Techmeme
December 17, 2025, 12:45 AM

Top News

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 …
OpenAI:
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.
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 …
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 …
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
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 …
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” …
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.
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.
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 …
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
Meta is partnering with Singapore-based K-ID to add its AgeKey age-verification tech to Meta apps, with plans to roll it out across multiple countries in 2026  —  Tech giant plans to roll out new AgeKey technology across multiple countries next year  —  Meta is adopting a new age-checking system …
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.
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.”
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.
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 …
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 …

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Earlier Picks

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