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Techmeme
December 12, 2025, 5:00 PM
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Top News

Axios:
Policymakers behind key state AI bills scoff at Trump's EO; some GOP governors are pushing ahead with their own AI bills; Steve Bannon says Sacks misled Trump  —  States are forging ahead with AI laws despite President Trump's new executive order aimed at reining them in.
Gerrit De Vynck / Washington Post:
Trump's AI executive order directs federal agencies to look into withholding federal funding from states passing “the most onerous and excessive laws” around AI  —  The new executive order comes as a growing group of Republicans criticize Trump's staunch support of the tech industry's ambitions for artificial intelligence.
Bloomberg:
David Sacks says Trump's AI EO aims to ease companies' compliance burden and that the administration is working with Congress on a common AI oversight standard
Reuters:
President Trump signs an executive order aimed at preempting a growing number of state AI laws, saying “we want to have one central source of approval”
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget:
In his EO, Trump orders US AG Pam Bondi to create an “AI Litigation Task Force” that meets regularly with David Sacks to challenge “inconsistent” state AI laws
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Amazon Prime Video pulls its AI recaps, which it began testing in November, for Fallout, Bosch, and other shows after users noticed errors in the Fallout recaps  —  Fallout's season one recap wrongly stated that The Ghoul's flashback takes place in the 1950s, rather than the year 2077.
Stevie Bonifield / The Verge:
Google expands Google Translate's live speech translation from Pixel Buds to any headphones, supporting 70+ languages, in beta on compatible Android phones  —  Live speech translations were once only on the Pixel Buds. … Google Translate's latest update brings live speech translations …
Lucas Ropek / TechCrunch:
Sam Altman's Tools for Humanity updates World to make it a “super app” with encrypted chat integration and a Venmo-like tool for sending and requesting crypto  —  World, the biometric ID verification project co-founded by Sam Altman, released the newest version of its app today …
Nina Bambysheva / Forbes:
Kalshi integrates its event trading platform into the popular crypto wallet Phantom; Dune: in November, Kalshi's trading volume hit $5.8B vs. Polymarket's $3.7B  —  As Kalshi's trading volume surpasses Polymarket's, it will now offer prediction market access to Phantom's 15 million users on Solana.
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Sources: Oracle has delayed completion of some OpenAI data centers from 2027 to 2028, largely due to labor and material shortages; Oracle denies delays  —  Oracle Corp. has pushed back the completion dates for some of the data centers it's developing for the artificial intelligence model developer OpenAI …
Carmen Arroyo / Bloomberg:
Sources: X reported $752M in Q3 revenue, up 17% YoY, a net loss of $577.4M, and EBITDA of ~$454M, up 16%; revenue for the first nine months of 2025 was $2B+  —  Sales at Elon Musk's X jumped during the third quarter, but the social network is still dealing with significant costs …
Alex Heath / Sources:
An interview with Nikita Bier, who wants to lure journalists back to X with a rebuilt recommendation algorithm with no keyword suppression or manual downranking  —  Product chief Nikita Bier on journalists who left: “We have to earn their trust.”  Also: Fidji Simo on OpenAI's Code Red, and a new episode of ACCESS.
John Liu / Bloomberg:
Sources: China is considering a ~$28B-to-$70B incentives package, which would be separate from the $50B Big Fund III plan, to support its chipmaking industry  —  China is considering a package of incentives worth as much as $70 billion to bankroll and support its chipmaking industry …
Ben Weiss / Fortune:
YouTube launches an option for US-based creators to receive payouts in PayPal's stablecoin, PYUSD  —  Big Tech continues to tiptoe into crypto.  The latest example is a move by YouTube to let creators on the video platform choose to receive payouts in PayPal's stablecoin.
Thinking Machines Lab:
Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab makes Tinker, its API for fine-tuning language models, generally available, adds support for Kimi K2 Thinking, and more  —  Today we are announcing four updates to Tinker:  — No more waitlist  — New reasoning model: Kimi K2 Thinking
Reuters:
Reddit files a lawsuit against Australia to overturn its social media ban for under-16s, saying it “infringes the implied freedom of political communication”  —  Message board website Reddit (RDDT.N) on Friday filed a lawsuit asking the High Court to overturn Australia's social media ban …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Tim Sweeney: the Ninth Circuit's decision on the Epic v. Apple contempt ruling appeal “completely shuts down” App Store rules letting Apple collect “junk fees”  —  In an interview, Epic Games' CEO says that an appeals court ruling in its case against Apple is ‘really awesome for all developers.’
Bloomberg:
A US appeals court upholds a contempt ruling in Epic v. Apple, but says Apple can argue in a lower court to charge <27% for transactions outside the App Store

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:00 PM ET, December 12, 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.

From Mediagazer

Max Goldbart / Deadline:
The BBC reports license fee payers fell 539K YoY to 23.3M in 2025-26, the biggest fall since 2020-21; license fee income rose £36M to £3.9B after the fee uplift

New York Times:
Sources: the White House directed FBI Director Kash Patel to personally oversee the probe into NYT reporting about Air Force One, before subpoenas were issued

Brooks Barnes / New York Times:
Lionsgate's Michael crosses $1B at the global box office, its first film to reach the milestone, per Rentrak, reviving Hollywood's last major independent studio

More News

Xuedong Huang / Zoom:
Zoom says its “federated AI” model, combining its SLM with open- and closed-source models, got 48.1% on Humanity's Last Exam vs. 45.8% for Gemini 3 Pro w/ tools
Gergely Orosz / @gergelyorosz:
[Thread] Substack quietly added a feature that forced subscribers to download the app to read full newsletters, but says it reverted the change after complaints
Reuters:
EU finance ministers agree on a €3 customs duty on low-value parcels from July 2026, aiming to crack down on Chinese imports from retailers like Shein and Temu

Earlier Picks

Zachary Small / New York Times:
A look at France-based indie game studio Sandfall Interactive, whose critically acclaimed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 had a sub-$10M budget and sold 5M+ copies
Dara Kerr / The Guardian:
xAI partners with El Salvador to deploy Grok across 5,000+ public schools, reaching 1M+ students in an “AI-powered education program” over the next two years
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google launches Disco, a Gemini 3-powered experiment that suggests and creates GenTabs, web apps based on the user's open browser tabs and Gemini chat history
Axios:
The OpenAI deal gives Disney a fair amount of oversight and control over how its IP is used, including a joint steering committee to monitor user creations
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