more than doubled revenue in its fiscal first quarter, as the company logged bumper sales of its Switch 2 console in the first month of release.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft plans to end support for Windows 11 SE in 2026, five years after launching the OS for low-cost laptops designed to compete with Google Chromebooks  —  Microsoft isn't chasing after Chromebooks anymore, as demand tails off. … Microsoft is ending support for Windows 11 SE next year …
James Hunt / The Block:
The UK's Financial Conduct Authority plans to allow retail investors to access crypto exchange-traded notes, dubbed cETNs, on FCA-approved, UK-based exchanges  —  - The UK financial regulator is set to open up access to crypto exchange-traded notes for retail investors on FCA-approved, UK-based exchanges.
BBC:
In the UK, X and Reddit are blocking wide-ranging content, including about parliamentary debates, Ukraine, and Gaza, to comply with the Online Safety Act  —  Social media companies are blocking wide-ranging content - including posts about the wars in Ukraine and Gaza - in an attempt to comply …
Axios:
Filings: crypto industry donated $26M+ to Trump's super PAC, MAGA Inc., in H1, including $5M from Blockchain.com; Marc Andreesen and Ben Horowitz gave $3M each  —  The crypto industry has donated more than $26 million to President Trump this year, according to newly-filed campaign finance disclosures.
More: Bloomberg
Luis Garcia / Wall Street Journal:
Hoboken, NJ-based Saphyre, which makes software used in securities trading, raised $70M from FTV Capital  —  The growth investment in Saphyre marks the private-equity firm's latest deal targeting capital-markets technology providers  —  Private-equity firm FTV Capital has invested $70 million in Saphyre …
Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post:
The US Army awards Palantir a contract worth up to $10B over the next decade, creating a “comprehensive framework for the Army's future software and data needs”  —  The award covering the next decade is one of the largest DoD contracts ever, cementing the tech firm's role in warfighting for years to come.
Callan Quinn / Decrypt:
Hong Kong's stablecoin licensing regime takes effect, requiring issuers to get approval from the Monetary Authority, comply with AML protocols, and more  —  Hong Kong's new stablecoin licensing regime takes effect, tightening rules as the city vies for a global crypto edge.  —  In brief
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Nintendo plans to raise the price of the original Switch “family of systems and products” and some Switch 2 accessories in the US; Switch 2's price won't change  —  The price hike will affect the family of original Switch systems, including the Lite and OLED.

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:55 PM ET, August 1, 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

Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Major brands were replaced by direct-response advertisers during commercial breaks of CBS News' December 13 town hall with Erika Kirk, moderated by Bari Weiss

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

More News

The Information:
Source: GPT-5 improvements won't be comparable to the leaps in performance of earlier models, such as between GPT-3 in 2020 and GPT-4 in 2023
Megan Farokhmanesh / Wired:
Video game industry trade organizations and gamers are speaking out against censorship campaigns that forced Steam and Itch.io to mass deindex NSFW content
Christy Santhosh / Reuters:
Neuralink plans a UK clinical study to test how its chips let patients with severe paralysis control devices with thoughts, marking its entry into the country

Earlier Picks

Anna Tong / Reuters:
AI infrastructure company fal, which runs audio, video, and image models on behalf of enterprises, raised a $125M Series C led by Meritech at a $1.5B valuation
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
Sources: Index Ventures' nearly $100M seed investment in Figma was worth $2.17B at the IPO price, while Greylock's $50M Series A investment was worth $2.03B
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Tim Cook says Apple is “significantly growing” its AI investment, reallocating staff to work on AI features, and “very open to M&A that accelerates our roadmap”
William Gallagher / AppleInsider:
Apple incurred ~$800M in Trump's tariff costs in Q3, $100M less than expected, and expects a jump to $1.1B in Q4 if current rates and policies remain in place
Apple:
Apple Q3: iPhone up 13% YoY to $44.58B, vs. $40.22B est., Mac up 15% to $8.05B, iPad down 8% to $6.58B, and Wearables, Home, and Accessories down 9% to $7.4B
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