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Techmeme
August 14, 2025, 9:40 AM
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Top News

Jeff Horwitz / Reuters:
An internal Meta doc shows its chatbots were allowed to engage in provocative conversations; Meta removed some examples, including romantic roleplay with kids  —  An internal Meta policy document, seen by Reuters, reveals the social-media giant's rules for chatbots, which have permitted provocative behavior …
Financial Times:
Sources: DeepSeek R2's launch delay is due to training issues on Huawei Ascend chips, prompting a switch to Nvidia chips for training and Huawei's for inference  —  Difficulties of training the start-up's latest system with Huawei's semiconductors highlight dependence on Nvidia
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
xAI co-founder Igor Babuschkin, who led xAI's engineering, says he is leaving the company to launch a venture firm that backs AI safety research and startups  —  Igor Babuschkin, a co-founder of Elon Musk's xAI startup, announced his departure from the company on Wednesday in a post …
Zac Bowden / Windows Central:
Microsoft Windows head Pavan Davuluri says the next Windows version will be more ambient, more pervasive, and more multi-modal, as voice becomes more important  —  In a new video, Microsoft CVP and Windows boss Pavan Davuluri has teased that the future of Windows will consist of a truly ambient …
The Information:
Sources: Perplexity spoke to The Browser Co. and Brave about acquiring them, offering ~$1B for Brave; OpenAI also spoke to The Browser Co. about an acquisition  —  Perplexity made headlines this week when the artificial intelligence startup said it had offered to buy Google's Chrome …
Business Insider:
Sources: Perplexity is seeking funding at a $20B post-money valuation, up from a reported $18B in its fundraising round in July 2025 and $520M in January 2024
Jennifer Ouellette / Ars Technica:
Q&A with researcher Petter Törnberg on his preprint study showing how social network structures cause problematic outcomes like filter bubbles and echo chambers  —  “The [structural] mechanism producing these problematic outcomes is really robust and hard to resolve.”
Alexandra Alper / Reuters:
Sources: the US Navy and Air Force may cancel two nearly complete HR software projects worth $800M+ to let Salesforce, Palantir, and others win similar work  —  Donald Trump's Navy and Air Force are poised to cancel two nearly complete software projects that took 12 years and well over $800 million combined …
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
New York AG Letitia James sues Zelle, claiming that security lapses led to $1B+ in consumer fraud losses; the US CFPB dropped a similar case in March 2025  —  Zelle was sued on Wednesday by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who said the electronic payment platform's refusal …
Dasha Litvinova / Associated Press:
Russia is “partially” restricting WhatsApp and Telegram calls, saying the apps are used “to deceive and extort money” and “in sabotage and terrorist activities”  —  Russian authorities announced Wednesday they were “partially” restricting calls …
Dylan Butts / CNBC:
Foxconn reports Q2 revenue up 16% YoY to ~$59.73B, matching est., and operating profit up 27% YoY to ~$1.9B, above $1.6B est., driven by its AI server business  —  Taiwan's Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker, reported Thursday that its second-quarter operating profit rose 27% year …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple's AI plans include robots, like a tabletop one in 2027, a conversational Siri, a smart speaker with a display in 2026, and home security cameras  —  Apple Inc. is plotting its artificial intelligence comeback with an ambitious slate of new devices, including robots …
Samantha Kelly / Bloomberg:
Fitness band maker Whoop says it will not disable its blood pressure tracking tool despite the US FDA's request from July and requests a meeting with the agency  —  Whoop Inc., the maker of screen-less fitness bands, said it will not disable its blood-pressure tracking tool despite a request from the US Food and Drug Administration.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Apple rolls out a software update to enable a redesigned blood oxygen monitoring feature for the Watch Series 9, 10, and Ultra 2, circumventing the ITC ban  —  Apple will be rolling out a redesigned version of the feature to the Series 9, 10 and Ultra 2 today.

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:40 AM ET, August 14, 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

Jennifer Jacobs / CBS News:
Sources: the Pentagon fired Stars and Stripes' publisher, EIC, and a Middle East reporter for insubordination; the publisher earlier announced his retirement

Gene Maddaus / Variety:
Sources: Paramount reps are expected to meet Monday with the California AG's office to discuss a possible settlement of the antitrust suit blocking the WBD deal

Dominic Patten / Deadline:
Chris Aronson, ex-president of domestic theatrical distribution at Paramount, sues the company, claiming breach of contract and age discrimination

More News

Zvi Mowshowitz / Don't Worry About the Vase:
GPT-5 review: GPT-5-Thinking is a substantial upgrade over o3, Auto is only useful for free tier users, picking the right model still matters, and more

Earlier Picks

Jaspreet Singh / Reuters:
Google plans to spend $9B in Oklahoma over two years on cloud and AI infrastructure, including on building a data center campus and expanding its Pryor facility
Juby Babu / Reuters:
Cisco reports Q4 revenue up 8% YoY to $14.67B, vs. $14.62B est., net income up 31% to $2.8B, and forecasts Q1 revenue above estimates
Bloomberg:
Bullish shares closed up 84% at $68 in the company's NYSE debut, above the IPO price of $37, giving Bullish a market value of $9.9B based on outstanding shares
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Google is rolling out a feature for Gemini that, when enabled, will let the AI chatbot “remember” a user's past conversations without prompting
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Core Devices CEO Eric Migicovsky unveils the Pebble Time 2 in four colors, with a 1.5" e-paper display, multicolor RGB backlighting, and a 30-day battery life
Mark Gurman / @markgurman:
In response to Elon Musk's claims that the App Store favors ChatGPT, Apple says that it “is designed to be fair and free of bias” and has “objective criteria”
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