Techmeme
November 18, 2025, 9:10 AM

Top News

Andrew Griffin / The Independent:
BBC:
xAI:
xAI unveils Grok 4.1, saying its hallucination rate is 3x less compared to its previous models and Grok 4.1 Thinking holds the top spot on LMArena's Text Arena  —  Grok 4.1 is now available to all users on grok.com, 𝕏, and the iOS and Android apps.  It is rolling out immediately …
Financial Times:
CoinGecko: the total market value of 18K+ crypto coins is down 25% since October 6, wiping out ~$1.2T; bitcoin fell 28% to $89.5K, its lowest level since April  —  Bitcoin drops 28% in six weeks as worries over AI stocks spill into digital assets and high-octane bets backfire
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Mastodon founder and CEO Eugen Rochko steps down from the decentralized social network as part of its transition to a nonprofit structure governed by a board  —  Mastodon's creator, Eugen Rochko, is stepping down as CEO of the open source, decentralized social network and X rival …
Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg:
The EU Commission opens an investigation into AWS and Azure to determine whether they should fall under the DMA and says they “occupy very strong positions”  —  Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Corp.'s Azure are under investigation by the European Union to determine whether …
Bloomberg:
Amazon raised $15B in its first US dollar bond offering in three years; sources say the proceeds will be used for acquisitions, capex, share buybacks, and more  —  Amazon.com Inc. raised $15 billion in its first US dollar bond offering in three years, adding to a spree of jumbo debt sales …
@artificialanlys:
Artificial Analysis announces AA-Omniscience, a benchmark for knowledge and hallucination across 40+ topics; Claude 4.1 Opus takes first place in its key metric  —  Announcing AA-Omniscience, our new benchmark for knowledge and hallucination across >40 topics, where all but three models are more likely to hallucinate than give a correct answer Embedded knowledge in language models is important for many real world use cases. Without [image]
Belle Lin / Wall Street Journal:
Lambda, which rents access to AI chips, raised a $1.5B Series E led by TWG Global, after raising $500M in April 2024, taking its total funding to $2.3B  —  The fundraise will help the startup build its own data centers as the AI infrastructure boom shows no signs of letting up
Josh Sisco / Bloomberg:
Filing: the US FTC ends its review of SoftBank's $6.5B acquisition of chip designer Ampere, granting an early termination; SoftBank announced the deal in March  —  The US Federal Trade Commission has ended its review of SoftBank Group Corp.'s acquisition of semiconductor designer Ampere Computing LLC …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Roblox plans to require all users to undergo an age estimation process to access chat features, starting January 2026, in an effort to enhance child safety  —  After scrutiny over its ability to protect children on the platform, Roblox is making a big change.
Martin Arnold / Financial Times:

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Featured Podcasts

Channels with Peter Kafka:
Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz on Sam Altman's Trust Problem
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Acquired:
Ferrari
Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.
Subscribe to Acquired.
Lenny's Podcast:
Hard truths about building in the AI era | Keith Rabois (Khosla Ventures)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
Anthropic's Mythos Dilemma, Violence Against AI, Tokenmaxxing at Meta
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.
Hard Fork:
Anthropic's Cybersecurity Shock Wave + Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz on Their Sam Altman Investigation + One Good Thing
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.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ryan Roslansky: Turning AI Anxiety into Skills for the Future of Work
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.
 

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More News

Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Karissa Bell / Engadget:
Pierluigi Paganini / Security Affairs:

Earlier Picks

Julie Bort / TechCrunch:
CNBC:
Cloudflare:
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Emily Mason / Bloomberg:
Joe Wertz / Bloomberg: