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August 21, 2025, 3:00 PM
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Top News

Meghan Bobrowsky / Wall Street Journal:
Meta froze hiring in its AI division last week with sources saying exceptions need Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang's permission; the freeze's duration is unclear  —  Company reorganizes its sprawling artificial-intelligence operation, whose spiraling cost has drawn investor scrutiny
Tripp Mickle / New York Times:
Nine current and ex-Apple staffers accuse Apple VP of Fitness Tech Jay Blahnik of creating a toxic work environment; Apple settled a sexual harassment complaint  —  Three circular bands came to define fitness on the Apple Watch.Dünzl/Ullstein Bild, via Getty Images
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Apple raises the price of Apple TV+ in the US and some markets globally after previously raising the price in 2023; in the US, the price will rise $3 to $12.99  —  Apple TV+, the tech giant's money-losing streaming service, is bumping up its price by 30%: For U.S. customers, it will now be $12.99 per month, up $3 from $9.99.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google expands AI Mode to 180 countries and territories in English, following the US, the UK, and India, and plans to add more languages and regions “soon”  —  After launching in three countries, Google is now bringing AI Mode to many more countries around the world …
Bloomberg:
DeepSeek details V3.1 and says it surpasses R1 on key benchmarks and is customized to work with next-gen Chinese-made AI chips, after unveiling it on August 19  —  DeepSeek unveiled an update to an older model that it says surpasses the seminal R1 on key benchmarks, keeping the Chinese startup …
Matt Burgess / Wired:
CBP data: between April and June 2025, CBP searched 14,899 devices carried by international travelers, up from a record 12,766+ between January and March 2022  —  Customs and Border Protection agents searched nearly 15,000 devices from April through June of this year, a nearly 17 percent spike …
Casey Crownhart / MIT Technology Review:
Google says the median Gemini app text prompt consumes 0.24Wh of energy, about the same as running a microwave for a second, and emits 0.03g of CO2 equivalent  —  Google has just released a technical report detailing how much energy its Gemini apps use for each query.
TechCrunch:
Halo, a startup founded by two former Harvard students who built a facial recognition app for Ray-Ban Meta glasses, introduces “always-on” AI glasses for $249  —  Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai Rebecca Bellan  —  Two former Harvard students are launching a pair of “always-on” …
John Collison / Cheeky Pint:
Q&A with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong on starting the company, battling North Korean hackers, stablecoin adoption, the GENIUS Act, pro-crypto Congress, and more  —  Brian Armstrong joins John Collison to talk about what's happening behind the scenes at Coinbase: battling North Korean hackers …
Trishla Ostwal / Adweek:
In a UK tribunal filing, former Meta employee Samujjal Purkayastha alleges Meta misled advertisers by inflating its Shops ads metrics and bypassed Apple's ATT  —  After Apple rolled out its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature in 2021, Meta executives scrambled for what they called …
Mustafa Suleyman:
Mustafa Suleyman says “Seemingly Conscious AI” is coming but is something to avoid, and that developers must build AI for people, not to be a digital person  —  Seemingly Conscious AI is Coming  —  I write, to think.  More than anything this essay is an attempt to think through …
Financial Times:
Sources: China's H20 curbs were triggered by US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's not selling China the “best stuff” remark, which officials found “insulting”  —  Comments by US commerce secretary trigger Chinese regulatory effort to stop tech groups buying H20 processors
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
Sources: Take-Two lays off 80+ staff at BioShock studio Cloud Chamber, or ~33% of its ~250 staff, and delays the next BioShock game to late 2026 or early 2027  —  Thirty percent of the studio was laid off this week, adding more years to the game's production
Tony Stubblebine / The Medium Blog:
Medium's CEO explains how the platform's AI policy has evolved as it adopts some AI tools while prioritizing human curation and inviting community feedback  —  How we are navigating the role AI does and doesn't play in our mission to deepen understanding.  —  Here's a conundrum we've …

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From Mediagazer

New York Times:
WBD says the Ellisons have “consistently misled” shareholders, including claiming Paramount's proposal had a “full backstop” but it “does not, and never has”

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Meta is testing limiting Facebook professional accounts and Pages to posting just two links per month, unless they subscribe to $14.99+/month Meta Verified

Associated Press:
A US federal judge denied Sarah Palin's bid for a new libel trial against the NYT and rejected her motion for his recusal, after a jury found no libel in April

More News

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
India's lower house of parliament passes a sweeping online gaming bill that imposes a blanket ban on real-money games nationwide, threatening a ~$23B industry

Earlier Picks

Jesse Hamilton / CoinDesk:
TRM Labs launches Beacon Network, a real-time alert system for illicit crypto activity, partnering with law enforcement and exchanges like Binance and Coinbase
Christopher Yasiejko / Bloomberg Law:
Masimo sues the US CBP, saying it exceeded its authority in an August 1 internal advice ruling that let Apple reactivate a Watch blood oxygen tracking feature
Ali McCadden / CNBC:
Microsoft and the NFL extend their partnership to bring real-time game data and analysis to coaches and players using Copilot on Surface tablets and Azure AI
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google's new AI features for Pixel include Magic Cue for contextual suggestions across apps, Voice Translate for calls, and Visual Overlays for the camera
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Sony raises PlayStation 5's prices by $50 in the US due to the “challenging economic environment”: PS5 is $550, PS5 Digital Edition is $500, and PS5 Pro is $750
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
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