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Techmeme
August 30, 2025, 5:45 PM
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Top News

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
The price per token for AI models has fallen, but costs for developers are rising as newer reasoning models require more tokens to complete tasks  —  With models doing more ‘thinking,’ the small companies that buy AI from the giants to create apps and services are feeling the pinch
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 …
Tor Blog:
How Turkmenistan turned censorship into a lucrative extortion scheme by intentionally restricting internet access in order to sell its own VPNs to citizens  —  In July 2021, a sudden drop in Tor usage in Turkmenistan called our attention.  Tor would come to understand that this marked …
David Gilbert / Wired:
Purgatory, tied to online community The Com, claims responsibility for swatting attacks on US universities, airports, and more, charging $20 to $95 per incident  —  WIRED spoke to a self-proclaimed leader of an online group called Purgatory, which charged as little as $20 to call in fake threats against schools.
David DiMolfetta / Nextgov/FCW:
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem fires 24 FEMA IT staffers, including the CIO and CISO; DHS says they failed security protocols and let hackers access FEMA networks  —  Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is terminating two dozen members in the Federal Emergency Management Agency's IT department …
Cory Weinberg / The Information:
Filing: StubHub, which is planning a September IPO, says revenue grew 3% to $828M in H1, missing its earlier projection of $885M, with adjusted EBITDA down 7%  —  Even as StubHub makes a renewed push to go public, its business isn't expanding as quickly as it had hoped.
More: The Times
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
ChatGPT integration in Apple's Xcode 26 beta 7 defaults to GPT-5; developers can now also use Claude Sonnet 4 by signing into their paid Claude account  —  Apple has released a new beta of Xcode 26 for developers today with a pair of notable changes.  There's now support for ChatGPT 5 …
The Information:
Sources: Meta Superintelligence Labs' leaders have discussed using Google or OpenAI's models to power Meta AI and other AI features in Meta's social media apps  —  Meta Platforms' plans to improve the artificial intelligence features in its apps could lead the company to partner with Google or OpenAI, two of its biggest AI rivals.

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:45 PM ET, August 30, 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

Jennifer Maas / Variety:
Disney reports Q3 revenue up 7% YoY to $25.2B, below $25.4B est., adjusted EPS of $2.06, above $1.85 est., and entertainment revenue up 6% to $11.3B

Katie Robertson / New York Times:
The NYT reports Q2 revenue up 11% YoY to $762.5M, digital-only subscription revenue up 16% to $407.9M, and adjusted operating profit up 16% to $155.3M

Ted Johnson / Deadline:
A US federal judge sets the antitrust trial over Paramount's acquisition of WBD for March 2 to March 19, 2027; Paramount had sought a November start

More News

Andreessen Horowitz:
Top 100 AI consumer apps: Gemini ranks #2 behind ChatGPT on mobile with ~50% of its MAUs, with Grok at #4; on the web, Gemini has ~12% of ChatGPT's visits

Earlier Picks

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”
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
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
Karen Freifeld / Reuters:
The US makes it harder for Samsung, SK Hynix, and Intel to produce chips in China by revoking waivers for the use of US equipment in their Chinese operations
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