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August 20, 2025, 11:30 AM
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Top News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft and Asus plan to launch the Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X handhelds on October 16; leaks suggest the Ally and Ally X will cost €599 and €899, respectively  —  Microsoft also has a handheld compatibility program to showcase which games run well on the new Xbox Ally devices.
Ryan Gallagher / Bloomberg:
Microsoft says it curtailed Chinese companies' access to advance vulnerability notifications via MAPP starting in July, after probing the SharePoint breach  —  Microsoft Corp. has curtailed Chinese companies' access to advance notifications about cybersecurity vulnerabilities in its technology …
More: The Record
ProPublica:
Document: Microsoft's 2025 System Security Plan submitted to the DOD, dated February 28, failed to disclose China-based engineers maintaining DoD cloud systems  —  The tech giant is required to regularly provide U.S. officials with its plan for keeping government data safe from hacking.
Iain Martin / Forbes:
Grok's “share” button generates a unique URL that makes users' chats searchable on Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo; Google has indexed 370K+ Grok conversations  —  xAI made people's conversations with its chatbot public and searchable on Google without warning …
Financial Times:
The Nasdaq fell 1.4% on August 19, as Nvidia dropped 3.5% and Arm 5%, with AI enthusiasm cooling after a critical report from MIT and a warning from Sam Altman  —  Warning from OpenAI's Sam Altman and MIT paper puncture Wall Street's enthusiasm  —  US tech stocks sold off as warnings …
CNBC:
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says that Intel must give the government an equity stake in the company in return for CHIPS Act funds; INTC closed up 6.97%  —  Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Tuesday that Intel must give the U.S. government an equity stake in the company in return for CHIPS Act funds.
Reuters:
Sources: US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is looking into government equity stakes in Micron, TSMC, Samsung, and others that receive CHIPS Act funding  —  U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is looking into the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers …
Tom McArthur / BBC:
Kick says it is “urgently reviewing” the circumstances around the death of a French livestreamer subjected to violence and sleep deprivation during streams  —  An investigation has been launched into the death of a French streamer known for extreme challenges.
Brian Schwartz / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Elon Musk is quietly pumping the brakes on his plans to start a US political party, telling allies he wants to focus his attention on his companies  —  The billionaire has sought to maintain ties with JD Vance, a potential heir to Trump's MAGA political movement
Sean Endicott / Windows Central:
Microsoft adds a COPILOT function to Excel for Beta Channel users, letting them use text prompts to categorize data, summarize feedback, and brainstorm ideas  —  AI in Excel finally feels natural thanks to the new COPILOT function. … Or rather, more Copilot is being packed into the popular spreadsheet program.
Molly White / Citation Needed:
A look at Justin Sun's lawsuit against Bloomberg for publishing his crypto assets, which he says he shared confidentially to qualify for its Billionaires Index  —  Listen to me read this post here (not an AI-generated voice!), subscribe to the feed in your podcast app, or download the recording for later.
Steve Holland / Reuters:
The White House launches an official TikTok account, aiming to communicate President Trump's messages; the first video shows Trump declaring “I am your voice”  —  The White House launched an official TikTok account on Tuesday, taking advantage of the short video app's …
Reuters:
Sources: China is considering allowing yuan-backed stablecoins to boost yuan adoption globally and its State Council may approve a roadmap later in August  —  China is considering allowing the usage of yuan-backed stablecoins for the first time to boost wider adoption of its currency globally …
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 …
New York Times:
Sources: Meta considers downsizing its AI division, with some executives expected to leave, and is exploring using third-party models to power its AI products  —  Meta is expected to announce a new restructuring of its artificial intelligence division amid internal tensions over the technology, people with knowledge of the plans said.
Riley Griffin / Bloomberg:
Memo: Meta restructures Superintelligence Labs; Alexandr Wang heads TBD Lab, Robert Fergus heads FAIR, Nat Friedman heads products, Aparna Ramani heads Infra

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:30 AM ET, August 20, 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

Todd Spangler / Variety:
SEC filing: David Zaslav is selling ~4M shares of WBD stock, with an aggregate market value of just over $114M; Zaslav's 2024 pay rose 4.4% YoY to $51.9M

Max Tani / Semafor:
AP Senior Product Manager for AI Aimee Rinehart told staff that many editors preferred an AI-written article to a human one, and resistance to AI is “futile”

Yuval Halevi / Growtika:
Analysis: 10 major tech publications lost 58% of their Google traffic since early 2024, falling to a combined 65M monthly visits in January 2026; some lost 90%+

More News

Earlier Picks

Julie Bort / TechCrunch:
Firecrawl, which offers an open-source web crawler for developers and AI agents, raised a $14.5M Series A led by Nexus Venture Partners
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Alibaba releases Qwen-Image-Edit, the image editing version of Qwen-Image, supporting modifying Chinese and English text while preserving font, size, and style
Robert McMillan / Wall Street Journal:
US federal prosecutors charge an Oregon man with operating the Rapper Bot, one of the most powerful DDoS botnets ever, which knocked X offline earlier in 2025
Krisztian Sandor / CoinDesk:
Bullish says it has received all $1.15B in capital raised from its IPO in stablecoins, including USDC, USDG, and PYUSD, marking a first for US public markets
Daniel Kuhn / The Block:
Wyoming launches a stablecoin, FRNT, marking the first time a US state has issued a blockchain-based, fiat-pegged token to be used by retail and enterprises
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
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