Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise Site News
Techmeme
August 19, 2025, 12:40 PM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter

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
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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.
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  —  Small models are having a moment.  On the heels of the release of a new AI vision model small enough to fit on a smartwatch …
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
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
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

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26  —  Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
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.
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.
Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

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.
Access:
 Why the next AI frontier is phone calls, with Beside CEO Maxime Germain
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Great Chat:
 So what happens after AGI?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
 Lachlan Cartwright Started in Tabloids. Now He's a Must-Read Media Gossip.
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Add your podcast here
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:40 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

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Arkansas PBS severs ties with the PBS network, the first state public TV system to do so since Congress cut CPB funds, citing the annual $2M+ membership cost

Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:
Disney's Zootopia 2 surpasses $1B at the global box office, the fastest PG-rated film to do so after just 17 days in release

Trip Gabriel / New York Times:
R. Bruce Dold, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at the Chicago Tribune, where he became editor-in-chief and publisher, is dead at 70

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
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

Earlier Picks

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
Samantha Subin / CNBC:
Palo Alto Networks reports Q4 revenue up 16% YoY to $2.54B, vs. $2.5B est., net income down 29% YoY, and Q1 and FY 2026 guidance above est.; PANW jumps 5%+
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
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter