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August 14, 2025, 9:40 PM
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Bloomberg:
Sources: the Trump administration is in talks with Intel to have the US government potentially take a stake in the company; INTC closes up 7.4%  —  The Trump administration is in talks with Intel Corp. to have the US government take a stake in the beleaguered chipmaker …
Jeff Horwitz / Reuters:
An internal Meta policy doc had portions permitting its chatbots to hold “sensual” chats with kids, which Meta later removed, offer false medical info, and more  —  An internal Meta policy document, seen by Reuters, reveals the social-media giant's rules for chatbots …
More: Reuters, Ars Technica, The Tech Policy Press Podcast, CNET, Social Media Today, Read Max, TechCrunch, HotHardware, Washington Examiner, New York Post, MediaPost, PC Gamer, The Daily Caller, The Independent, Mediaite, Mashable, Engadget, Futurism, Salon, Lifehacker, and The Verge
Bluesky: @ryanlcooper.com, @esqueer.net, @esqueer.net, @jeffhorwitz, @matthewfacciani, @drewharwell.com, @misthiosx, @mpolikoff, @papapishu, @jennycohn, @profsanderlinden, @jeffhorwitz, @harikunzru, @noupside, @esqueer.net, @alexboyd, @noupside, @camaradabakunin, @jonathan-a-thon, @bobbyallyn, @edmorrish, @emilymbender, @carlbergstrom.com, @mtsw, @noni, @aerialeverything, @undefinedpath, @mikebaker, @newsjennifer, @mantzarlis.com, @mgsiegler.com, @robshrum, @noupside, @marypcbuk, @sadknob, @barbarasobel, @noahshachtman, @bachynski, @samleecole, @damonberes.com, @jeffhorwitz, @justinhendrix, @justinhendrix, and @bradheath
Mastodon: @harrymccracken@mastodon …, @j12t@j12t.social, @ancient_catbus@jorts.horse, @mattsheffield@mastodon.social, and @cory@follow.coryd.dev
Threads: @andymstone, @renee.diresta, @kurtwag8, @crumbler, and @katienotopoulos
X: @linamkhan, @robshrum, @jason, @luke_metro, @saalevine, @brianschatz, @nhegde, @ericgeller, @jeffhorwitz, @evanhill, @esyudkowsky, @kevinroose, @specialreports, @marshablackburn, @silvermanjacob, @hawleymo, @nhegde, @pkafka, and @charlottealter
LinkedIn: Laura Marquez-Garrett, Kim Horne, Erika Hall, Shana V., and Georg Zoeller
Forums: Hacker News, r/artificial, r/privacy, r/technology, r/aiwars, r/LinusTechTips, r/singularity, r/NotADragQueen, and Slashdot
Wired:
Sources: xAI was part of a US government AI initiative alongside OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, but was removed after Grok posted antisemitic content in July  —  Internal emails obtained by WIRED show a hasty process to onboard OpenAI, Anthropic, and other AI providers to the federal government. xAI …
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Apple rolls out a software update that enables a redesigned blood oxygen monitoring feature for its 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.
Google Developers Blog:
Google announces Gemma 3 270M, a compact model designed for task-specific fine-tuning with strong capabilities in instruction following and text structuring  —  The last few months have been an exciting time for the Gemma family of open models.  We introduced Gemma 3 and Gemma 3 QAT …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Bluesky revises its policies and Community Guidelines to comply with new regulations, including the EU DSA, UK Online Safety Act, and US Take It Down Act  —  Two years after launching, social network Bluesky is revising its Community Guidelines and other policies, and asking for feedback from its users on some of the changes.
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Google launches Flight Deals, an AI tool within Google Flights to let users find fares using natural language queries, in beta in the US, Canada, and India  —  Google on Thursday announced a new AI-powered search tool to help travelers find flight deals — even as regulators continue …
George Hammond / Financial Times:
Toronto-based Cohere raised $500M led by Radical and Inovia at a $6.8B valuation, up from $5.5B in July 2024, and has doubled its ARR to $100M so far in 2025  —  Canadian group recruits ex-Uber and Meta executives and boosts valuation to $6.8bn  —  Artificial intelligence start-up Cohere …
New York Times:
SCOTUS rejects NetChoice's emergency appeal to block a Mississippi law that requires age verification and parental consent for teens to join social networks  —  A trade group representing sites like Facebook and X said the law ran afoul of the First Amendment.
Paige Smith / Bloomberg:
Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and 80+ fintech and crypto CEOs urge Trump to block US banks from charging fees to access customer data  —  Top fintech and crypto executives urged the Trump administration to block US banks from charging fees for access to customer data …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Lambda is in talks for a funding round that could value the cloud services company between $4B and $5B ahead of a potential IPO by the end of 2025  —  Lambda Inc., a cloud infrastructure firm which counts Nvidia Corp. among its backers, is in talks with investors about a funding round …
Bloomberg:
Ex-Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal launches Parallel Web Systems to build infrastructure for AI agents to search the web, raising $30M from Khosla Ventures and others  —  Parag Agrawal says AI agents are the target customers for his new startup, Parallel.  —  No one would have blamed Parag Agrawal if …
The Information:
Sources: chip startup Rivos, which plans to release a GPU for inference as early as 2026, is seeking to raise between $400M and $500M at a $2B+ valuation  —  Rivos, a chip startup that aims to compete with Nvidia, is seeking to raise between $400 million and $500 million, according to two people familiar with the matter.
New York Times:
A deep dive into Big Tech's AI energy boom as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google become major players, leading to fears of it driving up individuals' and SMBs' bills  —  A transmission line running near data centers in Ashburn, Va. As the electricity demands of the structures rapidly escalate …
Kyt Dotson / SiliconANGLE:
The US NSF and Nvidia partner for an Ai2-led project to build open AI models to accelerate scientific discovery; the NSF is contributing $75M and Nvidia $77M  —  The U.S. National Science Foundation today announced a new partnership with Nvidia Corp. to develop artificial intelligence models designed …
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

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:40 PM 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

Ashley Capoot / CNBC:
Disney and OpenAI sign a three-year deal to bring 200+ Disney characters to Sora; Disney will make a $1B investment in OpenAI and become a major OpenAI customer

Sara Guaglione / Digiday:
The Washington Post's new Your Personal Podcast, which offers AI-generated customizable podcasts, was developed under a multiyear agreement with ElevenLabs

Mark Stenberg / Adweek:
Sources: the tenure of Anastasia Nyrkovskaya, Fortune's outgoing CEO, was marked by turmoil over a clash with Victor Pang, a lawyer for the company's owner

More News

Rob Copeland / New York Times:
How Wall Street is embracing crypto, spurred in part by political opportunism, as some executives fear the rush may risk the safety of personal bank accounts
Jennifer Ouellette / Ars Technica:
Q&A with researcher Petter Törnberg on his preprint study saying social media's dysfunctions, like echo chambers, may stem from its architecture, not algorithms

Earlier Picks

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
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