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August 16, 2025, 8:30 AM
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memeorandum
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| Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg: |
Roblox shares closed down 6.34% on Friday after the company was accused in two lawsuits of failing to sufficiently protect youngsters on its platform — Roblox Corp. shares fell more than 6% Friday after the company, which operates an online video-game service popular with children …
More: Associated Press, The Verge, Roblox Corporate, TechCrunch, Breitbart, Notebookcheck, Developer Forum, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Los Angeles Times, Polygon, PCMag, Washington Examiner, Gizmodo, Destructoid, PYMNTS.com, The US Sun, Forbes, MarketWatch, Distractify, Gameranx, WAFB-TV, ZeroHedge News, Screen Rant, Mashable, Kotaku, Telegraph, PC Gamer, Dexerto, Barron's Online, The Gateway Pundit, and Variety
X: @aglizmurrill, @aglizmurrill, @realschlep, @kreekcraft, @realschlep, @roblox_rtc, @aglizmurrill, @simon_hypixel, @hedgeyecommor, @aglizmurrill, @chrishansen, @kreekcraft, @hedgeyecomm, @aglizmurrill, @kreekcraft, @stockjabber, @realschlep, @kreekcraft, @steak834, @kreekcraft, @blox, @roblox_rtc, @realschlep, @stockjabber, @realschlep, @kreekcraft, @repschlegel, and @stockjabber
| Bobby Allyn / NPR: |
A proposed class action lawsuit accuses Otter.ai of “deceptively and surreptitiously” recording private conversations to train its AI without user consent — A federal lawsuit seeking class-action status accuses Otter.ai of “deceptively and surreptitiously” … | Forbes: |
Sources say Meta's chaotic culture and lack of vision have led to AI brain drain; Meta strongly denies it has had issues with talent and retention — At Meta, a chaotic culture and lack of vision have led to brain drain, with rivals saying its AI talent is lackluster.
More: The Information, Business Insider, Fortune, Fast Company, and Tech in Asia
Bluesky: @chronotope.aramzs.xyz and @richardnieva
LinkedIn: Rashi Shrivastava and Luisa Kroll
| Kalley Huang / The Information: |
Sources: Meta plans its fourth AI restructuring in six months, dividing its superintelligence lab into TBD Lab, a product team, an infrastructure team, and FAIR — Meta Platforms is planning the fourth restructuring of its artificial intelligence efforts in six months, according to three people familiar with the matter.| Kate Clark / Bloomberg: |
Sources: current and former OpenAI employees plan to sell ~$6B in stock to Thrive Capital, SoftBank, and others in a secondary sale that values OpenAI at ~$500B — SoftBank, Dragoneer and Thrive Capital are set to buy OpenAI shares from current and former employees at a $500 billion valuation.
More: CNBC, The Economic Times, The Information, Tech in Asia, StrictlyVC, Reuters, and NewsMax.com
| Jonathan Vanian / CNBC: |
Senator Josh Hawley says he will investigate Meta after a report on its AI policy allowing sensual chats with kids, tells Meta to produce docs by September 19 — Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said Friday that he will investigate Meta following a report that the company approved rules allowing …
More: TechCrunch, Mercury News, Josh Hawley, The Guardian, Associated Press, Jamaica Observer, 1819 News, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times, Simon Willison's Weblog, Engadget, MLex, Baltimore Sun, Reuters, Townhall, Euractiv, Fox News, MobileSyrup, PCWorld, and Washington Examiner
Bluesky: @dimitridrekonja, @wyden.senate.gov, and @wyden.senate.gov
X: @hawleymo, @benbrodydc, @senkatiebritt, @jason_kint, @jason_kint, @realdcochrane, @hawleymo, @bedoyausa, @sayssimonson, @senkatiebritt, @emrwilkins, and @saalevine. Forums: r/technology
| David Heaney / UploadVR: |
Hands-on with Tiramisu, Meta's “hyperrealistic” VR research prototype with beyond-retinal resolution, high brightness and contrast, and a narrow field of view — At SIGGRAPH 2025, I went hands-on with Tiramisu, Meta's research prototype that combines beyond-retinal resolution …
X: @ibrews and @heaney555
| Lauren Goode / Wired: |
Some developers say GPT-5 excels at technical reasoning and planning coding tasks and is cost-effective, but Claude Opus and Sonnet still produce better code — Software engineers are finding that OpenAI's new GPT-5 model is helping them think through coding problems—but isn't much better at actual coding.| Monique Mulima / Bloomberg: |
Winklevoss twins' Gemini files for a US IPO and reports a $282.5M net loss on $67.9M revenue in H1 2025, vs. a $41.4M net loss on $73.5M revenue a year earlier — Gemini Space Station Inc., led by the billionaire Winklevoss twins, filed for an IPO as the cohort of crypto businesses seeking to list on public markets continues to swell.| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
TikTok is updating its Community Guidelines, adding new rules for Live creators, including a requirement that commercial content must be disclosed — TikTok is preparing an update to its Community Guidelines, which dictate the rules for participating on the social video platform … | Bloomberg: |
A US district court judge temporarily blocks an FTC probe into Media Matters, part of an antitrust investigation into ad boycotts, calling the probe retaliatory — Nonprofit Media Matters for America won a court order blocking a Federal Trade Commission information demand for documents …
More: New York Times, Washington Post, MLex, and Raw Story
X: @adamsteinbaugh, @mmfa, and @bedoyausa
| Katherine Hamilton / Wall Street Journal: |
Lyft co-founders Logan Green and John Zimmer step down as board chair and vice chair, convert their Class B stock to Class A, completing the succession plan — Logan Green and John Zimmer are stepping down from their roles as chair and vice chair of the board of directors
More: The Information, Yahoo Finance, Automotive Dive, and Reuters
| Kelly Cloonan / Wall Street Journal: |
Applied Materials Q3: revenue up 8% YoY to $7.3B, vs. $7.22B est., profit up 4% YoY to $1.78B, and projects Q4 revenue and profit below est. on China challenges — The semiconductor-equipment maker had expected a slowdown in China after two years of rapid build-out, CFO Brice Hill says in an interview| Reuters: |
The World Humanoid Robot Games kicked off in Beijing on August 15, with robots across 280 teams from 16 countries competing in track and field and other sports — China kicked off the three-day long World Humanoid Robot Games on Friday, looking to showcase its advances in artificial intelligence …
More: T3, Fast Company, Mashable, Associated Press, Unitree Robotics on YouTube, Guardian News on YouTube, eWeek, NBC News, Business Standard, PC Gamer, The US Sun, GovTech, New York Post, TechNode, TMZ.com, The Guardian, LiveScience, UPI, Al Jazeera, Robotics & Automation News, GB News, RoboticsTomorrow.com, Digital Trends, and Honolulu Star-Advertiser. X: @business
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