Techmeme
August 27, 2025, 3:10 PM

Top News

Joseph Menn / Washington Post:
The FBI and agencies in the UK, Canada, and others warn that a Chinese hacking campaign targeting US telecoms has expanded to 80 countries and 200+ US companies  —  The advisory shows global resolve against a hacking campaign that exceeds accepted norms for snooping.
Hayden Field / The Verge:
Anthropic's Threat Intelligence report for August says Claude was weaponized for sophisticated cybercrimes, including a “vibe-hacking” data extortion scheme  —  Anthropic's new report shows how bad actors are misusing Claude —and, likely, other AI agents. … “Agentic AI systems are being weaponized.”
Max Buondonno / The Shortcut:
Google Pixel 10 Pro review: the best AI phone on the market with handy features like Magic Cue, with a great display and Qi2 charging but no design improvements  —  Google's latest smartphones hit all the right notes and offer a competitive AI edge  —  🏆 Rating: 4.5/5  —  🥇 Editor's Choice
Wen-Yee Lee / Reuters:
Taiwan indicts three people for allegedly stealing TSMC's 2nm secrets to help Tokyo Electron, the first such case, and recommends a combined 14-year prison term  —  Taiwan prosecutors said on Wednesday that they indicted three people for theft of trade secrets from chipmaker TSMC (2330.TW) …
Zijing Wu / Financial Times:
Sources: a Chinese fab making Huawei's AI chips is set to start production as soon as the end of 2025, with two more due in 2026; the fabs' ownership is unclear  —  Fabrication plants serving Huawei push to increase production as US cuts off access to Nvidia's top processors
Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:
Apple partners with TuneIn to make Apple Music's six radio stations available outside its app, a first, as it seeks to compete with Spotify; TuneIn has 75M MAUs  —  The tie-up with TuneIn to distribute Apple's radio stations aims to introduce the company's music service to more people
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Google updates video editing tool Vids to add AI avatars, automatic transcript trimming, and image-to-video tools, and releases a basic version to all users  —  Google debuted its new-age video editor called Vids for the Google Workplace productivity suite last year.
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Salesloft says hackers stole OAuth tokens from its Drift chat agent integration to conduct a Salesforce data theft campaign between August 8 and August 18  —  Update: Story updated with further information.  —  Hackers breached sales automation platform Salesloft to steal OAuth and refresh tokens …
Wired:
Sources: two AI researchers hired by Meta for its Superintelligence Labs returned to OpenAI after less than one-month stints; a third researcher also left Meta  —  CEO Mark Zuckerberg went on a recruiting blitz to lure top AI researchers to Meta.  WIRED has confirmed that three recent hires have now resigned.
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Microsoft President Brad Smith addressed protests over Israel contracts after seven protesters, including two current Microsoft employees, occupied his office  —  REDMOND, Wash. — A few hours after his office was infiltrated and occupied by a group protesting Microsoft's technology contracts with Israel …
Financial Times:
Sources: OpenAI's restructuring may slip into 2026 as it negotiates with Microsoft; failure to reach a deal in 2025 would let SoftBank withhold its $10B funding  —  Software giant wants to retain access to start-up's technology while removing artificial general intelligence' clause
Danny Park / The Block:
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says the US plans to publish GDP and economic data on the blockchain but gives no details on the blockchain or timeline  —  Start trading crypto Get a crypto rewards card 1inch: Swap Sol ↔ EVM  — U.S. will start issuing economic data on the blockchain …
George Hammond / Financial Times:
Q&A with General Catalyst's Hemant Taneja on the VC firm's “AI roll-up” strategy to buy service businesses and inject them with AI, investment bubbles, and more  —  Head of venture capital firm talks about trusting founders' intuition during a bubble, and the threat of mass job losses
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
OpenAI plans to update ChatGPT to better respond to mental distress cues, provide parental controls, and bolster safeguards around conversations about suicide  —  OpenAI is making changes to its popular chatbot following a lawsuit alleging that a teenager who died by suicide this spring relied on ChatGPT as a coach.
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Plaud unveils the $179 Plaud Note Pro, an AI note-taking device with two extra mics to hear audio 16.4 feet away and a 1-inch display, shipping in October  —  The Plaud Note Pro can pick up audio from larger areas and has a new battery-saving mode. … Plaud, the company behind an AI wearable …
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Anthropic releases Claude for Chrome, which lets Claude take actions on the user's behalf within the browser, as a research preview for 1,000 Max subscribers  —  Anthropic is launching a research preview of a browser-based AI agent powered by its Claude AI models, the company announced on Tuesday.
Bloomberg:
Circana: in July, Sea's Free Fire jumped seven spots to 6th in US mobile game sales, above COD, driven by anime and Netflix tie-ins; US users buy 2M Switch 2s  —  US gamers are spending more on Sea Ltd.'s Free Fire than Call of Duty Mobile, with anime and Netflix tie-ins helping the title surge …
Josh Gabert-Doyon / Financial Times:
Tussell: UK government contracts for AI-related projects have reached £573M in 2025 to July 15, up from £468M for the whole of 2024, as it seeks efficiency  —  Ministers hope technology can help streamline the civil service, reduce government waste and save billions

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