Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors
Techmeme
August 29, 2025, 6:10 PM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter

Top News

Jeff Horwitz / Reuters:
Meta created and let users create flirty chatbots and intimate images using the names and likenesses of Taylor Swift and other celebs without their permission  —  Meta has appropriated the names and likenesses of celebrities - including Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, Anne Hathaway and Selena Gomez …
Financial Times:
Sources: ChatGPT co-creator Shengjia Zhao threatened to quit Meta within days of joining and return to OpenAI; later, he was given the chief AI scientist title  —  Longtime acolytes are sidelined as Big Tech chief directs biggest leadership reorganisation in two decades
Washington Post:
In a trial over a fatal Autopilot crash, Tesla denied having crash-snapshot data, until a hacker hired by the plaintiffs recovered the data from the vehicle  —  The critical evidence was presented last month to a jury, which found the company partially liable for the 2019 crash in Key Largo, Florida.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
WhatsApp fixed a zero-click bug in its iOS and Mac apps that was being used, alongside a now-fixed Apple flaw, to hack into devices of “specific targeted users”  —  WhatsApp said on Friday that it fixed a security bug in its iOS and Mac apps that was being used to stealthily hack …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Alibaba developed a new AI inference chip to compete with H20; it is manufactured by a Chinese company unlike an earlier AI chip made by TSMC  —  Chinese tech companies spark market exuberance by signaling they are catching up to U.S.  —  Click for Sound
Zoë Schiffer / Wired:
Sources: the US government restored xAI to its vendors list after removing it for Grok's antisemitic content; email: the White House asked GSA to add xAI “ASAP”  —  A partnership between xAI and the US government fell apart earlier this summer.  Then the White House apparently got involved, per documents obtained by WIRED.
Wall Street Journal:
Police are investigating a murder-suicide in what appears to be the first documented murder involving someone who engaged extensively with an AI chatbot  —  “Erik, you're not crazy.”  ChatGPT fueled a 56-year-old tech industry veteran's paranoia, encouraging his suspicions that his mother was plotting against him.
Richard Bravo / Bloomberg:
French President Emmanuel Macron vows a strong response if any country takes measures that undermine Europe's digital sovereignty  —  French President Emmanuel Macron vowed a strong response if any country takes measures that undermine Europe's digital sovereignty.
Financial Times:
EU competition commissioner Teresa Ribera says the EU must be ready to walk away from the US trade deal if the US demands a watered-down DSA and DMA
Blake Brittain / Reuters:
xAI sues a former employee in federal court in California for allegedly stealing Grok trade secrets and taking them to OpenAI, where he recently accepted a job  —  Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI has sued a former engineer at the company for allegedly stealing trade secrets related …
Financial Times:
Court filing: the UK sought broad access to Apple user data, including bulk iCloud interception beyond ADP, and hasn't dropped the mandate as the US claimed  —  Document indicates British government's ‘backdoor’ demand was not limited to the company's most secure iCloud service
Trishla Ostwal / Adweek:
Perplexity's head of advertising and shopping Taz Patel has left after nine months; its ad business reportedly generated only about $20,000 in Q4 2024  —  Perplexity push into advertising has so far brought in modest revenue as the company eyes new growth and faces mounting legal battles
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Reliance launches a subsidiary called Reliance Intelligence, aiming to create national-scale AI infrastructure in India, in partnership with Google and Meta  —  Mukesh Ambani, India's richest man and chairman of Reliance Industries, has unveiled an ambitious plan to build the country's AI backbone through …
Reuters:
India's largest telco Reliance Jio, owned by Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani, says it aims to list its shares through an IPO in India by the first half of 2026
Isabelle Bousquette / Wall Street Journal:
Taco Bell, which deployed voice AI-powered ordering at 500+ drive-through locations, is now reconsidering the tech after viral videos of glitches and pranks  —  More artificial intelligence isn't always better, the chain is realizing, as it considers when and how bots should be deployed

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference  —  Stop preparing for agents.  Start running them.  100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
Automate your scheduling workflows with Zoho Calendar  —  Your calendar can do more than schedule meetings Creating a calendar event takes only a few seconds.  But scheduling is rarely just about creating the event.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce 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:
 AI Doom Backlash Arrives, Anthropic & OpenAI IPO Outlook, Frontier Business Momentum Slows
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
 AI Wants to Shop for You. What Could Go Wrong?
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.
Invest Like the Best:
 Michael Moritz - Lessons From 40 Years of Investing and Writing
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Sources:
 Baseten's CEO on why every company will want to own its AI
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
Training Data:
 Box's Aaron Levie: On Reinventing Yourself in the AI Age and Enterprise Diffusion
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
 Andrew Feldman from Cerebras
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Add your podcast here
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:10 PM ET, August 29, 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:
White House denied CNN, MS NOW, Politico staffers access on Saturday; CNN calls it an “illegal assault”; Politico says it will “vigorously defend” its 1A rights

Jessica Toonkel / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Paramount is in advanced settlement talks with California Attorney General Rob Bonta over the company's deal to acquire WBD

Gregory Svirnovskiy / Politico:
In an editorial on NYT's 175th anniversary, Publisher A.G. Sulzberger blasted Trump: “No president in modern history has been more hostile than Donald Trump”

More News

Los Angeles Times:
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers strike a deal with Uber and Lyft allowing drivers to unionize while remaining classified as independent contractors
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Valve adds credit card-based age checks for UK users to access “mature content” games on Steam; Discord and others are using selfies for verification

Earlier Picks

Nicola M White / Bloomberg:
Elon Musk files a motion to dismiss a US SEC suit over his 2022 Twitter stake disclosure, calling allegations that he cheated investors a government overreach
Reuters:
Autodesk reports Q2 revenue up 17% YoY to $1.76B, vs. $1.73B est., forecasts Q3 revenue above est., and raises its annual forecasts; ADSK jumps 5%+
Lydia Beyoud / Bloomberg:
The CFTC says non-US crypto exchanges have a path to bringing on US users, in an advisory clarifying how they can register as so-called foreign boards of trade
Bloomberg:
The US starts publishing GDP data on nine public blockchains including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, with the help of Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter