Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise Site News
Techmeme
December 15, 2025, 8:20 AM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter

Top News

Bloomberg:
iRobot files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and reaches a restructuring agreement to hand over control to its secured lender and main Chinese supplier Shenzhen Picea  —  iRobot Corp., the company that revolutionized robot vacuum cleaners in the early 2000s with its Roomba model …
Connie Loizos / TechCrunch:
A look at iRobot, founded in 1990, and its slow collapse after US and EU regulatory pressure killed Amazon's $1.7B deal in 2024 amid growing Chinese competition  —  There's something painfully American about the arc of iRobot, the company that taught your vacuum to navigate around the furniture.
Martin Peers / The Information:
Filing: Oracle signed ~$150B of data center leases in the three months ending November 30, raising its total data center and cloud capacity commitments to $248B  —  Oracle struck about $150 billion worth of lease commitments on data centers in the three months ending November …
Brian Merchant / Blood in the Machine:
Interviews with copywriters on generative AI's impact: job losses to AI, work used for training, falling wages and rates, freelancers losing clients, and more  —  Copywriters were one of the first to have their jobs targeted by AI firms.  These are their stories, three years into the AI era.
Mike Baker / New York Times:
US volunteer fire departments are scrambling to find software amid shrinking options and higher costs, as companies backed by private equity dominate the market  —  Rural departments have long relied on cheap software solutions to keep their operations running.
Caroline Hyde / Bloomberg:
AI drug discovery startup Chai Discovery raised a $130M Series B led by Oak HC/FT and General Catalyst at a $1.3B valuation, taking its total funding to $225M  —  Chai Discovery, an artificial intelligence drug-discovery company backed by OpenAI, has raised $130 million to build a “computer-aided design suite” for molecules.
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
AI image generators like Nano Banana have increased realism by mimicking phone camera traits in contrast, exposure, and sharpening to avoid the uncanny valley  —  Remember the early days of AI image generation?  Oh how we laughed when our prompts resulted in people with too many fingers …
Naomi Nix / Washington Post:
Tech whistleblowers like Yaël Eisenstat say coming forward has unexpectedly derailed their lives and careers; Meta is in litigation with Sarah Wynn-Williams  —  By exposing the harms of Big Tech, many whistleblowers say they faced poorer job prospects and professional exile in Silicon Valley.
Rose Henderson / Bloomberg:
Memo: Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos lay out Netflix's WBD case, moving to quell concerns about job losses and the end of theater releases, after Paramount's bid  —  The two chief executive officers of Netflix Inc. laid out the company's case for acquiring Warner Bros Discovery Inc. …
Anna Heim / TechCrunch:
Berlin-based Mirelo, whose AI models can interpret video content to add matching sound effects, raised a $41M seed led by Index and a16z, after a $3M pre-seed  —  AI lets anyone create videos, but many AI video creation tools lack support for audio.  Mirelo is building AI that adds soundtracks to match the video's action.
Washington Post:
How David Sacks and AI adviser Sriram Krishnan overcame the opposition to Trump's AI EO, reaching out to lawmakers and finally modifying the text of the order  —  President Trump's executive order limiting states' power to regulate AI split his supporters and highlighted Silicon Valley's growing influence over his agenda.

Sponsor Posts

ElevenLabs:
ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs  —  You know us for voice.  Now meet ElevenAgents — featuring Expressive Mode, our most human-sounding AI voice technology in 70+ languages with ultra-low latency.  Hear it for yourself.
Intel:
5G's most deployed platform  —  Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN.  That's the power of Intel Inside®
Zoho:
Keep your business moving with delegated signing in Zoho Sign  —  Contracts piling up while you're traveling or stuck in back-to-back meetings?  With Zoho Sign's delegated signing feature, those delays will be a thing of the past.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

BG2 Pod:
 ChatGPT - The Super Assistant Era
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Lenny's Podcast:
 The tactical playbook for getting 20-40% more comp (without sounding greedy) | Jacob Warwick (Executive Negotiator)
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:
 AI Backlash Intensifies, Nvidia GTC Preview, Meta's Embarrassing Delay
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.
Access:
 Meet Starboy, the alien toy that hates being called AI
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Hard Fork:
 A.I. Goes to War + Is 'A.I. Brain Fry' Real? + How Grammarly Stole Casey's Identity
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:
 Everybody Goes Home: How technology is helping prevent wildfires from spreading
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.
Add your podcast here
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:20 AM ET, December 15, 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 Tani / @maxwelltani:
Memo: Notus plans to “dramatically expand” its coverage of national politics with a “new version of NOTUS under a new name” and will double staff from 50 to 100

Catherine Shoard / The Guardian:
Warner Bros. won a record-tying 11 awards at the 98th Oscars, followed by Netflix's six; Apple, Disney, Focus, and Neon had one each, while Paramount had none

Karissa Waddick / USA Today:
After Trump said some outlets wanted the US to “lose the War”, FCC Chair Carr threatened broadcasters, saying they can lose their licenses over war coverage

More News

New York Times:
Investigation: after Trump's return to office, the SEC eased up on or dismissed 60%+ of ongoing crypto cases, including ones involving Trump-linked companies

Earlier Picks

Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter