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December 16, 2025, 11:05 PM
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| Rachel Metz / Bloomberg: |
OpenAI updates ChatGPT Images to generate images up to 4x faster and edit more precisely, and adds a new section in ChatGPT's app and website for images — OpenAI is rolling out an update to ChatGPT that's intended to generate images better and faster, the latest move by the artificial intelligence developer …
More: OpenAI, Fidji Simo, Simon Willison's Weblog, SiliconANGLE, 9to5Mac, TechRadar, Quartz, MacRumors, iClarified, iPhone in Canada, Tom's Guide, Livemint, Engadget, Moneycontrol, Inc.com, Rohan's Bytes, Windows Report, Axios, TestingCatalog, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, and Thurrott
X: @emollick, @openai, @venturetwins, @gdb, @emollick, @fidjissimo, @ai_for_success, @simonw, @designarena, @ai_for_success, @romainhuet, @testingcatalog, @yuchenj_uw, @arena, @artificialanlys, @nickaturley, @flowersslop, @billpeeb, @sama, @gabeeegoooh, @koltregaskes, @deedydas, @edzitron, @sama, @flavioad, @openai, @scaling01, @kevinweil, @rovvmut_, @mark_k, @petergostev, @kimmonismus, @deryatr_, @deryatr_, @miles_brundage, @grx_xce, @therealadamg, @gdb, @therealadamg, and @theo. LinkedIn: Pranav Deshpande. Bluesky: @edzitron.com. Forums: r/OpenAI
| OpenAI: |
More: Time. X: @openai, @kevinweil, @dr_singularity, @openai, @gdb, @sama, @alexolegimas, @littmath, @gdb, @openai, @slow_developer, @andrewcurran_, @kimmonismus, @tejalpatwardhan, @openai, @emollick, and @apples_jimmy
Bluesky: @vtmicah, @thedimpsler, @mrmandolino.itch.io, @timkellogg.me, @skiesofpluto, @prietschka, @feeney.dev, @k2mey, and @sherlocksdad. Forums: r/singularity
| The Information: |
Sources: Amazon is in talks to invest $10B+ in OpenAI at a $500B+ valuation, with OpenAI using AWS Trainium chips; Microsoft keeps rights to sell OpenAI models — Amazon is in talks to invest $10 billion or more in OpenAI, according to three people familiar with the discussions.
More: Bloomberg, Reuters, and Capital Brief
X: @unusual_whales, @yuchenj_uw, @amir, @buccocapital, and @anissagardizy8
Bluesky: @bdsams.com and @edzitron.com
| Bloomberg: |
Sources: Waymo is in discussions to raise more than $15B led by Alphabet at a valuation near $100B, and has achieved an annual revenue run rate above $350M — Waymo, Alphabet Inc.'s autonomous driving unit, is in discussions to raise more than $15 billion at a valuation near $100 billion …
More: The Information, Benzinga, The Information, CNBC, Financial Times, Reuters, and Investing.com
| New York Times: |
The US threatens economic penalties against European companies like Spotify if the EU does not roll back regulations and lawsuits targeting US tech giants — U.S. officials excoriated the European Union for discriminating against American technology companies and threatened …
More: SiliconANGLE, Platformer, MacRumors, The Information, House Committee …, The Guardian, Implicator.ai, The Verge, Wall Street Journal, Moneycontrol, Reuters, Bloomberg, Bloomberg, Financial Times, Türkiye Today, and Euractiv
X: @ustraderep, @adamkovac, @der_ackerl, @kvanbrempt, @lutherlowe, @florian4gamers, @jacob_rees_mogg, @simon_nixon, @adamkovac, @mepassistants, @hermannkelly, @judiciarygop, and @judiciarygop
Bluesky: @kylehugh.es, @glinden, @wavesblog, and @campuscodi.risky.biz
| Belle Lin / Wall Street Journal: |
Databricks is raising a $4B+ Series L at a $134B valuation, up from $100B in September and $62B in December 2024, and had a $4.8B annual revenue rate in October — The data-analytics and AI software company is raising over $4 billion and crossed $4.8 billion in annual revenue rate
More: Databricks, CNBC, TheStreet, Bloomberg, Pulse 2.0, Proactive, PYMNTS.com, SiliconANGLE, Tech in Asia, The Information, San Francisco Business Times, Investor's Business Daily, Constellation Research, and Bloomberg
X: @paulg, @teej_m, @jaminball, @deanwball, @tbpn, @databricks, @ldignan, @jamestitcomb, @vasuman, @turnernovak, @alighodsi, and @nikitabase
| Financial Times: |
OpenAI hires former UK chancellor George Osborne to lead OpenAI for Countries, the global expansion arm of its $500B Stargate data center initiative — Former UK chancellor to lead start-up's effort to spread ‘democratic’ AI across the world — OpenAI has hired former UK chancellor George Osborne …
More: PYMNTS.com, The Information, Reuters, Bloomberg, BBC, DatacenterDynamics, BBC, The Guardian, Telegraph, and Tech in Asia
Bluesky: @prietschka and @justinhendrix
| Robert Hart / The Verge: |
Google launches CC, an experimental AI assistant that delivers a personalized daily “Your Day Ahead” briefing email based on users' emails and calendar — Google's new AI agent delivers a morning briefing personalized using your emails and calendar. … Google wants you to start your day with AI.
More: The Keyword, TechCrunch, Tom's Guide, SiliconANGLE, 9to5Google, Android Authority, Thurrott, and KnowTechie
Bluesky: @lokster71, @florini, and @mattknight
| Natalie Lung / Bloomberg: |
DoorDash launches Zesty, a standalone AI-powered social app for users to find nearby restaurants, in public testing in San Francisco and New York — DoorDash Inc. is experimenting with a standalone artificial intelligence-powered app for users to find new restaurants, expanding its reach beyond its flagship food-delivery service.
More: TechCrunch, Mission Local, and Dexerto
X: @andyfang, @alexkehr, @jsneedles, @eunifiedworld, @wongmjane, @aridutilh, and @heysaik. Bluesky: @hypervisible.blacksky.app
| Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg: |
Instagram unveils its first TV app, initially available on Amazon's Fire TV as a test with plans to expand to other TV platforms — Meta Platforms Inc.'s Instagram unveiled its first dedicated TV app, which lets users watch the short-form video feature Reels on a larger screen.
More: Instagram, About Amazon, The Verge, The Hollywood Reporter, Axios, AFTVnews, Android Central, Android Headlines, Investor's Business Daily, UPI, CNET, Baller Alert, Meta Newsroom, ZDNET, Deseret News, Gizmodo, The Wrap, Crypto Briefing, Pocket-lint, CNBC, 9to5Google, and Variety
LinkedIn: Carly Glassman, Carlos Pereira, Aidan Marcuss, Michael A. Miner, Ph.D., and Joshua Danovitz
Threads: @veronique_medrano, @jdickerson, @juliabeverly, @jolenesugarbaker, @eddygraphic1, and @mosseri
| Lora Kolodny / CNBC: |
California DMV says a California administrative law judge recently ruled Tesla engaged in deceptive marketing around its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems — A California administrative law judge recently ruled recently that Tesla's marketing around its “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving” …
More: Business Insider, Benzinga, TechCrunch, Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg, InsideEVs, Wall Street Journal, and Reuters
| David Pierce / The Verge: |
Mozilla appoints Anthony Enzor-DeMeo as its CEO, after years of its for-profit arm juggling layoffs, restructuring, its Google dependence, and the AI landscape — Anthony Enzor-DeMeo says he thinks there's room for another browser, even an AI browser — as long as you can trust it.
More: Windows Central, The Register, Mozilla, The Mozilla Blog, Computerworld, OMG! Ubuntu, OSnews, Implicator.ai, PCMag, Michael Tsai, Thurrott, Phoronix, Fast Company, and Bloomberg
X: @datnofact, @nixcraft, @gazthejourno, @privacy_guides, @vxunderground, @acxtrila, @samfbiddle, @lundukejournal, @vxunderground, @jaythelinuxguy, and @f4micom. LinkedIn: Mark Surman
Bluesky: @cyberciti.biz and @zdroberts
Mastodon: @sarahjamielewis …, @jbz@indieweb.social, @mcc@mastodon.social, @phoenix@chaos.social, @tante@tldr.nettime.org, @Barredo@mastodon.social, @ianbetteridge@social …, and @catsalad@infosec.exchange
Forums: Hacker News, r/indotech, r/enshittification, r/technews, r/BetterOffline, r/firefox, r/technology, Beehaw, and Slashdot
| Jessica Testa / New York Times: |
Netflix announces a partnership with iHeartMedia to exclusively publish 15+ video podcasts from early 2026, including The Breakfast Club and My Favorite Murder — The streaming service now has about 30 video podcasts lined up for 2026, including the influential radio show “The Breakfast Club.”
More: iHeartMedia, Inc., TechCrunch, Simon Owens's Media Newsletter, Streaming Better, Baller Alert, Los Angeles Times, Radio Ink, CNET, RadioInsight, Inside Radio, Business Insider, Variety, and The Wrap
X: @jbillinson, @breakfastclubam, @aripap, @iamkierrad, @ccm_brett, @loudmouthjulia, @loudmouthjulia, @investmattallen, @buccocapital, and @joecarlsonshow. LinkedIn: Jon Kurland
| The Information: |
A look at Apple's iPhone roadmap; sources say the iPhone 18 Pro lineup will get under-screen Face ID, and the front camera will move to the top-left corner — The iPhone family is growing again. Over the next two years, Apple is planning a major expansion of its smartphone product line …
More: MacRumors, MacRumors, Tom's Guide, iPhone in Canada, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, Forbes, Six Colors, MacRumors, Gizmochina, Wccftech, KnowTechie, and iClarified
X: @waynema, @mweinbach, @mweinbach, @mweinbach, and @kantrowitz
Forums: MacRumors Forums and MacRumors Forums
| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
X updates its ToS to claim rights to the “Twitter” trademark and countersues Operation Bluebird after the startup filed an application to trademark the term — Elon Musk's X is updating its Terms of Service to indicate it still lays claim to the “Twitter” trademark.| Chris Metinko / Axios: |
Adaptive Security, which uses AI to simulate social engineering attacks and help companies prevent them, raised an $81M Series B led by Bain Capital Ventures — Adaptive Security has raised an $81 million Series B led by Bain Capital Ventures, co-founder and CEO Brian Long tells Axios Pro.| Xiaomi Mimo: |
Xiaomi releases MiMo-V2-Flash, an open-weight MoE model with 309B total and 15B active parameters, saying it excels in reasoning, coding, and agentic scenarios — Today, we are releasing and open-sourcing MiMo-V2-Flash. It is a powerful, efficient, and ultra-fast foundation language model …
More: XiaomiTime. X: @bgurley, @kimmonismus, @xiaomimimo, @eliebakouch, @xiaomimimo, @openrouterai, @zackangelo, @lmsysorg, @teortaxestex, @tphuang, and @xiaomimimo
| Spencer Soper / Bloomberg: |
Amazon partners with payments startup Slope to offer loans of up to $5M to merchants selling on its platform, using Amazon sales data for candidate selection — Amazon.com Inc. is partnering with a JPMorgan Chase & Co.-backed startup to provide financing for small online businesses …
More: NewsMax.com. X: @usv, @ycombinator, @slopepay, @rohitdotmittal, and @brexhq. LinkedIn: Spencer Soper
| Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE: |
Meta launches prompt-based sound separation model SAM Audio in its Segment Anything Playground, letting users isolate individual sounds from complex recordings — Meta Platforms Inc. is bringing prompt-based editing to the world of sound with a new model called SAM Audio that can segment individual sounds …
More: Meta Newsroom, The Register, Meta, Benzinga, and TestingCatalog
X: @samsheffer, @bonegpt, @hanchunglee, @bilawalsidhu, @nickadobos, @nearcyan, @tdinh_me, @giffmana, @aiatmeta, and @aiatmeta. Threads: @zuck. Forums: r/LocalLLaMA
| Yogita Khatri / The Block: |
Hong Kong-based RedotPay, a fintech focused on stablecoin-based payments, raised a $107M Series B led by Goodwater Capital, bringing its total raised to ~$200M — Partner offers — Quick Take — RedotPay, a stablecoin-based payments fintech, has raised $107 million in a Series B round …
More: RedotPay, DealStreetAsia, Coinspeaker, Cryptonews, and Cointelegraph
| Kate Clark / Wall Street Journal: |
Sources: New York-based data security startup Cyera is raising $400M led by Blackstone, valuing the company at $9B, up from $6B in June — Investment values company at $9 billion as investor interest in cybersecurity startups grows — Blackstone is leading a $400 million investment … | Dia Rekhi / The Economic Times: |
Sources: Apple is in preliminary talks with India's CG Semi, which offers chip assembly and testing services, to assemble and package chips for the iPhone — Exploratory conversations have taken place between Murugappa Group-owned CG Semi, which is building an outsourced semiconductor assembly and test …
More: 9to5Mac
| Maxwell Zeff / Wired: |
Source: OpenAI rolled back ChatGPT's model router, which sent some queries to reasoning models, for Free and $5/month Go tiers, as it was costly and hurt DAUs — As OpenAI scrambles to improve ChatGPT, it's ditching a feature in its free tier that contributed to last summer's user revolt.
More: Gizmodo. X: @nearcyan. Bluesky: @punkey.org and @edzitron.com
Forums: r/ChatGPTcomplaints and r/OpenAI
| Counterpoint Research: |
Global smartphone shipments are set to shrink 2.1% in 2026, led by Chinese OEMs, due to rising memory costs; DRAM prices could further raise costs by 10%-15% — - Global smartphone shipments in 2026 are expected to shrink 2.1% due to rising memory costs. — We have revised …
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