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August 16, 2025, 3:50 PM
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| Anthropic: |
Anthropic enables Claude Opus 4 and 4.1 to end conversations in “cases of persistently harmful or abusive user interactions”; users can still start new chats — We recently gave Claude Opus 4 and 4.1 the ability to end conversations in our consumer chat interfaces.
More: TechCrunch and Blockchain.News
Bluesky: @mariadagloriaii, @pekka, @mmasnick, and @timkellogg.me. Mastodon: @tommorris@mastodon.social
X: @anthropicai, @rough__sea, @jmbollenbacher, and @caleb_cassell
Forums: Hacker News, r/ClaudeAI, r/artificial, r/ArtificialSentience, and r/singularity
| Amanda Hess / New York Times: |
A look at AI-powered stuffed animals like Grem, Grok, and Gabbo, which are being promoted as an alternative to screen time for children as young as 3 — Curio is a company that describes itself as “a magical workshop where toys come to life.” When I recently visited its cheery headquarters … | 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” …
More: Mashable. Bluesky: @nealiosaurus and @ashleybraun. Mastodon: @pernillet@mastodon.online. 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
| 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: Forbes, Associated Press, Polygon, Roblox Corporate, The Verge, Eurogamer.net, Notebookcheck, Breitbart, TechCrunch, Developer Forum, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Los Angeles Times, PCMag, Washington Examiner, Gizmodo, Destructoid, PYMNTS.com, The US Sun, MarketWatch, Distractify, Gameranx, WAFB-TV, ZeroHedge News, Screen Rant, Mashable, Kotaku, Telegraph, PC Gamer, Dexerto, and Barron's Online
X: @aglizmurrill, @kreekcraft, @steak834, @realschlep, @realschlep, @blox, @realschlep, @stockjabber, @stockjabber, @realschlep, @stockjabber, @realschlep, @kreekcraft, @roblox_rtc, @kreekcraft, @roblox_rtc, @simon_hypixel, @kreekcraft, @kreekcraft, @kreekcraft, @hedgeyecommor, @hedgeyecomm, @aglizmurrill, @aglizmurrill, @aglizmurrill, @chrishansen, @repschlegel, and @aglizmurrill. Forums: r/roblox
| Financial Times: |
GPT-5's underwhelming performance on benchmarks suggests that the current approach of scaling LLMs is starting to reach the limits of available resources — OpenAI's underwhelming new GPT-5 model suggests progress is slowing — and competition in the space is changing| Lauren Goode / Wired: |
| 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, and Fortune
Bluesky: @chronotope.aramzs.xyz and @richardnieva
LinkedIn: Luisa Kroll and Rashi Shrivastava
| Counterpoint Research: |
Global smart glasses shipments grew 110% YoY in H1; Meta's share of the market rose to 73%; AI smart glasses accounted for 78% of shipments, up from 46% YoY — - The global smart glasses market grew by 110% YoY in H1 2025, fueled by robust demand for Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses and the entry …
More: South China Morning Post, Tech in Asia, Financial Times, and Engadget
Bluesky: @lovecircle, @glinden, and @davidinsf
| Nate Anderson / Ars Technica: |
How an editor uncovered the “largest self-promotion operation in Wikipedia's history” that promoted obscure composer David Woodard with entries in 335 languages — Quick—what are the top entries in the category “Wikipedia articles written in the greatest number of languages”?| 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 … | Martina Di Licosa / Forbes: |
A profile of UCB CS professor Ion Stoica, a billionaire who has helped launch four startups out of his privately-funded research lab, including Databricks — This computer science professor became a billionaire launching four startups out of his privately-funded research lab, including unicorns Databricks and Anyscale.
More: EECS at UC Berkeley. X: @mohapatrahemant, @robertnishihara, @forbes, @williamwangnlp, @ashugarg, and @humphrey_shi
LinkedIn: Rich Lyons, Ashu Garg, Martina Di Licosa, Hui Zhang, Luisa Kroll, Tuan Vu, and Rich Adao
| 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: Le Monde, Unitree Robotics on YouTube, Fast Company, Mashable, Associated Press, eWeek, Guardian News on YouTube, NBC News, Business Standard, PC Gamer, The US Sun, GovTech, New York Post, TechNode, TMZ.com, The Guardian, LiveScience, UPI, Al Jazeera, GB News, Robotics & Automation News, RoboticsTomorrow.com, and Digital Trends. X: @business
| Justin Birnbaum / Forbes: |
Jump, a SaaS startup founded by Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore for managing sports ticketing and fan experiences, raised a $23M Series A at a $100M+ valuation — Founded by the MLB legend alongside billionaire Marc Lore, his Timberwolves co-owner, the company is now valued at more than $100 million as it builds a one-stop shop for fans.| Helen Reid / Reuters: |
Filing: Shein reports 2024 UK sales up 32.3% YoY to £2.05B, making the UK its third largest market after the US and Germany, as it works toward a Hong Kong IPO — Shein's British business made 2.05 billion pounds ($2.77 billion) in sales in 2024, a 32.3% increase from the previous year … Sponsor Posts
Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro — Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Try Gemini 3 Pro — Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify's new AI commerce stack — Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI.
Shopify's new AI commerce stack — Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI.
Zoho:
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control — Picture this: It's Monday morning. You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control — Picture this: It's Monday morning. You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.Featured Podcasts
Grit:
How Evan Spiegel Is Building the Future of Computing
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Acquired:
10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis)
Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.
Subscribe to Acquired.
Lenny's Podcast:
Why humans are AI's biggest bottleneck (and what's coming in 2026) | Alexander Embiricos (OpenAI Codex Product Lead)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's 2026 Priority, Disney's AI Play, Datacenter Buildout Trouble
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Hard Fork:
Australia Kicks Kids Off Social Media + Is the A.I. Water Issue Fake? + Hard Fork Wrapped
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
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