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October 16, 2025, 7:10 PM
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Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft launches Windows features to help weave AI into regular Windows 11 PCs, including rolling out a “Hey, Copilot!” wake word and Copilot Voice and Vision  —  Microsoft is rewriting Windows to turn computers into AI PCs that you talk to.
Hayden Field / The Verge:
Anthropic announces Skills for Claude, a tool with folders of instructions, scripts, and resources that Claude can load to improve performance on some tasks  —  The announcement follows a similar new tool from OpenAI. … AI agents spent years as a concept and then as an experiment.
Heather Knight / New York Times:
Email: Ron Conway, a close friend of Marc Benioff for 25+ years, stepped down from the Salesforce Foundation board, citing Benioff's comments supporting Trump  —  Ron Conway stepped down from the board of Salesforce's philanthropic arm after the company's chief executive, Marc Benioff …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple readies a slimmer M6 MacBook Pro featuring an OLED touch display with a hole-punch design replacing the notch, for late 2026 or early 2027  —  Apple Inc. is preparing to finally launch a touch-screen version of its Mac computer, reversing course on a stance that dates back to co-founder Steve Jobs.
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
DoorDash and Waymo announce a partnership to let DoorDash use Waymo's robotaxis for delivery, starting with deliveries from Phoenix's DashMart store  —  Customers will have to come down to the curb to retrieve their orders from the driverless car's trunk.
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
Amazon's Ring partners with Flock to let law enforcement agencies that work with Flock request footage from Ring doorbell users  —  Amazon's surveillance camera maker Ring announced a partnership on Thursday with Flock, a maker of AI-powered surveillance cameras that share footage with law enforcement.
Jeremy Stern / Colossus:
A profile of Joshua Kushner, including Thrive Capital's investments in GitHub and Stripe and its role in reinstating Sam Altman as OpenAI CEO in November 2023  —  Joshua Kushner, Thrive Capital, and the American dream  —  The road to Rick Rubin's house was long and winding for Joshua Kushner …
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Apple and NBCUniversal announce an Apple TV and Peacock Premium bundle for $14.99 per month, a 30% discount over the individual subscriptions  —  In addition to getting both services at a discount of more than 30 percent, Apple TV will add select Peacock programming, while Peacock will get selected Apple TV shows.
Ina Fried / Axios:
Commonwealth Fusion Systems partners with Google DeepMind to use Google's open-source plasma simulator, Torax, for accelerating fusion energy development  —  Google DeepMind is partnering with a Boston-area energy startup to use AI to speed the development of fusion as a clean energy source.
More: Google DeepMind, TechCrunch, and GeekWire
X: @pfau and @googledeepmind.  LinkedIn: Anna Koivuniemi.  Bluesky: @ian-goodfellow.  Forums: r/singularity
Megan Morrone / Axios:
OpenAI hires black hole theoretical physicist Alex Lupsasca, the first person to join the OpenAI for Science initiative led by Kevin Weil, to shape its research  —  Prize-winning black hole theoretical physicist Alex Lupsasca has joined OpenAI's new science team, Axios has learned.
Bluesky: @wesley83
Krisztian Sandor / CoinDesk:
Ripple acquires GTreasury, a platform used by Fortune 500 companies for managing cash, foreign exchange, and risk, for $1B, set to close in the coming months  —  The deal, pending regulatory approvals, would give Ripple access to large enterprise clients as it is building out financial services around its digital asset business.
Financial Times:
HR software startup Deel raised $300M led by Ribbit Capital at a $17B valuation, up from $12.6B earlier in 2025, and says revenue crossed $100M in September  —  HR start-up raises $300mn from Ribbit, Coatue and Andreessen amid espionage allegations from rival Rippling
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Pinterest adds new tools that let users limit how much AI-generated content they see in their feed in certain categories, including beauty, art, and home decor  —  Following backlash over an increase in “AI slop” taking over users' feeds and making it less useful, Pinterest on Thursday added …
Steven J. Horowitz / Variety:
Spotify partners with Sony Music Group, WMG, UMG, Merlin, and Believe to develop “responsible” AI products and says it will build a generative AI research lab  —  In a significant step towards interfacing with AI and its impact on the music industry, Spotify has partnered …
Bloomberg:
Sources: F5 blames its breach on state-backed hackers from China who used the Brickstorm malware to infiltrate its network for 12+ months and steal source code  —  A potentially “catastrophic” breach of a major US-based cybersecurity provider has been blamed on state-backed hackers from China …
Jaures Yip / CNBC:
Upgrade, which offers financial services like online loans, raised $165M led by Neuberger Berman at a $7.3B valuation and is “12 to 18 months away from an IPO”  —  Upgrade, the online lender started by LendingClub founder Renaud Laplanche, has raised a new round of funding that values the startup at $7.3 billion.
Wall Street Journal:
The White House says representatives from Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon, and other corporate donors to a $250M ballroom attended a dinner with President Trump  —  Event included representatives from Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon.com and Palantir
Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg:
Kraken acquires US-licensed futures exchange Small Exchange from IG Group, for $32.5M in cash and $67.5M in Kraken parent company's Payward stock, before an IPO  —  Kraken has acquired a US-licensed futures exchange from IG Group as the crypto heavyweight seeks to broaden the range of products it can offer directly to US customers.
Davis Janowski / WealthManagement.com:
Aboon, an AI-powered platform for financial advisers to help business owners launch and manage 401(k) plans, raised a $17.5M seed led by Bain Capital Ventures  —  Backed by lead investor Bain Capital Ventures, the funding will go toward further automation development and product expansion.
Bloomberg:
Sources: CME Group plans to debut financial contracts tied to sports games and economic indicators by the end of 2025, including through its FanDuel partnership  —  CME Group Inc. is planning to debut financial contracts tied to both sports games and economic indicators by the end of the year …
Debby Wu / Bloomberg:
TSMC reports Q3 net profit up 39% YoY to ~$14.8B, above est., and raises its 2025 revenue growth projection to the mid-30% range, citing “very strong” AI demand  —  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. hiked its projection for 2025 revenue growth for the second time this year …
Financial Times:
Investigation: the Trump family's crypto empire has reaped over $1B in pre-tax profits over the past year; Eric Trump says the true figure is “probably more”  —  The president and his family have built a rapidly growing digital assets empire which has been fuelled by the administration's industry-friendly policies
Matt Burgess / Wired:
How facial recognition software rejects people with facial differences, who number an estimated 100M+ worldwide, blocking them from accessing essential services  —  An estimated 100 million people live with facial differences.  As face recognition tech becomes widespread …
Bluesky: @brbarrett, @lhn, @mattburgess1, and @couts.  Forums: r/technews
Financial Times:
Analysis: 10 loss-making AI startups, like OpenAI and Anthropic, gained almost $1T in valuation over the past year, fueling fears of a bubble in private markets  —  Unprecedented funding leads 10 groups including OpenAI and Elon Musk's xAI to gain almost $1tn in value in past year

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:10 PM ET, October 16, 2025.

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From Mediagazer

Financial Times:
Sources: WBD's board wanted a proposal it could sign immediately, and Netflix was the only bidder whose paperwork was fully executable the night of December 4

John Koblin / New York Times:
The Netflix-WBD deal should quiet concerns, for now, from CNN employees worried about the prospect of Paramount combining CBS News and CNN in a WBD acquisition

Isabella Simonetti / Wall Street Journal:
Vanity Fair and Olivia Nuzzi agree to part ways and let her contract expire at the end of the year, following new allegations about her affair with RFK Jr.

More News

Earlier Picks

Deena Mousa / MIT Technology Review:
How AI-powered tools like PainChek, an app that scans a person's face for tiny muscle movements, are helping health care providers better assess patients' pain
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
An interview with YouTube CEO Neal Mohan on YouTube as the future of TV, paying out $100B+ to its creators, partnering with the NFL, scripted content, and more
The Keyword:
Google releases Cell2Sentence-Scale 27B (C2S-Scale), a 27B-parameter foundation model for single-cell analysis built on its Gemma family of open models
Ryan S. Gladwin / Decrypt:
Paxos says it “mistakenly minted” $300T of PayPal's PYUSD stablecoin on October 15 on the Ethereum blockchain and then “burned” the tokens 20+ minutes later
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