Techmeme
August 14, 2025, 9:15 AM

Top News

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 …
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 …
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:
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:
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 after a request from the US FDA in July and requests 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.
Jaspreet Singh / Reuters:
Google plans to spend $9B in Oklahoma over two years on cloud and AI infrastructure, including a new data center campus and an expansion of its Pryor facility  —  Alphabet's Google said on Wednesday it will spend an additional $9 billion in Oklahoma over the next two years to expand cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Aisha S Gani / Bloomberg:
Klarna, which is planning a potential NY IPO as soon as September, is focusing on its banking push to boost revenue while shedding its image as a BNPL phenom  —  As the payments giant prepares an IPO, it's trying to persuade millions of consumers to use its debit cards.

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More News

Zvi Mowshowitz / Don't Worry About the Vase:

Earlier Picks

Juby Babu / Reuters:
Bloomberg:
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Mark Gurman / @markgurman: