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August 16, 2025, 12:00 AM
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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: The Economic Times, The Verge, TechCrunch, Roblox Corporate, Forbes, Breitbart, ZeroHedge News, Washington Examiner, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Gameranx, Distractify, PYMNTS.com, MarketWatch, WAFB-TV, PCMag, Developer Forum, The US Sun, Polygon, Los Angeles Times, Gizmodo, Destructoid, Screen Rant, Mashable, Kotaku, Telegraph, Dexerto, Associated Press, PC Gamer, Barron's Online, The Gateway Pundit, Fox News, KYTX-TV, 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
| Matt Kaufman / Roblox Corporate: |
Roblox plans to restrict unrated experiences to devs, automatically remove servers with violative content, and limit some social hangouts to verified 17+ users — Expanding Policies to Help Younger Users Have Better Experiences on Roblox — Today we're making several important updates … | 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: The Economic Times, TechCrunch, Josh Hawley, Associated Press, Jamaica Observer, Simon Willison's Weblog, Euractiv, Yahoo Finance, San Francisco Chronicle, Townhall, MLex, Baltimore Sun, Engadget, Reuters, 1819 News, Fox News, New York Times, MobileSyrup, Ars Technica, PCWorld, Washington Examiner, PC Gamer, The Hill, and Mashable
Bluesky: @dimitridrekonja, @wyden.senate.gov, and @wyden.senate.gov
X: @hawleymo, @benbrodydc, @senkatiebritt, @jason_kint, @jason_kint, @realdcochrane, @hawleymo, @bedoyausa, @saalevine, @sayssimonson, @senkatiebritt, and @emrwilkins
Forums: r/technology and r/technology
| 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” … | 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.
More: Reuters, TechCrunch, The Crypto Times, Reuters, Gemini, Wall Street Journal, and Reuters
| 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.| 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
| 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.| 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.
More: Yahoo Finance, The Verge, Tom's Guide, and The New Stack
| David Heaney / UploadVR: |
Hands-on with Boba 3, Meta's prototype PC VR headset with a form factor similar to the Quest 3, featuring an ultrawide field of view of 180° by 120° — At SIGGRAPH 2025 this week, I went hands-on with Boba 3, Meta's prototype of ultra-wide field of view PC VR in a form factor similar to Quest 3.| Norah Mulinda / Bloomberg: |
Opendoor CEO Carrie Wheeler steps down, with Shrisha Radhakrishna named president and interim CEO; OPEN closed up 4.28% — Opendoor Technologies Inc., a real estate company that became a meme stock in recent months, said Chief Executive Officer Carrie Wheeler is stepping down immediately as the board searches for a replacement.| Jesse Hamilton / CoinDesk: |
The Federal Reserve continues its relaxation of crypto oversight by ending a program created in 2023 to scrutinize fintech and crypto activities by banks — The Federal Reserve has shuttered the Novel Activities Supervision Program it built in 2023 that was — in part — meant to focus on banks' crypto activity.| Ina Fried / Axios: |
An interview with Sam Altman on spending billions on AI infrastructure, wanting Chrome if it's really for sale, AI models saturating the chat use case, and more — OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is still talking like the future belongs to him, a week after the rollout of the company's latest model raised …
More: The Verge, Platformer, Bloomberg, Livemint, Cautious Optimism, Mind Matters, Sherwood News, Implicator.ai, Tech in Asia, and Implicator.ai
Bluesky: @tamigraph. Threads: @camwilsonreporter. X: @openai, @stshank, @shiringhaffary, @verge, @alexeheath, and @inafried
Forums: r/technology, r/artificial, and r/singularity
| Alex Heath / The Verge: |
More: Wired, Bloomberg, CNBC, The Register, The Verge, iPhone in Canada, The Decoder, Gizmodo, The Crypto Times, Mashable, Futurism, Crypto Briefing, Business Insider, Livemint, Tech in Asia, and Breitbart
Bluesky: @davidcrespo, @warnercrocker, @jake—k.bsky.social, @adeincambodia, and @alexeheath.com
X: @laurengoode and @shakeelhashim
Forums: r/aiwars, r/OpenAI, r/singularity, and Slashdot
| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Appfigures: ChatGPT's app for iOS and Android hit $2B in global consumer spending, including $1.35B so far in 2025, up 673% YoY; Grok made ~$25.6M this year — ChatGPT's mobile app is raking in the revenue. — Since launching in May 2023, ChatGPT's app for iOS and Android devices …
More: PYMNTS.com, Thurrott, 9to5Mac, iPhone in Canada, TestingCatalog, and GreenBot
| Financial Times: |
CoreWeave investors sold more than $1B in shares as the IPO lockup ended; the stock held steady on Friday after dropping about 35% over the previous two days — Director Jack Cogen offloads stake with an aggregate market value of about $300mn — Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase …
More: Bloomberg
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