Techmeme
December 19, 2025, 7:35 AM

Top News

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 …
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.
Alex Heath / Sources:
Meta's head of Threads Connor Hayes says that fediverse compatibility isn't a priority for its current roadmap, but it is something that it's “maintaining”  —  Connor Hayes wants Meta's X rival to be “the place on the internet to talk about what's going on in the world.”
Olga Kharif / Bloomberg:
Coinbase sues Connecticut, Illinois and Michigan over state attempts to regulate prediction markets, arguing that they fall under the jurisdiction of the CFTC  —  Coinbase Global Inc. said it is suing the US states of Michigan, Illinois and Connecticut over their attempts to regulate prediction markets.
Lydia Beyoud / Bloomberg:
Axios:
Adamya Sharma / Android Authority:
Samsung unveils the Exynos 2600, the world's first smartphone SoC built on a 2nm Gate-All-Around process, expected to power some Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus models  —  Galaxy S26 could get Samsung's boldest chip yet: Meet the 2nm Exynos 2600.  —  •  —  TL;DR
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.
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.
Vicky Ge Huang / Wall Street Journal:
The administrator winding down Do Kwon's Terraform Labs sues Jump Trading for $4B, alleging it unlawfully profited from and contributed to Terraform's collapse  —  Administrator winding down what remains of Terraform Labs is seeking $4 billion in damages  —  The administrator winding …
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
Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg:
Sources: Riot Games is working on a major overhaul of League of Legends, internally called League Next, for 2027; Riot confirms a big update is in the works  —  A refreshed version being called ‘League Next’ is planned for 2027  —  Riot Games is working on a major overhaul of its flagship game League …
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.
Alex Kantrowitz / Big Technology:
Q&A with Sam Altman on OpenAI's “code red” call, enterprise strategy, product ambitions, IPO plans, ChatGPT's personalization plans, and more  —  OpenAI's CEO joins Big Technology for a candid discussion covering OpenAI's strategy, its product ambitions …
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 …

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More News

Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Courtney Subramanian / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:
Financial Times:
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Jake Bleiberg / Bloomberg: