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August 19, 2025, 12:35 PM
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Top News

Kanishka Singh / Reuters:
US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard says the UK has dropped its mandate requiring Apple to provide a backdoor for accessing users' encrypted data  —  Britain has dropped its demand for the iPhone maker Apple (AAPL.O) to provide a “backdoor” that would have enabled access …
Sheryl Estrada / Fortune:
An MIT report finds that 95% of GenAI pilots at companies have little to no financial impact, due to the “learning gap” for both the tools and the companies  —  Good morning.  Companies are betting on AI—yet nearly all enterprise pilots are stuck at the starting line.
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
SoftBank agrees to invest $2B in Intel, buying ~2% of Intel's outstanding shares for $23 per share, becoming Intel's fifth-biggest shareholder; INTC jumps 5%+  —  Intel and SoftBank announced on Monday that the Japanese conglomerate will make a $2 billion investment in the embattled chipmaker.
Financial Times:
Sources: Masayoshi Son met Lip-Bu Tan to discuss SoftBank acquiring Intel's faltering foundry business in the weeks before announcing SoftBank's $2B investment
Kashish Tandon / Reuters:
OpenAI launches ChatGPT Go, a new India-only plan priced at Rs. 399, or ~$4.57, per month, its most affordable yet, to grow users in its second-largest market  —  ChatGPT maker OpenAI on Tuesday launched ChatGPT Go, a new India-only subscription plan priced at 399 rupees ($4.57) per month …
Reuters:
Sources: Nvidia is developing a new Blackwell-based AI chip for China, tentatively known as the B30A, that will be more powerful than its H20 model for China  —  Nvidia (NVDA.O) is developing a new AI chip for China based on its latest Blackwell architecture that will be more powerful …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is making all four iPhone 17 models in India ahead of debut, a first, as it expands to five factories to cut reliance on China for US-bound units  —  Apple Inc. is expanding iPhone production in India at five factories, including a pair of recently opened plants …
Prakhar Srivastava / Reuters:
Tether hires Bo Hines, who stepped down as White House Crypto Council Executive Director earlier in August, as an adviser to help it expand in the US  —  Cryptocurrency firm Tether has appointed former White House crypto policy executive Bo Hines as a strategic adviser to help steer its expansion …
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
A US federal appeals court rejects T-Mobile's bid to overturn a $92M fine for illegally selling customer location data without consent, after a 2024 FCC ruling  —  A federal appeals court rejected T-Mobile's attempt to overturn $92 million in fines for selling customer location information to third-party firms.
Angel Au-Yeung / Wall Street Journal:
Databricks is finalizing a Series K at a $100B valuation, up 61% from its December 2024 round; sources say it is co-led by Thrive and a16z plans to participate  —  The data analytics company, fueled by the AI boom, was valued at $62 billion less than a year ago
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
What to expect from Google's “Made by Google” Pixel hardware event on August 20: four Pixel 10 phones, including a 10 Pro Fold, Pixel Watch 4, and Pixel Buds 2A  —  Four phones, a smartwatch, and a pair of earbuds are likely launching at tomorrow's Pixel hardware event.
Reuters:
A survey of 4,446 US adults on AI: 71% are concerned AI will put “too many people out of work permanently”, 61% worry about electricity consumption, and more  —  Americans are deeply concerned over the prospect that advances in artificial intelligence could put swaths of the country …
Forums: r/technology
Devindra Hardawar / Engadget:
Nvidia plans to roll out RTX 5080-class performance to GeForce Now in September, letting users of its $20-per-month Ultimate tier stream in up to 5K at 120fps  —  It'll support up to 5K at 120fps and DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation.  —  NVIDIA's GeForce NOW game streaming service is leveling …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Nvidia updates its beta app to add global DLSS overrides and more control panel options, including anisotropic filtering, anti-aliasing, and ambient occlusion

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:35 PM ET, August 19, 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

New York Times:
Sources: Trump's new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, was fired Friday, after less than a week on the job

Washington Post:
Israeli settlers attacked WaPo photographer Heidi Levine, who wore a “PRESS” vest, in the West Bank, kicking her repeatedly and taking her cameras and phone

Page Six:
Sources: Bela Bajaria was “blindsided” by her firing and only found out at 5pm on Wednesday after Netflix had repeatedly reassured her that her job was secure

More News

Jody Godoy / Reuters:
The US FTC sues Key Investment Group, operator of sites like TotalTickets.com, for evading purchasing limits to buy up and resell live event tickets at a markup
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Nvidia debuts Nemotron-Nano-9B-v2, a hybrid Mamba-Transformer model, saying it achieves comparable or better accuracies than Qwen3-8B on reasoning benchmarks

Earlier Picks

Kia Kokalitcheva / PitchBook:
American Exceptionalism Acquisition, a SPAC led by Chamath Palihapitiya and focused on energy, AI, DeFi, and defense, files for a US IPO, seeking to raise $250M
Arasu Kannagi Basil / Reuters:
Blockchain-based lender Figure files for a US IPO, reporting H1 2025 revenue up 22% YoY to $191M and a $29M net income, compared with a $13M net loss in H1 2024
Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch:
Texas AG Ken Paxton probes Meta and Character.AI over claims they deceptively market chatbots as mental health tools, misleading kids and other vulnerable users
Himanshi Akhand / Reuters:
Australia's ACCC says Google agreed to pay a AU$55M fine over deals with Telstra and Optus to preinstall only Google Search on Android phones from 2019 to 2021
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