Techmeme
October 1, 2025, 7:20 AM

Top News

Ina Fried / Axios:
OpenAI releases an invitation-only Sora app on iOS, powered by Sora 2, to let people create and share AI-generated videos of themselves and their friends  —  An Android version will follow eventually, OpenAI told Axios.  — The social app is powered by Sora 2, a new version of OpenAI's video model, which also launched Tuesday.
OpenAI:
OpenAI launches Sora 2, which it says may be the “GPT‑3.5 moment for video” with the ability to follow intricate instructions spanning multiple shots  —  Our latest video generation model is more physically accurate, realistic, and controllable than prior systems.
Hayden Field / The Verge:
OpenAI says Sora has guardrails to block depictions of public figures and to ensure that a user's likeness is used only with their consent, via “cameos”  —  OpenAI's new Sora AI video app is iPhone-only, for now. … OpenAI has a new version of the Sora AI video generator …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Amazon unveils the $100 Echo Dot Max and $220 Echo Studio smart speakers and upgrades its $180 Echo Show 8 and $220 Echo Show 11 smart displays, all with Alexa+  —  New speakers include revamped look, upgraded silicon and integration with Alexa+ subscription service.
Ryan Epps / Tom's Guide:
Andrew Liszewski / The Verge:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Thomas Buckley / Bloomberg:
SAG-AFTRA criticizes AI-generated actress Tilly Norwood, the subject of a viral UK TV show parody, saying it opposes replacing performers with “synthetics”  —  SAG-Aftra, the union of film and TV industry actors, criticized the AI-generated character Tilly Norwood …
Politico:
The White House withdraws Brian Quintenz's nomination to lead the CFTC; the Winklevoss twins pressured Trump in July to reconsider his nomination  —  The White House withdrew Brian Quintenz's nomination to be a board member and chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission late Tuesday …
Krisztian Sandor / CoinDesk:
Stripe launches Open Issuance, a Bridge-powered platform that lets companies create its own stablecoins, used by crypto wallet Phantom to issue its CASH token  —  Payments giant Stripe unveiled a stablecoin issuance platform and AI commerce tools at its New York showcase on Tuesday …
Z.ai:
Z.ai releases GLM-4.6, an open-weights model with a context window of up to 200K tokens, claiming near parity with Claude Sonnet 4 on coding and reasoning tasks  —  Today, we are releasing the latest version of our flagship model: GLM-4.6.  Compared with GLM-4.5, this generation brings several key improvements:
Lex Fridman:
Q&A with Pavel Durov on Telegram, his arrest, censorship, not using a phone, Romanian elections, VK, encryption, Edward Snowden, spring 2018 poisoning, and more  —  - Watch the full YouTube version of the podcast  —  Table of Contents  —  Here are the loose “chapters” in the conversation.
Russell Brandom / TechCrunch:
Wikimedia Deutschland launches the Wikidata Embedding Project, a vector-based semantic search database with nearly 120M entries, to make data accessible to AI  —  On Wednesday, Wikimedia Deutschland announced a new database that will make Wikipedia's wealth of knowledge more accessible to AI models.
More: The Verge
Suvashree Ghosh / Bloomberg:
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino says the company plans to distribute its new USAT token on Rumble to capture US market share; Tether holds a 48% stake in Rumble  —  Tether Holdings SA will lean on conservative video streaming platform Rumble Inc. to help distribute tokens as it seeks to conquer an increasingly competitive US crypto market.
Andrew Higgins / New York Times:
China's Global Digital Trade Expo in Hangzhou showcased robots, EVs, and a self-driving yacht, but questions remain over the US-China trade dispute and profits  —  The vast Global Digital Trade Expo in Hangzhou stood as a rebuke to U.S. efforts to hem in China's technology.
Ram Iyer / TechCrunch:
Imgur blocks UK access after the ICO notified it of a possible fine over its handling of kids' data; the ICO calls Imgur's move a “commercial decision”  —  Imgur, one of the web's most popular image sharing and hosting platforms, has shut off access to its site to users in the United Kingdom …
Richard Milne / Financial Times:
Swedish AI startups Lovable, Legora, and Sana, which is set to be acquired by Workday, highlight a dilemma in European tech: sell out or bet on getting big  —  Swedish start-ups show dilemma over choosing between selling up or betting on becoming huge  —  Anton Osika's AI start …
Jenny Vrentas / New York Times:
How live sports betting has exploded in popularity in the US, accounting for more than half of the money wagered on FanDuel and DraftKings in recent quarters  —  As the Oklahoma City Thunder were on their way to winning the decisive Game 7 of this year's N.B.A. Finals, a flurry of shadow games …
Diana Novak Jones / Reuters:
A California jury finds Uber not liable for a woman's alleged sexual assault by her driver, in the first trial out of 500+ consolidated lawsuits in the state  —  Uber is not liable for the sexual assault of a woman who said she was attacked by her driver on a ride she ordered from the app …
More: Bloomberg Law, New York Times, and The Japan Times
X: @law360 and @blawBluesky: @legal.reuters.comThreads: @si14ag

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Earlier Picks

Celia Ford / Transformer:
Jody Godoy / Reuters:
Tina Reed / Axios:
Bloomberg:
Natalie Lung / Bloomberg: