Techmeme
December 10, 2025, 8:35 AM

Top News

Josh Taylor / The Guardian:
Australia's ban on under-16 social media users takes effect, as Meta, YouTube, and others remove users; platforms that don't comply risk up to AU$49.5M in fines  —  Accounts held by users under 16 must be removed on apps that include TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Kick, Twitch and Threads under ban
The Guardian:
Australia eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant says under-16s slipping through the cracks of the social media ban will be “booted off” the platforms in time  —  Albanese says commencement of ban a ‘proud day’ for him as prime minister, while eSafety commissioner unconcerned by reports of children bypassing restrictions
Bloomberg:
Australia's under-16 social media ban currently excludes Discord, GitHub, LEGO Play, Roblox, Steam, Google Classroom, Messenger, WhatsApp, and YouTube Kids  —  Young teenagers in Australia have been barred from social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok in one of the toughest crackdowns …
The Information:
Sources: DeepSeek is developing its new AI model using several thousand Nvidia Blackwell chips, which were smuggled into China via third-party countries  —  DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup, has been developing its next major model using several thousand Nvidia's state-of-the-art Blackwell chips …
Dylan Butts / CNBC:
Amazon plans to invest $35B+ in India's cloud and AI sector by 2030, adding to the nearly $40B it has invested in India, and expects to create 1M more jobs  —  Amazon on Wednesday committed to investing over $35 billion in India's cloud and artificial intelligence space by 2030, as hyperscalers race to get a foothold in the market.
Christine Chung / New York Times:
The US CBP proposes vetting five years of social media history for travelers from the UK, France, Germany, and more; the current system only requires basic info  —  Even visitors from countries like Britain and France, whose citizens don't need visas, would have to share five years' worth of social media.
Eli Tan / New York Times:
Sources: this fall, Alexandr Wang told people that he disagreed with top Meta execs like Chris Cox and Andrew Bosworth, including on using Instagram data for AI  —  When Mark Zuckerberg revamped Meta's artificial intelligence operations this year, he recruited a new leader — Alexandr Wang …
Bloomberg:
Sources: SpaceX plans an IPO in mid-to-late 2026, seeking to raise far above $30B and targeting a ~$1.5T valuation, which would make it the largest IPO to date  —  SpaceX is moving ahead with plans for an initial public offering that would seek to raise significantly more than $30 billion …
New York Times:
Sources: Lip-Bu Tan's dual roles as Intel CEO and tech investor cause consternation in the industry and at Intel; four ex-Intel execs say it caused them to exit  —  Lip-Bu Tan, who was appointed chief executive of Intel in March, is also a longtime venture capitalist.  His dual roles have caused some consternation.
More: Wired
Joe Wilkins / Futurism:
McDonald's Netherlands pulls an AI-generated Christmas ad, made by TBWA\NEBOKO with film production company Sweetshop, after backlash that the ad is distasteful  —  There's just one issue: pretty much everybody hates it.  —  This year, McDonald's decided to get in on the corporate slopfest …
Boom:
Ben Casselman / New York Times:
Study: ~200 Instacart users across four US cities saw different prices for the same items from the same store at the same time; Instacart confirms running tests  —  The findings are the latest example of how the notion of a single price is breaking down in the digital age, a trend economists say could be pushing up some prices.
Wired:
Slack CEO Denise Dresser, in the role since November 2023, is stepping down to join OpenAI as the company's chief revenue officer  —  A memo obtained by WIRED confirms Denise Dresser's departure from Slack.  She is now headed to OpenAI.  —  Slack CEO Denise Dresser is leaving the company …
Peter Andringa / Financial Times:
Documents and former US government officials detail ICE's digital surveillance capabilities, amid a drive to deport 1M people in President Trump's first year  —  The US is pulling in vast amounts of personal information in its drive to deport 1mn people this year
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Chinese AI startup Z.ai releases the GLM-4.6V open-weight vision models, with support for native function calling, available with 106B and 9B parameters  —  The release includes two models in “large” and “small” sizes:  — GLM-4.6V (106B), a larger 106-billion parameter model aimed at cloud-scale inference
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google adds new pinch and wrist gestures to the Pixel Watch 4 and says Watch 3 and Watch 4 will now use an on-device Gemma-based AI model for Smart Replies  —  After missing out on last month's Feature Drop, Google is rolling out a sizable Pixel Watch 4 update this December that adds one-handed gestures.
Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg:
Coupang CEO Park Dae-jun resigns after the company incurred South Korea's largest-ever data breach, in which the personal data of 30M+ people was compromised  —  Coupang Chief Executive Officer Park Dae-jun resigned over his failure to prevent South Korea's largest-ever data breach …
Jen Judson / Bloomberg:
The US DOD says it has chosen Google's Gemini for Government to power its new GenAI.mil platform for the US military, as part of a $200M contract from July  —  The Defense Department said it has chosen Alphabet Inc.'s Gemini for Government system to deliver artificial intelligence capability …

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Bloomberg:
Romolo Tosiani / Reuters:
Yasmin Gagne / Fast Company:
Anthropic: