Techmeme
August 5, 2025, 12:55 PM

Top News

Kathrin Hille / Financial Times:
Taiwanese prosecutors say two ex-TSMC employees and a third suspect were arrested for allegedly stealing proprietary tech; investigators searched Tokyo Electron  —  Taiwanese prosecutors probe ‘potential trade secret leaks’ in first case since key technologies added to national security legislation
Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asia:
Sources: TSMC fires several employees for violating rules on obtaining sensitive information about its 2nm tech; TSMC says it detected “unauthorized activities”  —  TAIPEI — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has fired several employees for violating rules …
Bloomberg:
White House OSTP Director Michael Kratsios says the US is exploring software or physical ways to track the location of AI chips, as part of its AI Action Plan  —  The US is exploring ways to equip chips with better location-tracking capabilities, a senior official said …
Wall Street Journal:
A draft White House EO shows President Trump plans to step up pressure against big banks over alleged discrimination against crypto companies and conservatives  —  The president is expected to sign an executive order as soon as this week that targets so-called debanking of businesses including crypto companies
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Google DeepMind releases its Genie 3 model, which can generate 3D worlds from a prompt and has enough visual memory for a few minutes of continuous interaction  —  AI world models have many limitations, but Genie 3 offers improvements like real-time interaction and better memory.
Anthropic:
Anthropic releases Claude Opus 4.1 to paid Claude users, in Claude Code, via its API, and more, featuring broad improvements over Opus 4 for the same cost  —  Today we're releasing Claude Opus 4.1, an upgrade to Claude Opus 4 on agentic tasks, real-world coding, and reasoning.
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
The UK's Online Safety Act shows the UK prioritized government control over improving safety, becoming a cautionary tale for democracies regulating the internet  —  Well, well, well.  The “age assurance” part of the UK's Online Safety Act has finally gone into effect, with its age checking …
Lydia Beyoud / Bloomberg:
The CFTC is asking for public comment by August 18 about trading spot crypto asset contracts listed on CFTC-registered futures exchanges  —  Takeaways by Bloomberg AI  —  Hide … Tell us how AI is shaping your news experience.  Share your feedback  —  The Commodity Futures Trading Commission …
Kelly Lawler / USA Today:
Roku launches Howdy, an ad-free streaming service for $2.99 per month, initially only on Roku devices, with content from Lionsgate, WBD, FilmRise, and others  —  Roku is ready to say Howdy.  —  The company − which sells set-top streaming devices, smart TVs and has its own free …
Reuters:
Sources: Intel's 18A process yield has remained low, with only ~5% of its Panther Lake chips meeting its specifications in late 2024 and ~10% by summer 2025  —  The production process that Intel (INTC.O) hoped would pave the way to winning manufacturing deals and restore its edge in churning out high-end …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
WhatsApp adds a new “safety overview” that appears in new group chats, including info on the group and when it was created, to help protect users from scams  —  The overview will contain information about when the group was created, who invited you, and how many members it has.
Belle Lin / Wall Street Journal:
ElevenLabs launches Eleven Music, letting individuals and businesses use its AI model to generate music cleared for commercial use via English-language prompts  —  New model allows customers to create music with AI that is cleared for commercial use.  But AI-generated music still faces legal battles and stiff opposition from artists.
Tobias Mann / The Register:
Google signs a deal with two power utilities to lower its power use by pausing non-essential AI workloads during demand surges or weather-based grid disruptions  —  Google will pause non-essential AI workloads to protect power grids, the advertising giant announced on Monday.
John Herrman / New York Magazine:
Search-engine optimization feels dated as marketers look to generative-engine optimization, or GEO, which focuses on tricking AI chatbots rather than Google  —  Search-engine optimization now feels dated.  Generative-engine optimization is all about trying to trick AI chatbots.
The Information:
Internal email: Cognition offers buyouts to its ~200 newly acquired Windsurf staff, with Cognition CEO Scott Wu writing “we don't believe in work-life balance”  —  Cognition, a two-year-old artificial intelligence coding startup last valued at $4 billion, has offered buyouts …
Bloomberg:
US DOT Secretary Sean Duffy proposes a rule change to let commercial drones fly beyond an operator's line of sight, a boon for Walmart and Alphabet's Wing  —  Takeaways by Bloomberg AI  —  Hide … Tell us how AI is shaping your news experience.  Share your feedback
Anthony Hughes / Bloomberg:
Nikkei Asia:
DRAM prices remain high after doubling from May 2025 to June 2025, amid speculation that China's CXMT may have halted DDR4 production to focus on DDR5 and HBM  —  TOKYO — Prices for standard DRAM, a widely used type of memory chip, remain high after doubling in just one month on speculation …
More: Benzinga

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Reimagine your photos with a prompt  —  Our new native image generation and editing is state-of-the-art, and ranked #1 in the world.  Try it for free in the Gemini app.
Atlassian:
The AI Collaboration Index  —  Discover the secret to AI-enabled impact.  Download the report.
Zoho:
Q3 Updates from Bigin: Introducing WhatsApp Automation, upgrades for Apple devices, and more!  —  Hello!  And welcome to another round of quarterly updates from the world of Bigin, the easy, affordable, and powerful CRM.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
F5:
Securing AI models and agents in the enterprise  —  The new AI stack creates a highly dynamic attack surface, and traditional controls aren't keeping up.  F5's recent acquisition will bring advanced AI guardrails to enterprise apps.

Featured Podcasts

Great Chat:
Too late to AI proof your career?
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
Microsoft's Head of Cloud & AI on the AI Buildout's Risks and ROI — With Scott Guthrie
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.
[trading places]:
Isomer Capital 🔬 | SpaceX $400B Valuation 🚀 | Nvidia 🤝 OpenAI | Revolut: Buy Sell or Hold? 🤔
a very bad podcast about broken unicorns & busted carry hosted by dave mcclure and aman verjee
Subscribe to [trading places].
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Almost Everyone is Taking Money from OpenAI. Why is Ziff Davis suing them?
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.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Ali Rowghani
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'Iconic Pig Lipstick', With John Moltz
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:55 PM ET, August 5, 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.

More News

Earlier Picks

Jon Blistein / Rolling Stone:
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
Samantha Subin / CNBC:
Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE:
Ian Carlos Campbell / Engadget: