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August 13, 2025, 1:40 AM
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Katherine Blunt / Wall Street Journal:
Perplexity offers to acquire Chrome for $34.5B, significantly more than Perplexity's estimated $18B valuation, and says large VC funds agreed to back the deal  —  With its unsolicited bid for Google's browser, AI startup seeks to take advantage of uncertainty over pending antitrust ruling
M.G. Siegler / Spyglass:
Perplexity's unsolicited $34.5B bid for Chrome with claimed VC backing is clearly a marketing stunt and strategic signaling amid Google's antitrust uncertainty  —  Why not offer a quadrillion dollars? … I'll give Perplexity one thing: making the offer thirty-four-POINT-five billion dollars is a nice touch.
Joedy McCreary / MedPage Today:
Study: endoscopists accustomed to using AI for colonoscopies detected fewer precancerous growths after the tools were removed  —  - The adenoma detection rate (ADR) in more than 1,400 non-AI assisted colonoscopies dropped 6 percentage points, from 28.4% to 22.4%, after endoscopists routinely used the technology in their practice.
New York Times:
Sources: investigators have uncovered evidence that Russia is at least in part responsible for a recent hack of the US federal court filing system  —  Federal officials are scrambling to assess the damage and address flaws in a sprawling, heavily used computer system long known to have vulnerabilities.
Mark Gurman / @markgurman:
In response to Elon Musk's claims that the App Store favors the ChatGPT app, Apple says the App Store “is designed to be fair and free of bias”  —  Apple on @elonmusk's claims: “The App Store is designed to be fair and free of bias. We feature thousands of apps through charts, algorithmic recommendations, and curated lists selected by experts using objective criteria.” https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Surbhi Misra / Reuters:
Elon Musk says that Apple “makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI” to top its App Store, an “antitrust violation”, and xAI will take legal action
Financial Times:
Sources: OpenAI is preparing to back a Neuralink rival called Merge Labs, co-founded by Sam Altman, that aims to raise $250M at an $850M valuation  —  OpenAI in talks to invest in brain implant start-up that would compete with Musk's company  —  Ivan Levingston in London …
Bloomberg:
CoreWeave Q2: revenue up 207% YoY to $1.21B, vs. $1.08B est., adjusted net loss of $130.8M, vs. $96.3M est., up from $5M in Q2 2024; CRWV drops 10%+ after hours  —  CoreWeave Inc.'s shares fell 10% after it delivered a disappointing earnings outlook, reflecting margin pressures from a rapid AI datacenter expansion.
Bob Van Voris / Bloomberg:
In US court, Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon pleaded guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud charges over TerraUSD's $40B collapse in a plea deal with prosecutors  —  Terraform Labs Pte. co-founder Do Kwon pleaded guilty to charges in a US fraud prosecution tied to the $40 billion collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin in 2022.
Emily Price / Fast Company:
Meta says Threads has 400M monthly active users, up from 350M MAUs in April  —  Meta's Twitter rival has hit 400 million monthly users, closing the gap with X on mobile.  —  Meta's Threads is on a roll.  —  The social networking app is now home to more than 400 million monthly active users, Meta shared with Fast Company on Tuesday.
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Anthropic updates Claude Sonnet 4 to support a 1M token context window, letting it process prompts up to 750K words or 75K lines of code, up 5x on its old limit  —  Anthropic is increasing the amount of information that enterprise customers can send to Claude in a single prompt …
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
India's RBI grants Paytm “in-principle” approval to operate as a payment services provider for online merchants, after China's Ant Group sold its entire stake  —  Indian fintech giant Paytm has received long-awaited approval from the country's central bank to operate …
Dylan Loh / Nikkei Asia:
Singapore's three neobanks, GXS Bank, MariBank, and Trust Bank, together posted $278.1M in losses in 2024 as legacy rivals digitalized, intensifying competition  —  SINGAPORE — Eugina Sim will continue saving with a traditional lender, even though digital banks owned by technology players including Grab …
Sharon Goldman / Fortune:
NYC-based Profound, which helps brands optimize visibility in AI search responses, raised a $35M Series B led by Sequoia, bringing its total funding to $58.5M  —  Profound co-founders James Cadwallader and Dylan Babbs, who are betting big on helping brands get discovered in AI search
The Verge:
Epic says it is bringing Fortnite back to iOS in Australia “at a date to be determined”, after a judge ruled Apple and Google's app stores are anticompetitive  —  Apple and Google's losses in Australian antitrust cases could be a win for Epic Games.
ABC:
An Australian federal judge rules Apple and Google engaged in anticompetitive conduct by misusing their app store market power, but rejects Epic's other claims

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:40 AM ET, August 13, 2025.

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From Mediagazer

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Trump names Danielle Thumann, an adviser to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, to serve as an FCC commissioner; if confirmed, she'd bring the Republican majority to 3-1

The Wrap:
The FCC votes to repeal the national broadcast ownership cap and replace it with a case-by-case review, approving the measure by a 2-1 margin

Josh Gerstein / Politico:
A US federal judge pauses an order requiring Trump to disclose details of his businesses' financial performance to the BBC in his $10B defamation suit

More News

Emma Roth / The Verge:
Google launches Preferred Sources in the US and India, allowing users to personalize the news in Search's “top stories” section by selecting favorite outlets

Earlier Picks

Financial Times:
Anthropic signs a deal to offer Claude to US lawmakers for $1/year, following OpenAI; a source says Google is in talks to offer Gemini on similarly cheap terms
Wall Street Journal:
How Jensen Huang successfully lobbied Trump to resume Nvidia's H20 sales to China; US officials hadn't vetted the 20% pay-to-play proposal when Trump offered it
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
Anthropic adds a memory feature to let Claude reference information from past chats, available now to Max, Team, and Enterprise subscribers, and soon to others
Ina Fried / Axios:
GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke says he will “leave GitHub to become a founder again”, with GitHub and its leadership team moving into Microsoft's CoreAI organization
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