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Techmeme
December 18, 2025, 9:00 PM
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Sara Fischer / Axios:
Internal memo: TikTok has signed a deal to sell its US unit; Oracle, Silver Lake, MGX will collectively own 45% of the US entity, and ByteDance will retain ~20%  —  TikTok has signed a deal to divest its U.S. entity to a joint venture controlled by American investors, per an internal memo seen by Axios.
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Memo: the TikTok US deal is set to close on Jan. 22; terms include retraining the recommendation algorithm on US user data and Oracle overseeing data protection  —  Abu Dhabi's state investment fund will also be a managing investor.  —  The TikTok sale is officially happening …
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 …
OpenAI:
OpenAI releases GPT‑5.2-Codex, with improvements on long-horizon work through context compaction, stronger performance on large code changes, and more  —  The most advanced agentic coding model for professional software engineering and defensive cybersecurity.  —  Get started
Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:
Anthropic launches Agent Skills as an open standard with a specification and SDK, and says VS Code, GitHub, Cursor, Goose, and others already support the format  —  Anthropic said on Wednesday it would release its Agent Skills technology as an open standard, a strategic bet that sharing …
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”
Jake Kanter / Deadline:
YouTube terminates Screen Culture and KH Studio, two large channels that used AI to create fake movie trailers; the platform earlier suspended the channels' ads  —  The Google-owned video giant has switched off Screen Culture and KH Studio, which together boasted well over 2 million subscribers and more than a billion views.
Joanna Stern / Wall Street Journal:
In an experiment, Claude ran a vending machine in the WSJ newsroom and lost $1,000+ after it dropped prices to zero, gave away a free PlayStation, and more  —  Anthropic's Claude ran a snack operation in the WSJ newsroom.  It gave away a free PlayStation, ordered a live fish—and taught us lessons about the future of AI agents.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Instacart will pay $60M to settle FTC allegations that it used deceptive tactics in its subscription signup and “satisfaction guarantee” advertising  —  Instacart will pay $60 million to settle allegations by the Federal Trade Commission that it misled users with false advertising and deployed …
Suzanne Smalley / The Record:
Pennsylvania's Supreme Court rules that police can get Google search data without a warrant; an expert warns it may encourage warrantless searches nationwide  —  The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police did not need a warrant to obtain a convicted rapist's Google searches when investigating the crime.
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.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple says it will roll out more App Store ads in 2026 “to increase opportunity in search results”; Apple's website says 800M+ users visit the App Store weekly  —  Apple is expanding the number of ads that appear in App Store search results.  In an update on its Apple Ads website today …
Chris McGuire / Council on Foreign Relations:
US approving Nvidia H200 exports to China is based on the idea that Huawei is a viable competitor, but data shows the gap between Nvidia and Huawei is widening  —  Executive Summary  —  On December 8, the Trump administration announced plans to loosen U.S. export controls on artificial intelligence …
Mistral AI:
Mistral launches Mistral OCR 3, featuring improvements in processing forms, scanned documents, complex tables, and handwriting, priced at $2 per 1,000 pages  —  Overview  —  Mistral OCR 3 is designed to extract text and embedded images from a wide range of documents with exceptional fidelity.
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.
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 …
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.”
Niko Gallogly / New York Times:
Stockholm-based AI 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.

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:00 PM ET, December 18, 2025.

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From Mediagazer

Eric Fisher / Front Office Sports:
Nielsen: Netflix's Sept. 10 49ers-Rams NFL game in Australia averaged 18.5M US viewers, matching YouTube's 2025 Brazil game, and 3.2M abroad, vs. YouTube's 1.2M

New York Times:
CBS News' 60 Minutes, returning under Nick Bilton, featured new correspondents and a refreshed stopwatch, and was more of a tweak than an overhaul

Selome Hailu / Variety:
Apple TV led the 2026 Emmys with 28 wins, its first time on top, followed by HBO Max with 21, Netflix with 16, and MGM+/Prime Video with 10

More News

Courtney Subramanian / Bloomberg:
Twenty-four companies, including Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, OpenAI, and AWS, join the US Genesis Mission to boost the use of AI for scientific discovery
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

Earlier Picks

Justine Calma / The Verge:
Study: AI's 2025 power demand could hit 23GW, above 2024 Bitcoin mining levels, and AI carbon emissions could hit 32.6M to 79.7M tons, compared to NYC's 50M
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%
OpenAI:
OpenAI opens app submissions for review and publication in ChatGPT, where users can discover or search for apps in a new app directory
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