Techmeme: A profile of Nex, which makes the $249 Nex Playground motion-based gaming system targeted toward kids and projects more than $150M of sales this year (Ben Cohen/Wall Street Journal)

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December 13, 2025, 5:35 AM

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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.

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

More: NPR, AfroTech, CNBC, Crypto Briefing, The American Bazaar, The Information, CBS News, STAT, Tech in Asia, and The American Conservative

X: @mrddmia and @davidsacks

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

More: Techdirt, naked capitalism, NPR, StrictlyVC, Hard Reset, CIO Dive, Breitbart, Above the Law, Sludge, American Banker, Fierce Network, Mock Paper Scissors, and Tech Policy Press

Bluesky: @willoremus.com. Forums: r/politics and r/samharris

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”

More: The White House, Tech Policy Press, Wired, The Record, New York Times, eWeek, Colorado Politics, Reason, New York Post, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Lawfare, MS NOW, Dailyfly News, E&E News, StateScoop, Techstrong.ai, Transformer, PCMag, BBC, CNBC, Baller Alert, Analytics India Magazine, UPI, Associated Press, Barron's Online, The Verge, Politico, NBC News, and Engadget

LinkedIn: David Schweidel and Keri Tietjen Smith

Bluesky: @murray.senate.gov, @datasociety, @noethematt, @haroldfeld, @mattmcneilshow, @maxkennerly, @karrieurbanist, @ketanjoshi.co, @jjvincent, @ketanjoshi.co, @lorak, @vanhollen.senate.gov, @sarajacobs.house.gov, @altnps, and @thereverended

Mastodon: @fromjason@mastodon.social and @kevin@mastodon.km6g.us

Forums: Hacker News, r/KnowledgeFight, r/JoeRogan, r/Economics, r/moderatepolitics, r/ArtistHate, r/antiai, r/artificial, r/somethingiswrong2024, r/singularity, r/inthenews, r/USNewsHub, r/technology, r/politics, r/politics, and r/politics

Robin Wigglesworth / Financial Times:

Cisco's stock touched a new record high of $80.25 on December 10, surpassing its previous split-adjusted high of $80.06 on March 27, 2000; CSCO is up 31.64% YTD — 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳 — It only took 25 years, eight months and 13 days, but the stock of Cisco Systems finally hit a new record high.

More: Bloomberg, CNBC, Barchart.com, and Barron's Online

X: @morningbrew and @business. Bluesky: @jessefelder. Forums: Slashdot

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 …

Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:

OpenAI quietly adopted Anthropic's “skills” mechanism in ChatGPT and Codex; ChatGPT's skills include creating and modifying spreadsheets, docx files, and PDFs — One of the things that most excited me about Anthropic's new Skills mechanism back in October is how easy it looked for other platforms to implement.

More: GitHub. X: @morqon, @natebjones, @simonw, @simonw, @nummanthinks, @simonw, @simonw, @_simonsmith, @simonw, @simonw, @joedevon, and @mweinbach. Forums: Hacker News

Dina Bass / Bloomberg:

Broadcom's shares fell 11% on December 12, their biggest single-day drop since January, after the company's AI sales outlook fell short of investor expectations — Broadcom Inc., a chip company vying with Nvidia Corp. for AI computing revenue, suffered the worst stock decline in more than 10 months …

More: Taipei Times, TVNewsCheck, Motley Fool, CNBC, Benzinga, Proactive, Barron's Online, Reuters, Broadcom Inc., The Information, and CNBC

Bloomberg:

Sources: Intel is in advanced talks to acquire AI chip startup SambaNova for about $1.6B including debt; the deal could come together as soon as next month — Intel Corp. is in advanced talks to acquire artificial intelligence chip startup SambaNova Systems Inc. for about $1.6 billion including debt …

More: The Economic Times, Tech in Asia, SiliconANGLE, and Dow Jones Newswires

Andrew Welsch / Barron's Online:

Automated digital wealth management company Wealthfront's stock closed up 1.36% in its Nasdaq debut, valuing it at ~$2.7B, after raising $486M in its IPO — Wealthfront stock trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol WLTH. Its IPO priced at the top of its expected range.

More: Wealthfront Blog, Axios, Forbes, San Francisco Business Times, Index Ventures, Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, PitchBook, This Week in Fintech, Fast Company, Reuters, Tech in Asia, and The Information

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 …

More: The Keyword, The Keyword, The Hans India, Moneycontrol, Ars Technica, The Indian Express, 9to5Google, Curb Cuts, ZDNET, CNET, Mashable, How-To Geek, Phandroid, Android Central, SammyGuru, Deal N Tech, PCWorld, iPhone in Canada, Engadget, TechCrunch, Android Authority, Android Faithful, Droid Life, and GSMArena.com

X: @google, @google, @kimmonismus, and @googleai. Bluesky: @chicagomike

Forums: r/Android and r/Bard

Financial Times:

OpenAI hopes the Disney deal boosts Sora, which has high costs and limited traction; Sensor Tower: users average 13 minutes per day on Sora vs. 90 on TikTok — Sora has struggled to build an engaged audience despite already hosting bootleg content from the Hollywood studio

More: Nikkei Asia and MediaNama. X: @tbpn

See also Mediagazer

Loren Grush / Bloomberg:

Internal message: SpaceX has authorized an insider share sale at $421/share, valuing the company at ~$800B, and said it's preparing for a possible IPO in 2026 — SpaceX has authorized an insider share sale that values Elon Musk's rocket and satellite maker at about $800 billion …

More: Wall Street Journal, Yahoo Finance, Reuters, HotAir, and New York Times

X: @rmac18. Bluesky: @rmac. Forums: r/space

Isabelle Lee / Bloomberg:

Seagate and Western Digital, with stocks each up 200%+ in 2025, will join Nasdaq 100 before the December 22 market open; GlobalFoundries will leave the index — Six firms are set to join the Nasdaq 100 Index as part of its annual reconstitution, the benchmark's overseer said Friday.

More: Reuters and Nasdaq

Ben Cohen / Wall Street Journal:

A profile of Nex, which makes the $249 Nex Playground motion-based gaming system targeted toward kids and projects more than $150M of sales this year — How an obscure company pivoted, then pivoted again, nearly ran out of money—and built a hit product

Mark Haranas / CRN:

Indian IT giant TCS agrees to acquire Coastal Cloud, a Florida-based Salesforce consulting partner, for $700M, in a bid to boost its AI and US customer business — Tata Consultancy Services is buying U.S.-based Salesforce Summit Partner Coastal Cloud for $700 million to boost its global presence and AI business.

Financial Times:

Shares of data center real estate company Fermi closed down 34% after a tenant terminated a $150M agreement to help fund an AI campus in West Texas — Stock price of company co-founded by ex-US energy secretary Rick Perry fell as much as 46% — Shares in data centre real estate group Fermi almost halved …

More: Bloomberg, Sherwood News, Barron's Online, The Information, Bisnow, Dow Jones Newswires, Reuters, and ZeroHedge News

Gene Maddaus / Variety:

Google has removed dozens of AI videos from YouTube that depicted Disney characters, after Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter flagging the links — Disney flagged the YouTube links to the videos in its letter, and demanded that Google remove them immediately.

More: TechCrunch, The Hans India, Unite.AI, Business Today, and Financial Times. Bluesky: @carnage4life

See also Mediagazer

Semafor:

In a letter to the Trump administration, the GOP Senatorial Committee Chair Sen. Tim Scott said the Netflix-WBD deal raises “significant antitrust problems” — THE SCOOP — A key Republican senator Friday joined the mounting opposition in Washington to Netflix's takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.

More: The Guardian

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.

More: Business Wire, NullTX, Decrypt, CoinDesk, NFTgators, Benzinga, Cointelegraph, and The Block

X: @kalshi, @solana, @imperooterxbt, @j0hnwang, @orangie, @phantom, @mansourtarek_, and @nftmufettisi

Rocket Drew / The Information:

Companies are updating insider trading policies to cover prediction markets; Kalshi and others are pushing for federal oversight, including of insider trading

More: Responsible Statecraft, Benzinga, and Bloomberg

X: @itslirrato, @amir, and @jessicalessin

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Hard Fork:

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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

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:

Arkansas PBS severs ties with the PBS network, the first state public TV system to do so since Congress cut CPB funds, citing the annual $2M+ membership cost

Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:

Disney's Zootopia 2 surpasses $1B at the global box office, the fastest PG-rated film to do so after just 17 days in release

Sam Roberts / New York Times:

Arthur L. Carter, who started a Connecticut newspaper in 1981, bought and sold The Nation, and founded the New York Observer in 1987, has died at 93

Upcoming Tech Events

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More News

Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE:

Microsoft expands its bug bounty program so that any critical vulnerability, including in third-party code, impacting its online services is eligible for awards

More: BleepingComputer, The Register, CSO, SecurityWeek, Security Boulevard, ComputerWeekly.com, Windows Report, and The Cyber Express

X: @smaury92, @i_am_jakoby, and @msftsecresponse

Rachyl Jones / Semafor:

Singapore-based ChemLex raised a $45M funding round led by Granite Asia to build an AI-powered, automated chemistry lab to accelerate drug discovery

More: ChemLex

Reuters:

Tether submits an all-cash offer to acquire a 65.4% stake in Italian soccer club Juventus, says it will invest €1B in the club if the acquisition is completed

More: Tether, Cryptonews, Blockonomi, Bloomberg, The Athletic, Benzinga, Coinpedia Fintech News, CoinGape, Crypto Briefing, Cointelegraph, The Information, BeInCrypto, Reuters, Watcher Guru, CoinDesk, The Block, and Decrypt

X: @paoloardoino. Forums: r/Juve and r/CryptoCurrency

Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information:

Source: OpenEvidence, which offers an AI chatbot for doctors, is raising $250M at a $12B valuation, up from $6B in Oct., and has $150M in annualized ad revenue

X: @steph_palazzolo and @arfurrock

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

X: @s_oheigeartaigh, @iscienceluvr, @willccbb, @peterwildeford, @zoom, @clementdelangue, @xdh, @luke_drago_, @karrmannmatt, @morningbrew, and @dorialexander

Maggie Eastland / Bloomberg:

David Sacks says China is rejecting Nvidia's H200 AI chips, because the country wants “semiconductor independence” and to “prop up and subsidize Huawei”

More: Financial Times, Bloomberg Technology on YouTube, ChinaTalk, and DigiTimes

X: @teortaxestex. Bluesky: @parismarx.com

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

More: BBC, Gizmodo, IGN, Forbes, The Wrap, Mashable, The A.V. Club, Engadget, Consequence, Digital Trends, Business Insider, Cord Cutters News, Thurrott, TheGamer, PCWorld, PCMag, TechRadar, and GamesRadar

Bluesky: @scriban, @quinnypig.com, @caseynewton, and @tyleraking.com

Forums: r/Fallout and Slashdot

See also Mediagazer

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

More: SiliconANGLE. X: @mascobot, @rown, @_kevinlu, @natolambert, @tszzl, @miramurati, @giffmana, @thinkymachines, and @dchaplot. LinkedIn: Devendra Chaplot. Bluesky: @zzstoatzz.io

Earlier Picks

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+

More: The Information. X: @aakashg0, @dividenddude, @x, and @mukund

Ann Gehan / The Information:

Source: livestream shopping app Whatnot nears ~$1B in revenue for 2025; Whatnot says it has passed $6B in gross sales this year, more than doubling 2024's sales

More: The Information. X: @abebrown716

Ben Weiss / Fortune:

YouTube launches an option for US-based creators to receive payouts in PayPal's stablecoin, PYUSD

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

More: World, The Verge, The American Bazaar, Cointelegraph, PYMNTS.com, Gizmodo, TestingCatalog, Tech in Asia, The Crypto Times, crypto.news, and Cryptonews

X: @koide_dev, @tiagosada, @worldcoin, @ptraughber, @world_chain_, and @tom_waite_. Mastodon: @madeindex@mastodon.social

Forums: r/offbeat and r/worldnews

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

More: Puck. X: @8teapi, @alexeheath, @sherieffyi, @alexrkonrad, @gergelyorosz, @clairevo, @shakeelhashim, @gergelyorosz, @gergelyorosz, @gergelyorosz, and @leozera

See also Mediagazer

Reuters:

Serval, which offers an AI assistant for IT, HR, legal, and finance, raised a $75M Series B led by Sequoia at a $1B valuation, taking its total funding to $127M

More: SiliconANGLE, Tech in Asia, and Pulse 2.0

LinkedIn: Morgan Shapiro and Marc Bhargava

Tim Hardwick / MacRumors:

Switzerland launches a preliminary investigation into whether Apple's terms for granting third-party access to NFC tech on iPhones violate its antitrust laws

More: Eine effektive Aufsicht …, AppleInsider, GSMArena.com, Wccftech, iPhone in Canada, 9to5Mac, MacTech.com, and MacDailyNews. Forums: MacRumors Forums

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”