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December 18, 2025, 9:00 AM
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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 …
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.
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 …
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.
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 …
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.
Financial Times:
TMTG agrees to merge with Google-backed fusion energy company TAE in a $6B deal and begin building the “world's first utility-scale fusion power plant” in 2026  —  Trump Media & Technology Group's shares rise 37% after deal with TAE Technologies
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.
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.”
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 …
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 …
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  —  In a new experiment, Meta is limiting the number of links users can post on Facebook, unless they have a paid Meta Verified subscription.
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  —  UK AISI's first Frontier AI Trends Report finds that AI models are getting better at self-replication, too
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  —  Rohit Prasad, the executive who has led Amazon's artificial intelligence initiatives and overseen the creation of its homegrown Nova AI models …
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Micron reports Q1 revenue up 57% YoY to $13.64B, above $12.84B est., net income up 180% YoY to $5.24B, and Q2 revenue forecast above est.; MU jumps 5%+  —  Micron Technology reported fiscal first-quarter results on Wednesday that beat Wall Street expectations for sales and earnings per share …
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.
More: Inc.com
Lim Hui Jie / CNBC:
SoftBank Group was among the Japanese tech stocks that fell on December 18, as Wall Street's AI infrastructure spending worries crossed into the Asian markets  —  Japanese tech stocks took a tumble on Thursday as AI infrastructure spending worries on Wall Street crossed the ocean into the Asian markets …
Scott Feinberg / The Hollywood Reporter:
The Academy signs a multi-year deal that will give YouTube the exclusive global rights to the Oscars, beginning in 2029 and running through 2033  —  The Academy announced on Wednesday:  —  LOS ANGELES, CA - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and YouTube signed a multi-year deal …

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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

Shane O'Neill / Washington Post:
Q&A with Christopher Anderson, who photographed Trump's inner circle for VF: “My job is to ... draw on my experience as a journalist and photograph what I see”

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
CBS News and The Free Press announce Things That Matter, a series of town halls and debates, starting in early 2026, with Sam Altman, J.D. Vance, and others

Anna Betts / The Guardian:
David Brooks, who wrote a NYT column last month decrying popular fixation on the Epstein story, appears in newly released photos of a 2011 event with Epstein

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

David Ingram / NBC News:
A UK family and a US family sue Meta for the alleged wrongful deaths of their teenage sons, who died by suicide after falling victim to sextortion on Instagram
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Pornhub is being extorted by ShinyHunters after the search and watch history of its Premium members was reportedly stolen in a recent Mixpanel data breach
Ben Lang / Road to VR:
Meta says it has “paused” its third-party Horizon OS headset program, announced in April 2024 with Asus and Lenovo as its first partners to build the headsets
Tulsee Doshi / The Keyword:
Gemini 3 Flash costs $0.50 per 1M input tokens and $3 per 1M output tokens, above Gemini 2.5 Flash's $0.30 per 1M input tokens and $2.50 per 1M output tokens
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