Techmeme
October 8, 2025, 7:40 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Nvidia's and OpenAI's wave of deals is escalating concerns that the $1T+ AI boom is being artificially propped up by interconnected business transactions  —  A wave of deals and partnerships are escalating concerns that the trillion-dollar AI boom is being propped up by interconnected business transactions.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Google Pixel Watch 4 review: a significant leap in Google's smartwatch lineup with a nice domed display, but Gemini is unreliable, and GPS maps are still wonky  —  Five years ago, I used to groan when it came time to review an Android smartwatch.  Back then, anything that wasn't a Samsung watch was disappointing at best.
Ryan Whitwam / Ars Technica:
Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold review: nice display and most AI features run on device, but cameras are a step down from other Pro Pixels, Tensor G5 shows small gains  —  Google delivers another phone that is slightly better than its predecessor—is that enough?  —  When the first foldable phones …
Billy Steele / Engadget:
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Filing: Elon Musk and X settle a lawsuit by former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, and others over $128M+ in unpaid 2024 severance  —  The settlement agreement over withheld severance is dependent on Musk meeting ‘certain conditions.’
Michael Kan / PCMag:
Joseph Cox / 404 Media:
Apple has removed Eyes Up, which archives video evidence of ICE abuses, from the App Store; unlike ICEBlock, it doesn't share ICE officers' real-time locations  —  Apple removed an app for preserving TikToks, Instagram reels, news reports, and videos documenting abuses by ICE, 404 Media has learned.
John Revill / Reuters:
SoftBank Group agrees to acquire ABB's robotics business, which generated $2.3B in sales in 2024, for $5.4B; ABB expects the deal to close in mid-to-late 2026  —  SoftBank Group (9984.T) said on Wednesday it has agreed to buy the robotics business of Swiss engineering group ABB (ABBN.S) in a $5.4 billion deal.
Dasha Afanasieva / Bloomberg:
US House lawmakers criticize ASML, Tokyo Electron, KLA, and other equipment makers for selling to the Chinese military and helping build China's chip industry  —  Semiconductor companies including Applied Materials Inc. and ASML Holding NV fell after a US House committee said that the industry …
Financial Times:
Sources: OpenAI and Anthropic consider using investor funds to settle potential claims from multibillion-dollar lawsuits, as insurers balk at covering AI risks  —  Companies struggle to assess scale of financial risks emerging from artificial intelligence  —  OpenAI and Anthropic …
Barbara Moens / Financial Times:
Sources: Meta and Apple are close to settling two EU antitrust cases and agreeing to a deal to change their business practices after a total €700M in DMA fines  —  US Big Tech groups in final stages of agreeing deal with Brussels to avoid series of escalating fines
Suzanne Smalley / The Record:
German officials say they will vote against the EU's “Chat Control” proposal, signaling the bloc will not have enough support to pass the measure on October 14  —  German officials on Wednesday said they will vote against a European Union proposal to allow the scanning …
CryptPad Blog:
Sam Clark / Politico:
Mark Hallam / DW News:
Germany's Federal Cartel Office opens an investigation into whether Temu is influencing the pricing of third-party merchants, potentially stifling competition  —  Germany's competition watchdog has announced an investigation of Chinese discount online retail site temu.com, suspecting it of influencing retailers' prices.
More: Reuters
Kurt Schlosser / GeekWire:
Amazon announces Amazon Pharmacy kiosks to quickly dispense medications to patients after an appointment, initially rolling out in its One Medical offices in LA  —  Amazon is erasing the distance between the doctor's office and the pharmacy with the introduction of new Amazon Pharmacy kiosks …
Alex Konrad / Upstarts Media:
New York-based Crosby, a law firm that uses AI to help speed up the contracts process, raised a $20M Series A co-led by Index Ventures, BCV, and Elad Gil  —  Crosby, led by lawyer turned founder Ryan Daniels, has raised a $20 million Series A from Index and Bain Capital Ventures to expand its AI-assisted legal work.
Los Angeles Times:
Prosecutors say the evidence against a man accused of starting what became the Pacific Palisades fire includes a ChatGPT-generated image of a burning city  —  - Authorities have arrested a suspect in the Palisades fire after a nine-month investigation into the blaze that killed 12 people.
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Q&A with Sam Altman on OpenAI's unifying vision, infrastructure deals, the investor mindset, ChatGPT apps, Instant Checkout, Sora, copyright, feedback, and more  —  Today's Stratechery Interview is with OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman.  I have interviewed Altman twice before …
Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information:
Relace, which makes tools and specialized language models to help AI agents code faster for customers like Lovable and Figma, raised a $23M Series A led by a16z  —  Countless startups sell tools to software engineers, such as version control systems to track who's making changes to a codebase …
Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg:
David AI, which sells audio data sets for AI training, raised a $50M Series B, sources say at a $500M valuation, up from ~$100M from its $25M Series A in May  —  David AI Labs Inc. a startup selling audio data sets to help train artificial intelligence models, has raised $50 million …
Financial Times:
UK filings: Revolut CEO and largest shareholder Nik Storonsky has changed his residency from the UK to the UAE; Revolut is awaiting a full UK banking license  —  Change in billionaire's country of residence disclosed in Companies House filing  —  Nik Storonsky, Revolut's billionaire co-founder …
Pew Research Center:
A survey of US parents: 90% say their kids aged 12 or younger watch TV, 68% use a tablet, 61% use a smartphone, 50% use a gaming device, and 8% use a chatbot  —  From YouTube to smartphones to tablets, tech is part of kids' lives.  AI chatbots are part of the mix now, too.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26  —  Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Zoho:
The best time to become a Zoho Partner  —  The business world is not only changing but it is being rebuilt.  Customers want connected ecosystems that will help them automate, unify their data, and do more with less.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Hard Fork:
Australia Kicks Kids Off Social Media + Is the A.I. Water Issue Fake? + Hard Fork Wrapped
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Access:
Why the next AI frontier is phone calls, with Beside CEO Maxime Germain
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Great Chat:
So what happens after AGI?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
Big Technology Podcast:
AI Is Upending Law. Is That A Sign For The Rest Of Us? — With Melia Russell
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.
[trading places]:
Ben Black Akkadian Ventures🏆 | Secondaries Secrets 💎 | RAISE Conf 🎯 | Vercel $9B 🚀
a very bad podcast about broken unicorns & busted carry hosted by dave mcclure and aman verjee
Subscribe to [trading places].
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:40 PM ET, October 8, 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.

More News

Naga Avan-Nomayo / The Block:
Tom Warren / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Nick Lichtenberg / Fortune:
Washington Post:
Engineering at Meta:
Kunal Manchanada / Entrackr:
Anthropic: