Techmeme
August 30, 2025, 1:50 PM

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 …
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  —  An internal FEMA email obtained by Nextgov/FCW ordered all agency employees to change their passwords “due to recent cybersecurity incidents and threats.”
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.
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 …
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  —  5th edition  —  This is the fifth edition of our Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps which reflects two and a half years of data on how everyday AI usage is evolving.
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

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