Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise Site News
Techmeme
December 18, 2025, 12:15 PM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter

Top News

Fanny Potkin / Reuters:
Sources: China built a working prototype of an EUV machine in early 2025 with a team of former ASML engineers who reverse-engineered the company's EUV machines  —  In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent …
Financial Times:
Trump Media agrees to merge with Google-backed fusion energy company TAE in a $6B deal and build the “world's first utility-scale fusion power plant” in 2026  —  Trump Media & Technology Group's shares rise 37% after deal with TAE Technologies  —  The Trump family media group …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Filing: Sony and Tencent reach a “confidential settlement” over Tencent's Light of Motiram, a game that Sony alleged was a “slavish clone” of its Horizon series  —  Sony and Tencent have reached a ‘confidential settlement,’ and Light of Motiram is no longer listed on Steam or the Epic Games Store.
Rebekah Valentine / IGN:
Circana: Xbox Series console sales fell 70% YoY to an all-time low in November, compared to the PS5's 40% YoY drop and Switch 1 and 2's combined 10% YoY fall  —  Down again.  —  This morning, we learned that November was a surprisingly bad month for video game spending across the board.
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple makes iOS changes in Japan to comply with local laws, including alternative app stores and payment options, a new fee structure, and new default controls  —  Apple today introduced several changes to the App Store in Japan to meet the requirements of the Mobile Software Competition Act (MSCA) that goes into effect on December 18.
Tim Sweeney / @timsweeneyepic:
Tim Sweeney says Fortnite will not return to iOS in Japan in 2025, as Apple is “charging a competition-crushing 21% junk fee on third-party in-app payments”
OpenAI:
OpenAI opens app submissions for review and publication in ChatGPT, where users can discover or search for apps in a new app directory  —  We're opening app submissions for review and publication in ChatGPT, and users can discover apps in the app directory.  —  Earlier this year at DevDay, we introduced apps in ChatGPT.
Niko Gallogly / New York Times:
Stockholm-based vibe coding startup Lovable raised $330M led by CapitalG and Menlo Ventures at a $6.6B valuation, up from $1.8B after raising $200M in July  —  The Swedish company is now valued at $6.6 billion, more than triple its $1.8 billion valuation set by investors in July.
Axios:
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr tells a Senate committee the FCC “is not an independent agency”; the agency removed “independent agency” from its site as he testified  —  FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in his Wednesday Senate testimony that the agency he governs “is not an independent agency, formally speaking.”
The Information:
Sources: OpenAI has held preliminary discussions with investors about raising tens of billions of dollars, and as much as $100B, at a valuation of around $750B  —  OpenAI has held preliminary discussions with some investors about raising new funding at a valuation of around $750 billion …
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
Coinbase rolls out stock trading, more advanced trading tools, prediction markets via Kalshi, and other features, amid a push to be a one-stop financial app  —  Coinbase is making its biggest push yet to reposition itself as a mainstream trading and financial platform, moving beyond crypto …
Chainalysis:
North Korean hackers stole a record $2.02B in crypto in 2025, a 51% YoY rise that takes its cumulative stolen total to $6.75B; individual wallet hacks hit 158K  —  TL;DR  — North Korean hackers stole $2.02 billion in cryptocurrency in 2025, a 51% year-over-year increase …
Shakeel Hashim / Transformer:
UK AI Security Institute report: AI models are rapidly improving at potentially dangerous biological and chemical tasks, and show fast jumps in self-replication  —  AI models are rapidly improving at potentially dangerous biological and chemical tasks, and also showing fast increases …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Luma AI launches Ray3 Modify, which allows users to modify existing footage by providing character reference images; users can also define start and end frames  —  Luma, the a16z-backed AI video and 3D model company, released a new model called Ray3 Modify that allows users to modify existing footage …
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
Edison, which last month released AI tool Kosmos to speed up and automate complex scientific hypothesis generation, raised $70M at a $250M valuation  —  A startup building artificial intelligence software to speed up and automate scientific research has raised $70 million in a new funding round …
More: FinSMEs
Jody Godoy / Reuters:
Sources: the US FTC is investigating Instacart's AI pricing tool, after a study showed different prices for the same items at the same stores; CART drops 8%+  —  The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is probing Instacart (CART.O), two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters …

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:
Regulatory compliance for enterprise email  —  Enterprise email security and regulatory compliance are now essential, not luxuryIn today's threat landscape, the inbox isn't just a productivity tool, it's a security perimeter.
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

The Social Radars:
 Paul Graham, Founder, Y Combinator
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
Subscribe to The Social Radars.
The Upstarts Podcast:
 Star Catcher's Andrew Rush: Harnessing The Sun To Build The First Energy Grid In Space
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
 Why Countries Go to War
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Great Chat:
 Are startup HR teams okay?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
 'The Pogue Feature', With David Pogue
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
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 12:15 PM ET, December 18, 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

The Hollywood Reporter:
Nexstar says it has closed its Tegna acquisition after the DOJ and FCC approved it; CEO Perry Sook says Nexstar is grateful to Trump and the FCC's Brendan Carr

Stuart Dredge / Music Ally:
Sony Music exec Dennis Kooker says the company has sent 135K+ takedown notices for deepfakes of its artists, but sees opportunities in AI with proper licensing

James Faris / Business Insider:
Source: CBS News is planning to lay off dozens of employees as part of an overhaul led by Bari Weiss; 11 employees of CBS Evening News took buyouts in February

More News

Issie Lapowsky / Rest of World:
Sources detail how Tiger Global fueled the COVID-era unicorn bubble that burst ahead of the AI boom; the firm recently shared its $12.7B 2021 fund is now up 16%

Earlier Picks

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Meta is testing limiting Facebook professional accounts and Pages to posting just two links per month, unless they subscribe to $14.99+/month Meta Verified
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Amazon's AGI team lead, Rohit Prasad, is leaving at the end of 2025; AWS SVP Peter DeSantis will lead a group combining AI, silicon, and quantum computing teams
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter