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December 18, 2025, 12:25 PM
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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 …
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 …
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 …
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
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%  —  The fast-money pandemic era helped build billion-dollar startups around the world — then brought many down just as quickly.
Jake Rudnitsky / Bloomberg:
Manus says it crossed $100M ARR eight months after launch and is growing at 20%+ MoM since Manus 1.5's release; its total revenue run rate is now over $125M  —  Singapore-based AI pioneer Manus said its annual run rate for revenue is over $125 million, eight months after it released artificial …

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:25 PM ET, December 18, 2025.

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From Mediagazer

Todd Spangler / Variety:
A judge approves Paramount's settlement with 12 state AGs who tried to block its WBD deal, and Paramount tentatively sets October 6 to close the acquisition

Los Angeles Times:
California Governor Gavin Newsom signs a bill that creates refundable tax credits for local news outlets based on the number of journalists they employ

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch is stepping down after 7.5 years to become the CEO and chairman of Mattel; lead independent director Mike Perlis will be interim CEO

More News

Earlier Picks

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%+
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
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